Never be afraid to doubt, if only you have the disposition to believe.
Fact is better than fiction, if only we could get it pure.
Ich mocht mich gleich dem Teufel ubergeben, / Wenn ich nur selbst kein Teufel war=--I would give myself up at once to the devil if only I were not a devil myself.
It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how.
My conception of the audience is of a public each member of which is carrying about with him what he thinks is an anxiety, or a hope, or a preoccupation which is his alone and isolates him from mankind; and in this respect at least the function of a play is to reveal him to himself so that he may touch others by virtue of the revelation of his mutuality with them. If only for this reason I regard the theater as a serious business, one that makes or should make man more human, which is to say, less alone.
How blessed might poor mortals be in the straitest circumstances, if only their wisdom and fidelity to Heaven and one another were adequately great.= _Carlyle, apropos to his life at Craigenputtock._
Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, "with both eyes open."
The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.
I had an experience... I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real! I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever... A vision of the universe that tells us, undeniably, how tiny, and insignificant and how … rare, and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, that we are not — that none of us — are alone! … I wish I could share that. I wish, that everyone, if only for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and hope. But … that continues to be my wish.
Est hic, / Est ubivis, animus si te non deficit ?quus=--It (happiness) is here, it is everywhere, if only a well-regulated mind does not fail you.
Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!
Relationship At times I feel an ache, an inner loneliness that cripples me. But I forget about God. I forget that God loves me, and actually wants a relationship with me. A Christian friend of mine told me that God has emotions. Not that he’s defensive and unstable, but he loves me and is sad when I turn away from him. He feels sadness when I’m hurt, and feels love and joy at my happiness. I matter to him. He isn’t an emotionless deity, watching from afar and not caring. He doesn’t go about his plans without caring if I’m involved. What I do matters to him. What I say matters. How I treat him. If I spend time with him. He loves me, and just as I would be hurt if someone I love rejected me, he’s hurt when I reject him. Just as I feel sad when someone I love is sad, or I’m in pain when they’re upset — God’s the same. He aches when I’m upset. He actually loves me. He cries when I cry. If only I could see it. Any pain I feel would be diminished in light of God’s love. He cares about every part of me. If only I could see it.
We must learn to live two lives--this short life here on earth with its joys and sorrows, and that true life beyond, of which this is only a fragment or an interruption. When we enter into that true life, we shall find what we cannot find here, we shall find what we have lost here. If only so many things did not seem so irregular, so unnatural. The death of young children before their parents. We love them better because we know we can lose them--that is true--but yet it is a hard lesson to learn.
The heart needs not for its heaven much space, nor many stars therein, if only the star of love has arisen.
This inability should serve then only to humiliate reason, which would fain judge of all things, but not to shake our certainty, as if only reason were able to instruct us. Would to God, on the contrary, that we never needed reason, and that we knew every thing by instinct and feeling! But nature has denied us this advantage, and has on the contrary given us but little knowledge of this kind, all the rest can be acquired by reason only.
Do we really lose those who are called before us? I feel that they are even nearer to us than when they were with us in life. We must take a larger view. Our life does not end here, if only we can see that our horizon here is but like a curtain that separates us from what is beyond. Those who go before us are beyond our horizon at present, but we have no right to suppose that they have completely vanished. We cannot see them, that is all. And even that, we know, can last for a short time only. We have lived and done our work in life, before we knew those we loved, and we may have to live the same number of years separated from them. But nothing can be lost: it depends on ourselves to keep those we loved always near to our thoughts, even though our eyes look in vain for them. The world is larger than this little earth, our thoughts go further than this short life, and if we can but find our home in this larger world, we shall find that this larger home is full of those whom we loved, and who loved us. There is no _chance_ in life; a few years more, a few years less, will seem as nothing to us hereafter.
Things will always right themselves in time, if only those who know what they want to do, and can do, persevere unremittingly in work and action.
