Recommended quotes | Quotes of famous people

“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them…. I destroy them.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Love , Way , Understanding , Thinking

“You really are children. You have no idea how power works, or who has it, or what you can actually do with it.”

Orson Scott Card book Stone Tables

Stone Tables (1997)

Children , Idea

“If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.”

Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849) Irish writer

Motivational , Success , Inspirational , Life

“What I cannot create, I do not understand.Know how to solve every problem that has been solved.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

on his blackboard at the time of death in February 1988; from a photo in the Caltech archives http://archives.caltech.edu/pictures/1.10-29.jpg

Understanding

“Changing your ways, changing those surrounding you.
Changing your ways, more than any man can do.
Open your heart, show him the anger and pain, so you heal.
Maybe he's looking for his womanly side, let him feel.”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

Shaking the Tree
Song lyrics, Shaking the Tree (1990)

Pain , Way , Feeling , Change

“I am the me I choose to be.”

Sidney Poitier (1927) American-born Bahamian actor, film director, author, and diplomat

“It is difficult to exaggerate the power of habit.”

Robert Fripp (1946) English guitarist, composer and record producer

Guitar Craft Monograph III: Aphorisms, Oct. 27 1988

“How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d”

Alexander Pope Eloisa to Abelard

Source: Eloisa to Abelard

World , Forgetting , Happiness

“The wise man looks into space and does not regard the small as too little, nor the great as too big, for he knows that, there is no limit to dimensions.”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

“Float with me in the world of ether.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

World

“There's always fear of the unknown where there's mystery.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

McKenna interview (1992)
Context: There's always fear of the unknown where there's mystery. It's possible to achieve a state where you realize the truth of life and fear disappears, and a lot of people have reached that state, but next to none of them are on Earth. There's probably a few.

Fear

“I hate slick and pretty things. I prefer mistakes and accidents. Which is why I like things like cuts and bruises - they're like little flowers. I've always said that if you have a name for something, like 'cut' or 'bruise,' people will automatically be disturbed by it. But when you see the same thing in nature, and you don't know what it is, it can be very beautiful.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

Hate , People , Beauty , Flowers

“Ideas are like fish.
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

Introduction, p. 1
Catching the Big Fish (2006)
Source: Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
Context: Ideas are like fish.
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.
Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They're huge and abstract. And they're very beautiful.

Idea , Fish , Water

“When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Cars , Sleep , Funny

“Prosperity can come through peace alone.”

Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and president of Germany

Context: Prosperity can come through peace alone. The German people are in favor of all possible means to make war impossible. I have seen three wars. A man who has seen three wars never will wish another war. He must be a friend of peace.
But I am not a pacifist. All my impressions of war are so bad that I could be for it only under the sternest necessity — the necessity of fighting Bolshevism or of defending one's country.

Peace