Quotes on Ifs

If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it's not so bad.

God’s training is for now, not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. we have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; we can get it wrong when we think of the afterwards. what men call training and preparation, God calls the end… if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment is precious.

He could remember all about it now; the pitiful figure he must have cut; the absurd way in which he had gone and done the very thing he had so often agreed with himself in thinking would be the most foolish thing in the world; and had met with exactly the consequences which, in these wise moods, he had always foretold were certain to follow, if he ever did make such a fool of himself.

Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you? But I always wonder about that. If people could see me the way I see myself—if they could live in my memories—would anyone, anyone, love me?

If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.

If only everyone could know and live with their inner craziness. Would the world be a worse place for it? No, people would be fairer and happier.

You pronounced your words as if you don’t acknowledge the shadows, or the evil either. Would you be so kind as to give a little thought to the question of what your good would be doing if evil did not exist, and how the earth would look if the shadows were to disappear from it?

Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture. You can’t consume much if you sit still and read books.

Well, I think the Yoruba gods are truthful. Truthful in the sense that i consider religion and the construct of deities simply an extension of human qualities taken, if you like, to the nth degree. i mistrust gods who become so separated from humanity that enormous crimes can be committed in their names. i prefer gods who can be brought down to earth and judged, if you like.

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.

If God were alive today, He'd be an atheist.

This is my report on how to live... They say the best way is just to live one day at a time... If you try to live seven days at a time, the week will be over before you know it.

There is a certain aesthetic pleasure in trying to imagine the unimaginable and failing, if you are a reader.

If I had a choice, if I had understood earlier that the reason my days were all the same was because I wanted them like that, perhaps.

Pursue something so important that even if you fail, the world is better off with you having tried.

I rather live as if God exists to find out that He doesn't than live as if he doesn't exist to find out He does.

Do you see that tree? It is dead but it still sways in the wind with the others. I think it would be like that with me. That if I died I would still be part of life in one way or another.

How would you feel about life if Death was your older sister?

If life was a dream, then dying must be the moment when you woke up. It was so simple it must be true. You died, the dream was over, you woke up. That's what people meant when they talked about going to heaven. It was like waking up.

Cheerily to sea; the signs of war advance: No king of England, if not king of France

Losing you is most difficult for me, but the nature of my love for you is what matters. If it distorts into half-truth, then perhaps it is better not to love you. I must keep my mind but loose you.