People who refuse to rest honorably on their laurels when they reach "retirement" age seem very admirable to me.
--
My Life in Three Acts (1990) Ch. 19Helen Hayes
For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. … In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
Anne Rice
"They [the government] really want to maintain power. At the same time, they refuse to communicate. They refuse to have good intentions. They refuse to be sincere. How can that last?"
Ai Weiwei
It's really weird but my parents used to tell me I could do anything I wanted to. I used to say, 'Well, what if I want to be an astronaut and go to the moon?" and my dad used to say, 'If you really want to you can'. I used to think he was talking absolute rubbish, particularly when I was 21 and he was still saying that. But in a way it really stuck with me cos my dad ended up doing exactly what he wanted to do. To an outside point of view he's totally conformed, he's had a family and four kids but he's only ever done things that made him genuinely happy. "He jacked in his job cos it made him unhappy and he didn't want to compromise his entire life just for the sake of carrying it through. It's very admirable, that quality, and I think it's very rare in people. Most people feel so conditioned, so oppressed by everything that goes on around them that they just give in. You have to refuse to give in. (Melody Maker, March 7th 1992)
Robert Smith
"I don't have to be nice to people who are causing great damage to the nation ... I refuse to be nice to people who want to overthrow what the military and the security forces have been doing to maintain law and order in this country in the past five years since the illegal overthrow of the Labour Government ... I refuse to be nice to people like Jioji Kotobalavu and Qoriniasi Bale. I don't have to be nice to anyone trying to destabilise what the army has built." (30 May 2005)
Frank Bainimarama
Blessed are they who, in the calm moments of retirement, of worship, of prayer, of silent waiting, have found that to "the weary and heavy laden " Christ can indeed give rest; that compared with the heavy bondage of the world or the exactions of human systems, His yoke indeed is easy, and His burden is light.
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
Hayes, Helen
Hayes, J. Milton
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