Quotes on Has Beens

If I was white I would have been like John Wayne... I feel like a tragic hero in a Shakespeare play

It has been asserted that we are destined to know the dark beyond the stars before we comprehend the nature of our own journey.

I know only that I was born and exist, and it seems to me that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation of something I do not know. In spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidity underlying all existence and a continuity in my mode of being.

I would rather have been shot straight-up in cold blood-but to be set up? By people who you trusted? That's bad.

I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents! It's an art form. I talk a lot. And I think a lot. And I draw a lot. But never in a million years would I have been a parent. That's just work that's too hard.

For too long we have tried to consume our _x000D_ way to prosperity. Look at the cost: polluted _x000D_ lands and oceans, climate change, growing _x000D_ scarcity of resources from food to land to fresh _x000D_ water, rampant inequality. We need to invent a _x000D_ new model; a model that offers growth and social inclusion... that is more respectful of the _x000D_ planet's finite resources. Nature has been kind _x000D_ to human beings, but we have not been kind to _x000D_ nature.

Africa, your sufferings have been the theme that has arrested & engaged my heart.

We say that the world's magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed.

OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.

Every instance since the beginning of time has been a coincidence: A leaf in a tree embodies the combined efforts of the earth, water, wind, stars, and sunshine. When you realize that everything has led to the present, to this moment, you see there's nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be burdened by. The present moment is the moment of arrival - and it took the entire universe to create it. All is as it should be.

Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Savior. He who has stood before his God, convicted and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him, and to live to the honor of the Redeemer by whose blood he has been cleansed.

All life events are formative. All contribute to what we become, year by year, as we go on growing. As my friend the poet Kenneth Koch once said, You aren't just the age you are. You are all the ages you ever have been!

You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces - my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined.

I can't for the life of me imagine that God would say, 'I will punish you because you are black; you should have been white. I will punish you because you are a woman; you should have been a man. I punish you because you are homosexual; you ought to have been heterosexual. I can't, I can't for the life of me believe that that is how God sees things.

Do not look back upon what has been done. Go Ahead.

Bodybuilders and fitness people have been using, very extensively, chiropractors in order to stay healthy and fit. Whenever I had a little problem with my body, I always ran to one of my dear friends, Dr Franco Columbo, he was always right there with the adjustments. This is how I found out the best way of going, is to use chiropractors, not only after injuries , but also before injury.

Social grace, inner discipline and joy. These are the birthright of the human being who has been allowed to develop essential human qualities.

I was too worried about the grades and I should have been more worried about learning.

When a happy person comes into the room, it is as if another candle has been lit.

He who finds a thought that lets us a little deeper into the eternal mystery of nature has been granted great peace.

When the Spirit fills us, we are transformed, and by beholding God we become mirrors. You can always tell when someone has been beholding the glory of the Lord, because your inner spirit senses that he mirrors the Lord’s own character. Beware of anything that would spot or tarnish that mirror in you. It is almost always something good that will stain it- something good, but not what is best.