Paralysis Quotes

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
― Winston Churchill, The River War

“I often wished that more people understood the invisible side of things. Even the people who seemed to understand, didn't really.”
― Jennifer Starzec, Determination

“People who don't see you every day have a hard time understanding how on some days--good days--you can run three miles, but can barely walk across the parking lot on other days,' [my mom] said quietly.”
― Jennifer Starzec, Determination

“Truth is not fully explosive, but purely electric. You don't blow the world up with the truth; you shock it into motion.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Get out of your own way… stop the paralysis by analysis… decide what you want, create a simple plan, and get moving!”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“I had learned quickly that life doesn't always go the way I want it to, and that's okay. I still plod on.”
― Sarah Todd Hammer, Determination

“Gloating is a superficial glowing, floating is an idle flowing, and bloatedness is the paralysis of blowing up; because silent movement results in loud victories.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Fear is the paralyzing emotion that inhibits or restricts normal feelings of love, confidence, and well-being.”
― Tim LaHaye, Transforming Your Temperament

“Fear tells me that while there might be a host of people who wish to stand beside me in times of crisis, the tangled wreckage is sometimes so enormous that the best of their efforts leave them stranded at a great distance. And standing desperately alone surveying the carnage that holds all others a bay, God suddenly taps me on the shoulder, leans over and whispers, 'how about a little demolition?”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“With determination, it is possible to block out the negative things and enjoy the positive ones, despite the cons. Most importantly, it is possible to dance through everything pernicious.”
― Sarah Todd Hammer, Determination

“The weekend was a much-needed breath of fresh air; Monday always seemed to not only take that breath right back, but add a few extra pounds to my shoulders as well.”
― Jennifer Starzec, Determination

“He had always been a middle-of-the-road sort. He had never submitted word for word to anyone's command, but neither had he passionately rebelled against anyone's advice. Depending upon the interpretation, this was the posture of a schemer or the strategy of a born vacillator. If he himself had been confronted with either of these charges, he could not have avoided wondering if they might not be true. But in large part, this was to be attributed neither to artifice nor to vacillation but rather to the flexibility of his vision, which allowed him to look in both directions at once. To this day, it was precisely this capacity that had always dampened his determination to advance singlemindedly toward a particular goal. It was not unusual for him to stand paralyzed in the midst of a situation. His posture of upholding the status quo was not the result of poverty of thought, but the product of lucid judgment; but he had never understood this truth about himself until he acted upon his beliefs with inviolable courage. The situation with Michiyo was precisely a case in point.”
― Natsume Sōseki, And Then

“As the new year began, [Patricia Highsmith] felt completely paralysed, incapable of reading or picking up the phone. 'I can feel my grip loosening on my self,' she wrote. 'It is like strength failing in the hand that holds me above an abyss.' She wished there was a more awful-sounding word for what she was feeling than simply 'depression'. She wanted to die, she said, but then realised that the best course of action would be to endure the wretchedness until it passed. Her wish was, 'Not to die, but not to exist, simply, until this is over'.”
― Andrew Wilson, Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι

“The video was still playing, although I didn't know why. It seemed as if the able-bodied dancers were mocking me.”
― Sarah Todd Hammer, Determination

“The strategy of fear is to convince us that we are underestimating it so that we will fall prey to the paralysis of overestimating it.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Dancing with a spinal cord injury is a challenge like no other, but I aspired to prove to myself that I could still be phenomenal dancer even with an SCI”
― Sarah Todd Hammer, 5k, Ballet, and a Spinal Cord Injury

“More often than not, the thing we fear is less than half the size of the fear it creates.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Are you in there? If not here, then where'd you go?
They say the living arena Earth and the dead are out,
But where are those trapped in-between high and low?
Where exactly are you wandering about?

Why would this happen to a human being?
I want to curse God and call him a fake,
But I am too desperate to risk ruining
The chance he may choose to help today.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“Nothing is more obscene than inertia. More blasphemous than the bloodiest oath is paralysis.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“He opens his botched mouth. Then he lets out a terrible scream.
They cover their ears. I want to cover mine but I can’t find my hands, so I just sit there.”
― Mona Awad, Bunny

“The thought of being able to [move my arms] made me want to give up my legs [instead] since I was accustomed to using them. But, I figured that after a few hours of sitting in a wheelchair...I would switch back...in a flash.”
― Sarah Todd Hammer, Determination

“[...] come se provasse tanto timore da preferire la paralisi assoluta di tutte le cose e rimanere almeno nello stato e nella posizione che le permettessero di continuare a vivere anziché osare una variazione, sia pure minima, che avrebbe potuto compromettere la sua momentanea stabilità del tutto precaria - la sua calma ormai temibile - e che le procurava il panico. Questo è ciò che fa il panico ed è ciò che di solito porta alla perdizione quanti lo subiscono: fa credere loro che, immersi nel male o nel pericolo, siano tuttavia in salvo.”
― Javier Marías, Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me

“Are you in there? If not here, then where'd you go?
They say the living are on Earth and the dead are out,
But where are those trapped in-between high and low?
Where exactly are you wandering about?

Why would this happen to a human being?
I want to curse God and call him a fake,
But I am too desperate to risk ruining
The chance he may choose to help today.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“Today, I would say at last, this disciplinary Tourette’s syndrome, where suddenly and even in the face of tremendous productivity architecture still blurts out a sense of shame, is starting to be understood as self-imposed and more likely to prolong paralysis than move the discipline further.”
― Sylvia Lavin, Kissing Architecture

“The paralysis of analysis might stop you from creating new records.”
― Dax Bamania

“Human ‘senses’ have a hierarchy as far as loss, and taste and smell rarely made the news or a made-for-TV movie. Most people are terrified of losing sight or going deaf. Losing the ability to touch is a horrible part of paralysis. But smell and taste? Not newsworthy.”
― Susan Kraus, When We Lost Touch

“After all, being a part of the Shimmering Generation means that we have to endure the potential and endless shimmering of these flickering screens that follow us on every step and drag us closer and closer to an endless addiction cycle! To fight against the urge of staring at these shimmering screens, to lose oneself in the masses of endless information that just causes paralysis.”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2018: Our Summer of Creeping Boredom and Beautiful Shimmering

“During the night, sheet lightning inlaid the walls with cool gold. I felt like an ancient, mummified child who had been found on a rock ledge near our ranch: bound tightly, unable to move, my dead face tipped backwards toward the moon.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“It may seem absurd to those who read that I should have been so easily vanquished; but there are times that occasionally come when we are completely alone, cut off from all contact and intercourse with friends and acquaintances, when we are oppressed by the futility of all and every effort. It is more than procrastination; willpower is sapped, ambition withered, enthusiasm dead. No one is to blame but our own thinking. 'There is nothing good nor bad but thinking makes it so', but sometimes circumstances are so powerful that we yield to them and instantly a paralysis of inaction creeps upon us, both mental and physical.”
― Walter J.C. Murray, Copsford

“I'm all screwed up because I've looked into things more than is good for my own health; don't know why the hell I read so much. That's why I'm here all paralysed.”
― Edmundo Desnoes, Memories of Underdevelopment