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Quote by Siegfried Sassoon

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Counter-Attack and Other Poems

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Author

Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon was an English poet known for his anti-war poetry. Born on September 8, 1886, and died on September 1, 1967, Sassoon's poetry is celebrated for its profound emotion and critical reflection on war. more

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“My trauma is no longer what I define myself by, and it has taken a lot of therapy, self-love, and depression naps for me to get to that point. I define myself by a set of different virtues: the fact that I am a decent writer, the fact that I am a resilient person who has found healing, the fact that I am goofy as hell, the fact that after decades of being understood by everyone as white, I’m finally beginning to explore what it means to be an Arab American, the fact that I was eating my grandmother’s hummus way before white people decided hummus was cool.”

“As noted before, we’re unfairly biased toward what we already know, what we believe to be certain. If I believe I’m a nice guy, I will avoid situations that could potentially contradict that belief. If I believe I’m an awesome cook, I’ll seek out opportunities to prove that to myself over and over again. The belief always takes precedence. Until we change how we view ourselves, what we believe we are and are not, we cannot overcome our avoidance and anxiety. We cannot change. In this way, “knowing yourself” or “finding yourself” can be dangerous. It can cement you into a strict role and saddle you with unnecessary expectations. It can close you off to inner potential and outer opportunities. I say don’t find yourself. I say never know who you are. Because that’s what keeps you striving and discovering. And it forces you to remain humble in your judgements and accepting of the differences in others.”

“Gnosticism means "Direct Spiritual Knowing", being in direct experience with the Creative Source. Gnosticism has been called "forbidden self-discovery" by the Church, for it is a form of illumination. In other words, Gnosticism does not need the structure of a church to function. It is therefore, a threat to the existence of many churches.”

“What would [James} do now? Would he think to Aiden was too much trouble for too little reward? Would the sex matter to him so much that he would discout everything else in favour of it? Aiden didn't want to think so, hoped that James would see that love was so much more than that. What was so great about sharing fluids that looked like snot anyway? What did love have to do with that? But he know by now that ninety-nine percent of the population would call that opinion world. The mathematics of the situation were not in his favour.”

“We hated ourselves for what we were made to do but we couldn't live with that hate, so we made it a hate of you, for being too weak to defend all that beauty." He was silent for a long while, and she put her arm around his shoulders. " And we enjoyed it , of course. Like the Kinslayer knew we would, like he'd primed us to because if you hate yourself enough and hate others enough, then doing terrible things to them becomes your only pastime, your only pleasure because in the moment where you wrack them with fire or slip their blade behind their eyeball, you have control, and that means something. It means something when the kinslayer is your master, and that's the only control you'll ever have.”

“Sometimes we open the next chapter in our life’s book and find ourselves on the other side of the world. But sometimes the next chapter allows us the gift of turning back a few pages and rediscovering something new in the words of our life. It requires only an adventurous spirit and an openness to revisit the places that inform who we are today.”