Abyssus abyssum invocat– Hell calls hell; one mistep leads to another
Category Archives: DAMAGE
No matter how beautiful and well crafted a coffin might look, it will not make anyone wish for death.
If a toad jumps around in the daytime, it is either chasing something or something is chasing it.
~Nigerian
http://www.gadel.info/2011/03/ghanaian-and-nigerian-proverbs.html
The toad likes water, but not when it’s boiling.
Guinean
“When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.”
~George Bernard Shaw
“I applied my reason at every moment. Reason is excellent for getting food, clothing and shelter. Reason is the very best tool kit. Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi
If you decide to eat a toad, you should at least select one that is big.
(Igbo)
“Turn from that road’s beguiling ease; return
to your hunger’s turret. Enter, climb the stair
chill with disuse, where the croaking toad of time
regards from shimmering eyes your slow ascent
and the drip, drip, of darkness glimmers on the stone
to show you how your longing waits alone.
What alchemy shines from under that shut door,
spinning out gold from the hollow of the heart?
(“The Sea’s Wash In The Hollow Of The Heart”)”
― Denise Levertov
A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it.
George MacDonald
“I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away. Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it’s because he’s ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they’re responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I’d want nothing to do with them.”
― Philip Pullman
Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl
“Every life deserves a certain amount of dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it.”
Rick Bragg, All Over But the Shoutin’
“A man is born into this world with only a tiny spark of goodness in him. The spark is God, it is the soul; the rest is ugliness and evil, a shell. The spark must be guarded like a treasure, it must be nurtured, it must be fanned into flame. It must learn to seek out other sparks, it must dominate the shell. Anything can be a shell, Reuven. Anything. Indifference, laziness, brutality, and genius. Yes, even a great mind can be a shell and choke the spark.”
Chaim Potok, The Chosen