“But there were worse things than being left.”
Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight
Source: Lady Midnight
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Quotes
“There are more old drunks than there are old doctors.”
Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.
“Better to love and fear than feel nothing”
Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire
Source: City of Heavenly Fire
“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Attributed in Mohammed Sirajul Islam (1967), Everyman's General Knowledge
In fact this is a Chinese saying by a Confucian scholar from the Ming Dynasty, 焦竑 (Jiao Hong) (1540—1620)《玉堂丛语》卷五: 宁为有瑕玉,不作无瑕石。
Misattributed, Chinese
“O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!”
John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet
Letter to Benjamin Bailey (November 22, 1817)
Letters (1817–1820)
Source: Letters of John Keats
“Imagining something is better than remembering something.”
John Irving book The World According to Garp
Source: The World According to Garp]] (1978)
“The impossible is more believable than the highly improbable.”
Louis Sachar (1954) American writer of children's books
Source: The Cardturner: A Novel about a King, a Queen, and a Joker
“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet
Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850)
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers, — it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small. Let us believe it, then, once for all, that there is no hope for us in these smooth pleasing writers that know their powers.
“Be self aware, rather than a repetitious robot”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
“A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.”
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer
Quoted in "Vidal: 'I'm at the Top of a Very Tiny Heap,'" profile by Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times (12 March 1981), Late City Final Edition, Section C, Page 17, Column 1.
1980s
“The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.”
William Blake Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 44
Source: Songs of Innocence and of Experience
“Bitterness is repaid more often than kindness.”
Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings
Source: The Way of Kings
“Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.”
Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998) journalist from the United States
"Travels with Myself and Another: A Memoir" (1978) by Martha Gellhorn.
Source: Travels With Myself and Another
“It's easier to ask forgiveness than to beg for permission.”
Lora Leigh (1965) American writer
Source: Lion's Heat
