This is just a repository of quotes I find memorable and interesting, a place to keep thought-provoking words I've heard or read throughout my life. I may sub-divided this into categories eventually, but for now it's just a list.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes, a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
Aragorn - The Fellowship of the Ring
Given to me by my dear friend Gianluca Avanzato
Concerning the modern era:
an age in which machines think faster than humans but regularly prove at least as flawed.
Alan Weisman - The World Without Us
He that boasts of his own knowledge proclaims his ignorance.
Author Unknown
Writing means sharing. It's part of the human condition to want to share things -- thoughts, ideas, opinions.
Paulo Coehlo
The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
Malcolm Forbes
The day we stop exploring is the day we commit ourselves to live in a stagnant world, devoid of curiosity, empty of dreams.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother.
Homer
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.
Benjamin Franklin
We pay tribute to the reporter who is willing to stand when others will run, who will press on with questions when others have been cowed into silence.
Alejandro Junco
Found at the Newseum
It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every expereience carries its lesson.
Princess Irulan
Written in Dune by Frank Herbert
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Litany Against Fear
Dune by Frank Herbert
Try to understand men, if you understand each other, you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love.
John Steinbeck
One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty, until you try.
Sophocles
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.
C. S. Lewis
THE careful text-books measure
(Let all who build beware!)
The load, the shock, the pressure
Material can bear.
So, when the buckled girder
Lets down the grinding span,
'The blame of loss, or murder,
Is laid upon the man.
Not on the Stuff—the Man!
But in our daily dealing
With stone and steel, we find
The Gods have no such feeling
Of justice toward mankind.
To no set gauge they make us—
For no laid course prepare—
And presently o'ertake us
With loads we cannot bear:
Too merciless to bear.
The prudent text-books give it
In tables at the end
'The stress that shears a rivet
Or makes a tie-bar bend—
'What traffic wrecks macadam—
What concrete should endure—
but we, poor Sons of Adam
Have no such literature,
To warn us or make sure!
We hold all Earth to plunder—
All Time and Space as well—
Too wonder-stale to wonder
At each new miracle;
Till, in the mid-illusion
Of Godhead 'neath our hand,
Falls multiple confusion
On all we did or planned—
The mighty works we planned.
We only of Creation
(Oh, luckier bridge and rail)
Abide the twin damnation—
To fail and know we fail.
Yet we - by which sole token
We know we once were Gods—
Take shame in being broken
However great the odds—
The burden of the Odds.
Oh, veiled and secret Power
Whose paths we seek in vain,
Be with us in our hour
Of overthrow and pain;
That we - by which sure token
We know Thy ways are true—
In spite of being broken,
Because of being broken
May rise and build anew
Stand up and build anew.
Hymn of Breaking Strain - Rudyard Kipling
Everyone starts with drawing a single line. Don't make fun of them.
Kihara-san
The thing about confidence is that it's not without its preparation. We draw confidently because we've already done everything we can to assure success - this doesn't mean success is guaranteed, but that there is simply nothing else to be done, and therefore no use worrying or hesitating.
Drawabox
“You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake
"If you're going to feel regret, then you have to accept it all and live on. That's how adults take responsibility, right?"
Zaratras, Seven Deadly Sins
"If you don't act like an imposter, who else will?"
John Laird
"It's more important to be right tomorrow than win an argument today."
John Laird
"Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
"The man who realizes his ignorance has taken the first step toward knowledge."
Max Heindel
"All correct reasoning is a grand system of tautologies, but only God can make direct use of that fact."
Herbert A. Simon
"Anxiety is a lie and fear is a curse."
Menzel Washington
"For thought is right reasoning moving from things certain to the investigation of things uncertain."
Augustine of Hippo, On the Immortality of the Soul
"To me there is not only right or wrong but many shades in between... The real tragedies in life are not in choices between right and wrong. Only the most callous of persons choose what they know to be wrong. Real tragedy comes [illegible] in a dilemma of evaluating what is right... Real dilemmas are difficulties of the soul, provoking agonies..."
Henry Kissinger
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle
Sit down. Inhale. Exhale. The gun will wait. The lake will wait. The tall gall in the small seductive vial will wait will wait: will wait a week: will wait through April. You do not have to die this certain day. Death will abide, will pamper your postponement. I assure you death will wait. Death has a lot of time. Death can attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is just down the street; is most obliging neighbor; can meet you any moment.
You need not die today. Stay here—through pout or pain or peskyness. Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.
Graves grow no green that you can use. Remember, green's your color. You are Spring.
Gwendolyn Brooks, To the Young Who Want to Die
Fate is the decisions we make, and their consequences. It has no need for your belief, Monsieur le Djinn. It believes in you
Locke, Lamplighters League