Quotes about being

A collection of quotes on the topic of being, human, humanity, doing.

Bob Marley quote: “You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.”

Edgar Allan Poe quote: “And so being young and dipped in folly, I fell in love with melancholy.”

Meryl Streep quote: “The minute you start caring about what other people think, is the minute you stop being yourself.”

Sigmund Freud quote: “Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”

Neil Armstrong quote: “I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges.”

Joseph Chilton Pearce quote: “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

+ 2 quotes

Ricky Gervais quote: “Being on the edge isn’t as safe, but the view is better.”

Marilyn Monroe quote: “I am aware, that I am a woman, and I enjoy being a woman.”

Quotes about being

“Literature is the emotional biography of a human being who has dared to write it.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Interview. Portal.ucm.cl

Literature

“How to be sure that nothing will happen, when you don't always need a reason to become one of those cursed and deceptive beings, those entities thrown from the cradle of God.”

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

God

“Already in his old age, at seventy-five years old, after being seriously hospitalized for a severe heart attack, Javier Pérez would remember that only once in his entire existence had he believed he understood what life was.”

José Baroja book Sueño en Guadalajara y otros cuentos

Life, Heart, Age

“If we focus only on making money, people's knowledge will be reduced until we become experts in our subject, but ignorant about human beings.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: https://www.peruinforma.com/entrevista-cultural-al-escritor-chileno-jose-baroja/

Money, People, Knowledge

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

love, Love, Life, People

“You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Variant: You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice...

Powerful, Strong

“I love pressure. I love being on the edge of a cliff. Yahooi.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2016
Original: (ja) プレッシャー大好き、崖っぷち大好き、ヤッホーイ。
Source: Interview with Shuzo Matsuoka, aired 28 November 2016 in 報道ステーション (Hodo Station) on TV Asahi.

Love

“I don't dislike adversities. What I dislike is myself being weak. I really hate it, but I think being weak means that you have the potential to become strong.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2014
Original: (ja) 逆境は嫌いじゃないので。弱くなってる自分がすごく嫌なんです。それは本当に嫌いですけど、でも弱いというのは強くなれる可能性があると思ってるんで。
Source: Excerpt from a press conference at the NHK Trophy 2014, held on 30 November 2014, aired the same day in ネオスポ (Neospo) on TV Tokyo and 15 December 2014 in News Every on NTV.

Hate, Strong, Thinking

“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect—you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break—her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Variant: You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect — you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break — her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.

love, Love, Smile, Thinking

“Well, I’m being portrayed as the challenger, but I’m always chasing after other skaters’ strengths, and I’m always seeking to challenge other skaters. So, I always see myself as a challenger, and nothing really has changed between this season’s World Championships and last season’s.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Annotation: Hanyu's being asked what difference it makes for him to go into the 2020 World Championships as a challenger after being the considered favorite for the title in recent years.
CBC interview with Scott Russell
Original: (ja) えっと、まあ、チャレンジャーっていうことを言われますけど、でもいつも他のスケーターの良いところを追いかけてるし、他のスケーターに対してチャレンジしたいなって思ってるし、だからいつも自分はチャレンジャーだと思っていて、だから今シーズンの世界選手権でも先シーズンの世界選手権でも何も変わらないかなって思います。

Season, World, Change

“The Barbican - an element of medieval fortifications; a circular defensive structure with loop-holes, in front of the town walls. In Europe this kind of building has been preserved only at Carcassonne (southern France), Zgorzelec (Görlitz), and of course in Cracow. (…) It was at that time, that one of the largest European buildings of this kind came to to exist in Cracow, being nowadays the best preserved example of the medieval barbican.”

Marek Żukow-Karczewski (1961) Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist

The Barbican (Barbakan), "Kraków" Magazyn Kulturalny, Special Edition, 1991, p. 58-59. http://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/sedno-webapp/works/509488

Time

“If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye.

Remember, it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over.

I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so can enjoy life when you are a man.

Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn come to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. "Be Prepared" in this way, to live happy and to die happy - stick to your Scout promise always - even after you have ceased to be a boy - and God help you do it.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Life, God, People, World

“I am more worried about being a good person than being the best football player in the world. When all this is over, what are you left with? ”

Lionel Messi (1987) Argentine association football player

World, Football, Personality

“Being different means you are extraordinary”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

“And so being young and dipped in folly, I fell in love with melancholy.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

Love

“You never know how strong you can be until being strong is the only choice you have left.”

