Witness Quotes - Page 35

• We are here to witness. There is nothing else to do with those mute materials we do not need. Until Larry teaches his stone to talk, until God changes his mind, or until the pagan gods slip back to their hilltop groves, all we can do with the whole inhuman array is watch it.

  Annie Dillard

  Mind, Stones, Watches

  Annie Dillard (2016). “Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters”, p.67, Canongate Books

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• Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It's all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get? At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.

  Margaret Atwood

  Running, Dog, Wall

  Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.95, Anchor

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• The priest therefore saw what the anchorite could not. That God needs no witness. Neither to himself nor against. The truth is rather that if there were no God then there could be no witness for there could be no identity to the world but only each man's opinion of it. The priest saw that there is no man who is elect because there is no man who is not. To God every man is a heretic.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Men, Identity, Needs

  Cormac McCarthy (2010). “The Crossing: Book 2 of The Border Trilogy”, p.158, Vintage

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• I now know why people break up in e-mails and text messages. Doing it face-to-face is so hard because you have to stand in front of the person and witness their reaction. Face their wrath.

  Simone Elkeles

  Break Up, Wrath, People

  Simone Elkeles (2011). “Perfect Chemistry”, p.212, Simon and Schuster

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• What makes art Christian art? Is it simply Christian artists painting biblical subjects like Jeremiah? Or, by attaching a halo, does that suddenly make something Christian art? Must the artist’s subject be religious to be Christian? I don’t think so. There is a certain sense in which art is its own justification. If art is good art, if it is true art, if it is beautiful art, then it is bearing witness to the Author of the good, the true, and the beautiful

  R. C. Sproul

  Beautiful, Christian, Religious

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• Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we keep fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness.

  John Updike

  Fighting, Smallness

  "Tuesday, and After", www.newyorker.com. September 24, 2001.

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• And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers - shriveled now, and brown and flat and brittle - to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of men.

  H. G. Wells

  Gratitude, Flower, Heart

  H G Wells (2004). “The Time Machine (Sparklesoup Classics)”, p.57, Sparklesoup LLC

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• As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps - concentration camps, that is - and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.

  Viktor E. Frankl

  Men, Two, Survivor

  Viktor E. Frankl (2011). “The Unheard Cry for Meaning: Psychotherapy and Humanism”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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• Sadness is silent, it is yours. It is coming because you are alone. It is giving you a chance to go deeper into your aloneness. Rather than jumping from one shallow happiness to another shallow happiness and wasting your life, it is better to use sadness as a means for meditation. Witness it. It is a friend! It opens the door of your eternal aloneness.

  Rajneesh

  Spiritual, Sadness, Mean

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• Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.

  Jodi Picoult

  Inspirational, Children, Adoption

  Jodi Picoult (2009). “Handle with Care: A Novel”, p.136, Simon and Schuster

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• Be less of a judge and you will be surprised that when you become a witness and you don't judge yourself, you stop judging others too. And that makes you more human, more compassionate, more understanding.

  Rajneesh

  Spiritual, Judging, Understanding

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• Memory is slippery. It bends to our understanding of the world, twists to accommodate our prejudices. It is unreliable. Witnesses seldom remember the same things. They identify the wrong people. They give us the details of events that never happened. Memory is slippery, but my memories suddenly feel slipperier.

  Holly Black

  Memories, Giving, People

  Holly Black (2010). “White Cat”, p.73, Simon and Schuster

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• Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a west as distant and as fair as that into which the Sun goes down. He appears to migrate westward daily and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those mountain ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which were last gilded by his rays.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dream, Sunset, Night

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.165, Simon and Schuster

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• You've faced horrors in these past weeks... I don't know which is worse. The terror you feel the first time you witness such things, or the numbness that comes after it starts to become ordinary.

  Tasha Alexander

  Past, Numbness, Ordinary

  Tasha Alexander (2013). “A Fatal Waltz”, p.163, Hachette UK

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• Discovering, for example, that as witnesses to your life diminish, there is less corroboration, and therefore less certainty, as to what you are or have been. [p. 65]

  Julian Barnes

  Example, Certainty, Discovering

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• There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world -- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. That's all there is to it. Everything else is fun and games. If an activity is not grounded in "to love" or "to learn" it does not have value.

  Anne Rice

  Beauty, Fun, Games

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• ...marriage is foremost a vocation. Two people are called together to fulfill a mission that God has given them. Marriage is a spiritual reality. That is to say, a man and a woman come together for life, not just because they experience deep love for each other, but because they believe that God loves each of them with an infinite love and has called them to each other to be living witnesses of that love. To love is to embody God's infinite love in a faithful communion with another human being.

  Henri Nouwen

  Spiritual, Believe, Reality

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• It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B. It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Powerful, Philosophy, Sunset

  Cheryl Strayed (2012). “Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found”, p.185, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• no one bears witness for the witness

  Paul Celan

  Bears

  Paul Celan (2005). “Paul Celan: Selections”, p.32, Univ of California Press

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• Have McNab take the edge if you need one. Can he handle bad cop?" "He does it really well during personal role-playing games when I'm the reluctant witness.

  Nora Roberts

  Playing Games, Doe, Role Playing

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• I'm never going to believe a Poirot mystery again. Never. All those witnesses going, "Yes, I remember it was 3:06 p.m. exactly, because I glanced at the clock as I reached for the sugar tongs, and Lady Favisham was quite clearly sitting on the right-hand side of the fireplace." Bollocks. They have no idea where Lady Favisham was, they just don't want to admit it in front of Poirot. I'm amazed he gets anywhere.

  Sophie Kinsella

  Believe, Hands, Ideas

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• A ssure you, the more I travel through time, the more I witness, the more I realize that there are things that are both strange and wonderful, far beyond human comprehension.

  Margaret Haddix

  Strange, Realizing, Wonderful

  Margaret Peterson Haddix (2011). “The Missing Collection by Margaret Peterson Haddix: Found; Sent; Sabotaged; Torn”, p.430, Simon and Schuster

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• We’re going to die and not even know. We’ll never know, and all this meaninglessness will just go on and on and on. And we won’t any longer be witnesses to it. We won’t have even that little bit of power to give meaning to it in our minds. We’ll just be gone, dead, dead, dead, without ever knowing!

  Anne Rice

  Knowing, Giving, Mind

  Anne Rice (2013). “The Complete Vampire Chronicles 12-Book Bundle”, p.865, Ballantine Books

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• Whether this tale be true or false, none can tell, for none were there to witness it themselves.

  Marjane Satrapi

  True Or False, Tales, Being True

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• Just go into the room, sit in the centre of the room, open the doors and windows, and see who comes to visit.
  You will witness all kinds of scenes and actors, all kinds of temptations and stories, everything imaginable.
  Your only job is to stay in your seat.
  You will see it all arise and pass, and out of this, wisdom and understanding will come.

  Ajahn Chah

  Jobs, Doors, Visits You

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