And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name.
Orson Scott CardRead
Everyone dies. Everyone leaves. What matters is the things you build together before they go. What matters is the part of them that continues in you when they're gone.
Interpretation
Life is about the connections and memories we create with others, which endure even after they are gone.
This quote emphasizes the transient nature of life and relationships, asserting that while everyone eventually leaves this world, the meaningful experiences and the bonds forged with others are what truly hold significance. It highlights the importance of shared moments and the lasting impact of those we care about, suggesting that the essence of their existence continues within us as we carry their memory forward.
In practice
In a eulogy at a friend's funeral, to honor their memory.
And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name.
The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win.
Never mind that the story had turned out to be lies and foolishness—there was always folks stupid enough to say, Where there's smoke there's fire, when the saying should have been, Where there's scandalous lies there's always malicious believers and spreaders-around, regardless of evidence.
The lives of all people flow through time, and, regardless of how brutal one moment may be, how filled with grief or pain or fear, time flows through all lives equally.
You take a step, then another. That's the journey. But to take a step with your eyes open is not a journey at all, it's a remaking of your own mind.
I've had your tears with mine, and you've had mine with yours. I think that's more intimate even than a kiss.
Some pain is simply the normal grief of human existence. That is pain that I try to make room for. I honor my grief.
I'm luckier than my grandfather, who didn't move more than five miles from the village in which he was born.
Life's very difficult and full of surprises. At all events, I've got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged - well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck, because they're so contradictory. It's then that proportion comes in - to live by proportion. Don't begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing.
Football is a grand game for developing a lad physically and also morally, for he learns to play with good temper and unselfishness, to play in his place, and to play the game, and these are the best of training for any game of life.
I smoked and looked down at the bottom of Pittsburgh for a little while, watching the kids playing tiny baseball, the distant figures of dogs snatching at a little passing car, a miniature housewife on her back porch shaking out a snippet of red rug, and I made a sudden, frightened vow never to become that small, and to devote myself to getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.