day by day

mynameiselly:

People who are so easy to love
are dangerous, those people whose
laughs could fill rooms, fill up balloons
better than helium and keep them
floating for longer

People who are so easy to love
are vulnerable, their tears are saltier,
their smiles are wider, their minds are
…

“Think how you love me,” she whispered. “I don’t ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember.”

“You’ll always be like this to me.”

“Oh no; but promise me you’ll remember.” Her tears were falling. “I’ll be different, but somewhere lost inside me there’ll always be the person I am tonight.”

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, Magnetism  (via theunquotables)

I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that - I don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying “write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep”, and “cheer up” and “happiness is our birthright” and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say “Quick! Move on! Cheer up!” I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word “happiness” and to replace it with the word “wholeness”. Ask yourself “is this contributing to my wholeness?” and if you’re having a bad day, it is.

—Hugh Mackay (via theunquotables)

If you’re losing your soul and you know it, then you’ve still got a soul left to lose.

—Charles Bukowski (via theunquotables)

Why is it moral to serve the happiness of others, but not your own? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but immoral when experienced by you? If the sensation of eating a cake is a value, why is it an immoral indulgence in your stomach, but a moral goal for you to achieve in the stomach of others? Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it? If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it? Does virtue consist of serving vice? Is the moral purpose of those who are good, self-immolation for the sake of those who are evil?

—John Galt (Atlas Shrugged-Ayn Rand)

(Source: arepublicanon, via lit-bookquotes)