“The problem is people are being hated when they are real, and are being loved when they are fake.”
“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”
“We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.”
The Seduction of the Minotaur (1961); the documentation of the conflicting citations available on this page ( HNet http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Judaic&month=1108&msg=RizwZWCgeA8woVU9mNOEYQ) seems very thorough, and in the end attributes the quote to this novel, which includes the line:
Lillian was reminded of the talmudic words: "We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are."
With Nin's description of the statement as "Talmudic" it afterwards began to be attributed to the Jewish Talmud, without any cited version or passage.
Similar statements appear in You Can Negotiate Anything (1982) by Herb Cohen: "You and I do not see things as they are. We see things as we are"; and in Awareness (1992) by Anthony de Mello: "We see people and things not as they are, but as we are".
Another similar statement without cited source is also attributed to Nin https://web.archive.org/web/20050322041559/http://learn-gs.org/learningctr/tutorial/4.html: We see the world as "we" are, not as "it" is; because it is the "I" behind the "eye" that does the seeing.
Disputed
Variant: We don't see people as they are. We see people as we are.
Source: Little Birds
“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
Marita in Ch. 11
Source: The Garden of Eden (1986)
“If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.”
“We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.”
Variant: We don't even ask for happiness, just a little less pain.
Source: From a letter to William Packard from 1985 (published in Reach for the Sun - the 3rd volume of Bukowski correspondence)
Context: Sex, love, duty, God, family are not to be bargained with against happiness, and we don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.
“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”
“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”
Source: Crime and Punishment (Zločin a trest)
“You have to die a few times before you can really
live.”
Variant: You have to die a few times before you actually live.
Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last
Source: https://seashellronan.tumblr.com/post/189946732645/no-offence-but-i-think-a-lot-of-us-me-included
“Half of me is a hopeless romantic and the other half is just hopeless.”
Source: https://seashellronan.tumblr.com/post/177462551225/half-of-me-is-a-hopeless-romantic-and-the-other
“Overthinking is the biggest cause of unhappiness.”
“They fear love because it creates a world they can't control.”
Source: 1984
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
“Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.”
“The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.”