Is not this the miracle of cleansing which our spirits need in such a world as this? And this is what our blessed Lord is prepared to do for us by His cleansing blood, if only we will trust Him.--_F. B. Meyer._
If we see the same doctrines, sometimes uttered even in the very same words, by the Apostles, and by what people call the false prophets, of the heathen world, we need not grudge them these precious pearls. When two religions say the same thing, it is not always the same thing; but even if it is, should we not rather rejoice and try with all our might to add to what may be called the heavenly dowry of the human race, the common stock of truth which, as we are told, is not far from every one of us, if only we feel after it and find it?
Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.
F?num habet in cornu, longe fuge, dummodo risum / Excutiat sibi, non hic cuiquam parcit amico=--He has (like a wild bull) a wisp of hay on his horn: fly afar from him; if only he raise a laugh for himself, there is no friend he would spare.
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
Perhaps if only once you did enjoy The thousandth part of all the happiness A heart beloved enjoys, returning love, Repentant, you would surely sighing say, "All time is truly lost and gone Which is not spent in serving love."
Religion is inevitable if only we are left in possession of our senses, such as we really find them, not such as they have been defined for us. We claim no special faculty, no special revelation. The only faculty we claim is perception, the only revelation we claim is history, or, as it is now called, historical evolution. But let it not be supposed that we find the idea of the Infinite ready made in the human mind from the very beginning of our history. All we maintain is that the germ or the possibility, the Not-yet of that idea, lies hidden in the earliest sensuous perceptions, and that as reason is evolved from what is finite, so faith is evolved from what from the very beginning is infinite in the perceptions of our senses.
Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.
Cretin? If only he had a quid for every time he’d been called that. Oh, right. He did.
One wonders indeed how kindred souls become separated, and one feels startled and repelled at the thought that, such as they were on earth, they can never meet again. And yet there is continuity in the world, there is no flaw, no break anywhere, and what has been will surely be again, though how it will be we cannot know, and if only we trust in the Wisdom that pervades and overshadows the whole Universe, we need not know.
How different life might be, if in our daily intercourse and conversation we thought of our friends as lying before us on the last bed of flowers--how differently we should then judge, and how differently we should act. All that is of the earth is then forgotten, all the little failings inherent in human nature vanish from our minds, and we only see what was good, unselfish, and loving in that soul, and we think with regret of how much more we might have done to requite that love. It is curious how forgetful we are of death, how little we think that we are dying daily, and that what we call life is really death, and death the beginning of a higher life. Such a thought should not make our life less bright, but rather more--it should make us feel how unimportant many things are which we consider all-important: how much we could bear which we think unbearable, if only we thought that to-morrow we ourselves or our friends may be taken away, at least for a time. You should think of death, should feel that what you call your own is only lent to you, and that all that remains as a real comfort is the good work done in this short journey, the true unselfish love shown to those whom God has given us, has placed near to us, not without a high purpose.
All creatures that have wings can escape from every snare that is set for them, if only they will fly high enough; and the soul that uses its wings can always find a sure "way to escape" from all that can hurt or trouble it.--_Smith._
It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilisation, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life, and what methods have been taken to obtain them.
With the arrogance of youth, I determined to do no less than to transform the world with Beauty. If I have succeeded in some small way, if only in one small corner of the world, amongst the men and women I love, then I shall count myself blessed, and blessed, and blessed, and the work goes on.
I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at. But how can I help believing it? I have seen the truth — it is not as though I had invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul for ever. I have seen it in such full perfection that I cannot believe that it is impossible for people to have it. And so how can I go wrong? I shall make some slips no doubt, and shall perhaps talk in second-hand language, but not for long: the living image of what I saw will always be with me and will always correct and guide me. Oh, I am full of courage and freshness, and I will go on and on if it were for a thousand years! Do you know, at first I meant to conceal the fact that I corrupted them, but that was a mistake — that was my first mistake! But truth whispered to me that I was lying, and preserved me and corrected me. But how establish paradise — I don't know, because I do not know how to put it into words. After my dream I lost command of words. All the chief words, anyway, the most necessary ones. But never mind, I shall go and I shall keep talking, I won't leave off, for anyway I have seen it with my own eyes, though I cannot describe what I saw. But the scoffers do not understand that. It was a dream, they say, delirium, hallucination. Oh! As though that meant so much! And they are so proud! A dream! What is a dream? And is not our life a dream? I will say more. Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass (that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times — but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness — that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once.
