Laura Anne Gilman Quotes

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

There is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom, for in that way one captures volition itself.

Twere better to be born a stone Of ruder shape, and feeling none, Than with a tenderness like mine And sensibilities so fine! Ah, hapless wretch! condemn'd to dwell Forever in my native shell, Ordained to move when others please, Not for my own content or ease; But toss'd and buffeted about, Now in the water and now out.

Because even though the truth can set you free, that doesn't mean it won't be painful.

There is the devil at the door. I'm nearly going under, can't help but wonder who am I working for? No one's more enslaved now then the ones who falsely feel they are free. I've come to terms with the fact that nothing is what it seems. This life is an illusion. And everything you thought you knew isn't what it seems. Only truth will set you free. This new world has begun.

Emotional attachment to Maya is totally painful, this is a bad bargain.

It's always better to go personal and painful than to go big.

To put it another way, pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Why must it be pain? Why can't he rouse us more gently, with violins or laughter? Because the dream from which we must be wakened, is the dream that all is well.

These four, however, seek the freedom of their will at the very point where they are most securely chained. It is as if the silkworm sought freedom of will in spinning. What is the reason?

Man's freedom is relative and it cannot be held solely responsible for the imperfection of his nature.

I don't vote. We're led to believe we're free through the exercise of ineffective freedoms.

Know, then, that now, precisely now, these people are more certain than ever before that they are completely free, and at the same time they themselves have brought us their freedom and obediently laid it at our feet. It is our doing, but is it what you wanted? This sort of freedom?' Again I don't understand', Alyosha interrupted, 'Is he being ironic? Is he laughing?' Not in the least. He precisely lays it to his and his colleagues' credit that they have finally overcome freedom, and have done so in order to make people happy.

Sin creates the illusion of freedom. In the end it fools us into seeking freedom from God rather than finding freedom in God.

Because the truth is - and we know it - we were born to die without regrets. Regret is the only wound from which the soul never recovers.

But we are alone, darling child, terribly, isolated each from the other; so fierce is the world's ridicule we cannot speak or show our tenderness; for us, death is stronger than life, it pulls like a wind through the dark, all our cries burlesqued in joyless laughter; and with the garbage of loneliness stuffed down us until our guts burst bleeding green, we go screaming round the world, dying in our rented rooms, nightmare hotels, eternal homes of the transient heart.

Had I left those images hidden in the emotions, I might have been torn to pieces by them.

We are slow to believe that which if believed would hurt our feelings.

That hurt querida, that really hurt

We scornfully decline, because of one whom we love and who will some day be of so little account, to see another who is of no account to-day, with whom we shall be in love to-morrow, with whom we might, perhaps, had we consented to see her now, have fallen in love a little earlier and who would thus have put a term to our present sufferings, bringing others, it is true, in their place.

Our whole life is like a play.

How tired God must be of guilt and loneliness, for that is all we ever bring to Him.

As every man is hunted by his own daemon, vexed by his own disease, this checks all his activity.

And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea — some news of your own life. But the lilies are slippery and wild—they are devoid of meaning, they are simply doing, from the deepest spurs of their being, what they are impelled to do every summer. And so, dear sorrow, are you.

The condition of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but most wretched is the condition of those who labor at preoccupations that are not even their own, who regulate their sleep by that of another, their walk by the pace of another, who are under orders in case of the freest things in the world-loving and hating. If these wish to know how short their life is, let them reflect how small a part of it is their own.