“Nothing on earth can make up for the loss of one who has loved you.”
Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940) Swedish female writer
Boglárka
@Boglárka, member from Oct. 22, 2022
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 29–30
Context: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
Aristotle book Parts of Animals
Book I, 645a.16
Parts of Animals
“Life ain't a rehearsal, the camera's always rolling”
Drake (1986) Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor
"Miss Me", Thank Me Later, Lil Wayne (2010)
2010s
“If a poem hasn't ripped apart your soul; you haven't experienced poetry.”
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic
“If a person has no hope, he is truly blessed because that person has no fear of failure.”
Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian
“Fear is the true enemy, the only enemy.”
Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty
Attributed implicitly to Sun Tzu by "William Riker" in the episode The Last Outpost of the TV program Star Trek: The Next Generation, but no source for this quote predates the episode's airing in 1987.
Misattributed
“Love is so short and forgetting is so long.”
Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Es tan corto el amor y tan largo el olvido.
"Tonight I Can Write" (Puedo Escribir), XX, p. 51.
Variant: Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Source: Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) (1924)
“Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear.”
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer
Conversations (January 1804)
“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist
“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.
2005-09, Address at Stanford University (2005)
Context: Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
Victor Hugo book Things Seen
Often attributed to Churchill, this thought was originally expressed by the French author Victor Hugo in Villemain (1845), as follows: You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do not bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.
Villemain is a brief segment taken from Hugo’s Choses Vues (Things Seen), a running journal Hugo kept of events he witnessed. The original French versions of these journals were published after Hugo's death.
Misattributed
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
“You are what you believe yourself to be.”
Paulo Coelho book The Witch of Portobello
Source: The Witch of Portobello (2007), p. 152.
Context: You are what you believe yourself to be.
Don't be like those people who believe in "positive thinking" and tell themselves that they're loved and strong and capable. You don't need to do that because you know it already. And when you doubt it — which happens, I think, quite often at this stage of evolution — do as I suggested. Instead of trying to prove that you're better than you think, just laugh. Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humor. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it. Now go back and meet all those people who think you know everything. Convince yourself that they're right, because we all know everything, it's merely a question of believing.
Believe.
“Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.”
Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice
Source: Pride and Prejudice