Glaube nur, du hast viel gethan / Wenn dir Geduld gewohnest an=--Assure yourself you have accomplished no small feat if only you have learned patience. _Goethe._ [Greek: Glauk' Athenaze]--Owls to Athens.
'S ist nichts so schlimm, als man wohl denkt / Wenn man's nur recht erfasst und lenkt=--There is nothing so bad as we think it if only we would apprehend and guide it aright.
History would be an excellent thing if only it were true.
We should never leave our room until we have seen the face of our dear Master, Christ, and have realized that we are being sent forth by Him to do His will, and to finish the work which He has given us to do. He who said to His immediate followers, "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you," says as much to each one of us, as the dawn summons us to live another day. We should realize that we are as much sent forth by Him as the angels who "do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word." There is some plan for each day's work, which He will unfold to us, if only we will look up to Him to do so; some mission to fulfil; some ministry to perform; some lesson patiently to learn, that we may be able to "reach others also." As to our plans we need not be anxious; because He who sends us forth is responsible to make the plan, according to His infinite wisdom; and to reveal it to us, however dull and stupid our faculties may be. And as to our sufficiency, we are secure of having all needful grace; because He never sends us forth, except He first breathes on us and says, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." There is always a special endowment for special power.--_F. B. Meyer._
Apart from Him we can do nothing. Whilst we are abiding in Him nothing is impossible. The one purpose of our life should therefore be to remain in living and intense union with Christ, guarding against everything that would break it, employing every means of cementing and enlarging it. And just in proportion as we do so, we shall find His strength flowing into us for every possible emergency. We may not feel its presence; but we shall find it present whenever we begin to draw on it. There is no temptation which we cannot master; no privation which we cannot patiently bear; no difficulty with which we cannot cope; no work which we cannot perform; no confession or testimony which we cannot make, if only our souls are living in healthy union with Jesus Christ; for as our day or hour, so shall our strength be.--_F. B. Meyer._
Know that some people will do everything they can to game the system, finding ways to win that you never could have imagined. If only to keep yourself sane, try to applaud their ingenuity rather than curse their greed.
He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless. And as I walked back to give Takumi’s note to the Colonel, I saw that I would never know. I would never know her well enough to know her thoughts in those last minutes, would never know if she left us on purpose. But the not-knowing would not keep me from caring, and I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.
leadership is the ability to get someone to follow you even if only out of curiosity.
Like all the really great men of literature, Goethe added some of the qualities of the man of science to those of the artist, especially the habit of careful and patient observation of Nature. The great poet was no mere book-learned speculator. His acquaintance with mineralogy, geology, botany and osteology, the fruit of long and wide studies, would have sufficed to satisfy the requirements of a professoriate in those days, if only he could have pleaded ignorance of everything else. Unfortunately for Goethe's credit with his scientific contemporaries, and, consequently, for the attention attracted by his work, he did not come forward as a man of science until the public had ranged him among the men of literature. And when the little men have thus classified a big man, they consider that the last word has been said about him; it appears to the thought hardly decent on his part if he venture to stray beyond the speciality they have assigned to him. It does not seem to occur to them that a clear intellect is an engine capable of supplying power to all sorts of mental factories; nor to admit that, as Goethe somewhere pathetically remarks, a man may have a right to live for himself as well as for the public; to follow the line of work that happens to interest him, rather than that which interests them.
