Tag: quotes

Life

Courage

Sally4 Comments

I just started reading Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book Night Flight. I kind of love his definition of courage in the forward.

It’s a concoction of feelings that are not so very admirable. A touch of anger, a spice of vanity, a lot of obstinacy, and a tawdry ‘sporting’ thrill.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

My sister recently said to me, “I’ve always admired your courage.” Did she mean my touch of anger, spice of vanity, and my obstinacy? I’ve always thought of what I do as not courage, but jumping into things with both feet without weighing all the consequences. I think that may qualify as foolishness.

But just to get YOU thinking, here are a few more thoughts on courage, bravery, and cowardice:

Courage is knowing when not to fear.

Plato — or maybe Aristotle

Courage is grace under pressure.

Ernest Hemingway

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.

J. K. Rowling

Brave men hide their deeds as decent folk their alms. They disguise them or make excuses for them.

Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant (quoted in the forward to Night Flight)

To see the right and not to do it is cowardice.

Confucius

Happy are those who dare courageously to defend what they love.

Ovid

How about you? What are your thoughts on courage?

Blogging Challenge · dementia

Interruptions and Alterations

Sally2 Comments

I usually misquote Henri Nouwen’s and say, “My interruptions are my work,” when someone asks me my favorite quote. Here’s the real quote in context:

A few years ago I met an old professor at the University of Notre Dame, Looking back on his long life of teaching, he said with a funny wrinkle in his eyes: “I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I slowly discovered that my interruptions were my work.”

That is the great conversion in our life: to recognize and believe that the many unexpected events are not just disturbing interruptions of our projects, but the way in which God molds our hearts and prepares us for his return.

~ from Out of Solitude by Henri J. Nouwen

But having recently reread Shakespeare’s Sonnet #116, I’ve been pondering this line:

… Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds

My father so faithfully loved my mother through her dementia.

From dating days

To when she could no longer brush her own hair.

Love did not alter when it alterations found.

My father set the bar high.