Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Jacqueline Holland

Quote by Jacqueline Holland

“[..humans..] Too clever to live in peace, too stupid to live well. They’re better off in the dirt, finally quiet, finally peaceful.”

Quote by Jacqueline Holland

Create image

Author

Jacqueline Holland

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Jacqueline Holland. more

You May Also Like

“Even now, I like to look in the mirror. Over the years, I’ve followed the progress of the wrinkles furrowing my brow. My cheeks have grown thinner and my lips have become pale, but it’s all me and I feel a sort of fondness for the reflection in the mirror. [...] I was just over forty. That was twenty-two years ago. I suppose I am an old woman, but I still love looking at my face. I don’t know if it’s beautiful or ugly, but it is the only human face I ever see. I smile at it and receive a friendly smile back.”

HumanityLonelinessVanity
Book:I Who Have Never Known Men
Create image

“Human beings are the only animals that experience denial. All creatures will try to survive under attack, will burrow when under siege or limp through the forest. But they recognize trouble when it hits. Not one fish, in the history of fish, having gotten its fins chewed off, needs another fish's perspective: I don't know, Tom, that looks pretty bad. Denial is humankind'a specialty, our handy aversion. We are so allergic to our own mortality; we'll do anything to make it not so. Denial is also the weirdest stage of grief because it so closely mimics stupidity. But it can't be helped.”

HumanityGriefDenialGrief And Loss
Book:Grief Is for People
Create image

“And so it goes that, even as children, we understand something we cannot articulate: The diagnosis never changes. We will always be hungry, will always want. Our bodies and minds will always crave something, even if we don't recognize it. And in the same way the dandelion's destruction tells us about ourselves, so does our own destruction: our bodies are ecosystems, and they shed and replace and repair until we die. And when we die, our bodies feed the hungry earth, our cells becoming part of other cells, and in the world of the living, where we used to be, people kiss and hold hands and fall in love and fuck and laugh and cry and hurt others and nurse broken hearts and start wars and pull sleeping children out of car seats and shout at each other. If you could harness that energy- that constant, roving hunger- you could do wonders with it. You could push the earth inch by inch through the cosmos until it collided heart-first with the sun.”

LifeHumanityEnergy
Book:In the Dream House
Create image

“Don’t hope for better. Just be better. Be something better. Be more compassionate, more resilient, more humble, more disciplined. Many people would also throw in there “Be more human,” but no—be a better human. And maybe, if we’re lucky, one day we’ll get to be more than human.”

HumanityHopeCompassionDisciplineSelf ImprovementResilienceLife AdviceMark Manson
Book:Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope
Create image