We forget that Jesus Christ is the same to-day, when He is sitting on the throne, as He was yesterday, when He trod the pathway of our world. And in this forgetfulness how much we miss! What He was, that He is. What He said, that He says. The Gospels are simply specimens of the life that He is ever living; they are leaves torn out of the diary of His unchangeable Being. To-day He is engaged in washing the feet of His disciples, soiled with their wilderness journeyings. Yes, that charming incident is having its fulfilment in thee, my friend, if only thou dost not refuse the lowly loving offices of Him whom we call Master and Lord, but who still girds Himself and comes forth to serve. And we must have this incessant cleansing if we would keep right. It is not enough to look back to a certain hour when we first knelt at the feet of the Son of God for pardon; and heard Him say, "Thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven." We need daily, hourly cleansing--from daily, hourly sin.--_F. B. Meyer._
Oh, nostra folle / Mente, ch'ogn aura di fortuna estolle=--How our heart swells if only a breath of happiness breathe through it!
Every great writer is a writer of history, let him treat on almost what subject he may. He carries with him for thousands of years a portion of his times; and, indeed, if only his own effigy were there, it would be greatly more than a fragment of his century.
Vita dum superest, bene est=--If only life remain, I am content.
We meet with contradictions everywhere. If only two persons are together they mutually afford each other opportunities of exercising patience, and even when one is alone there will still be a necessity for this virtue, so true it is that our miserable life is full of crosses.--ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.
There's no life that couldn't be immortal if only for a moment. Death always arrives by that very moment too late. In vain it tugs at the knob of the invisible door. As far as you've come can't be undone.
I am very content with knowing, if only I could know.
Our Lord's ascension will have to be understood as a sublime idea, materialised in the language of children. Is not a real fact that happened, in a world in which nothing can happen against the will of God, better than any miracle? Why should we try to know more than we can know, if only we firmly believe that Christ's immortal spirit ascended to the Father? That alone is true immortality, divine immortality; not the resuscitation of the frail mortal body, but the immortality of the immortal divine soul. It was this rising of the Spirit, and not of the body, without which, as St. Paul said, our faith would be vain. It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.
While walking down a crowded City street the other day, I heard a little urchin To a comrade turn and say, "Say, Chimmey, lemme tell youse, I'd be happy as a clam
Me mudder t'inks I am.
"She t'inks I am a wonder, My friends, be yours a life of toil
An' she knows her little lad Or undiluted joy,
Could never mix wit' nuttin' You can learn a wholesome lesson
Dat was ugly, mean or bad. From that small, untutored boy.
Oh, lot o' times I sit and t'ink Don't aim to be an earthly saint
How nice, 'twould be, gee whiz! With eyes fixed on a star:
If a feller was de feller Just try to be the fellow that
Dat his mudder t'inks he is." Your mother thinks you are.
-- Will S. Adkin, "If I Only Was the Fellow"
Everything might be different in the present if only one thing had been different in the past.
I managed to say, "Sorry," and no more. I knew that he disliked me to cry. This time he said, watching me, "On some occasions it is better to weep." I put my head down on the table and sobbed, "If only she could come back; I would be nice." Francis said, "You gave her great pleasure always." "Oh, not enough." "Nobody can give anybody enough." "Not ever?" "No, not ever. But one must go on trying." "And doesn't one ever value people until they are gone?" "Rarely," said Francis. I went on weeping; I saw how little I had valued him; how little I had valued anything that was mine. -- Pamela Frankau, "The Duchess and the Smugs"
It's amazing how many people you could be friends with if only they'd make the first approach.
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
-- Woody Allen
in my name at a Swiss bank.
-- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first and last month in advance.
The fashionable drawing rooms of London have always been happy to accept outsiders -- if only on their own, albeit undemanding terms. That is to say, artists, so long as they are not too talented, men of humble birth, so long as they have since amassed several million pounds, and socialists so long as they are Tories. -- Christopher Booker
On the other hand, life can be an endless parade of TRANSSEXUAL QUILTING BEES aboard a cruise ship to DISNEYWORLD if only we let it!!