Tupac Shakur book The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Source: The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Strong

“The minute you start caring about what other people think, is the minute you stop being yourself.”

Meryl Streep (1949) American actress

People, Thinking

“What did he mean by "society"? The plural of human beings?”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

Source: No Longer Human

“I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Faith, God, Help

“The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power. My Mother had taught me to seek all truth in the Bible.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

God, Truth

“Education is the result of self-learning, being taught by one or more people. Learning is the key word here. Schools, colleges and universities only divide you into CLASSES according to your level of understanding.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Learning, People, Universe, Education

“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness. Everything passes. That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell. Everything passes.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

The Third Notebook: Part Two
Source: No Longer Human

Truth, Hell, Happiness

“As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn’t matter how, I’ll be alright. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won’t mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

The First Notebook
No Longer Human

“Being human is difficult. Some people make it more difficult than others. I was one of those people.”

Lana Del Rey (1985) American singer-songwriter

Complex (24 January 2012)

People

“Teachers have to be learners. They have to treat each new group of students as a different group, fresh and unknown. Teachers often perceive new students as being the same as those in the previous group and apply the same practice to them. If teachers are learners, they will study the new group of students in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses, then teach them accordingly.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Teacher

Study, Teachers

“I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

God, Idea, Drink, Personality

“I miss the comfort in being sad.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Song lyrics, In Utero (1993)

Sadness

“Remember that this world which you covet so ardently and attempt to acquire so earnestly, and which sometimes annoys you and sometimes pleases you so much, is neither your home nor a permanent destination. You have not been created for it, nor invited to it as your resting-place. It shall neither remain with you for ever, nor will you remain in it eternally. If it has enticed you away with its charrns, it has also warned and cautioned you of real dangers lurking in its folds. Take account of the warnings it has given you and do not be seduced or deceived by its allurements. Let these warnings frighten you from being too greedy to possess it. Try to advance towards the place where you are invited for eternal bliss and turn your face away from the vicious world.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

World, Home

“I didn’t grow up in a man’s man world. I grew up with my mum and my sister. But I definitely think in the last two years, I’ve become a lot more content with who I am. I think there’s so much masculinity in being vulnerable and allowing yourself to be feminine, and I’m very comfortable with that. Growing up you don’t even know what those things mean. You have this idea of what being masculine is and as you grow up and experience more of the world, you become more comfortable with who you are. Today it’s easier to embrace masculinity in so many different things. I definitely find – through music, writing, talking with friends and being open – that some of the times when I feel most confident is when I’m allowing myself to be vulnerable. It’s something that I definitely try and do.”

Harry Styles (1994) English singer, songwriter, and actor

In conversation with Timothée Chalamet for i-D Magazine (2 November 2018) https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/evwwma/harry-styles-interviews-timothee-chalamet-photos

Confidence, Time, Music, Self-confidence

“Today is filled with anger, fueled with hidden hate.
Scared of being outkast, afraid of common fate.
Today is build on tragedies which no one want's to face.
Nightmares to humanity and morally disgraced.
Tonight is filled with Rage, violence in the air.
Children bred with ruthlessness cause no one at home cares.
Tonight I lay my head down but the pressure never stops,
knowing that my sanity content when I'm droped.
But tomorrow I see change, a chance to build a new,
build on spirit intent of heart and ideas based on truth.
Tomorrow I wake with second wind and strong because of pride.
I know I fought with all my heart to keep the dream alive.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Hate, Fate, Children, Truth

“Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg

Love, Life, World, Religion

“I think that truth is the highest value, although it has to be embedded in love. What I mean by that is that truth should serve the highest good imaginable. For me, that is what is best for each individual, in the manner that is simultaneously best for the family, and the state, and nature itself. But you can only want that good if you love Being.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Love, Truth, Family, Imagination

“Serious tweet: we all must learn to be happy with being alone; that is when things begin to change.”

Tyler Joseph (1988) American singer-songwriter and record producer

Learning, Change, Happiness

“I guess living without love, without experiencing it or being able to give it is pretty strong punishment.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Strong, Love, Making love

“So many people have that relationship. The companionship. The connection. To our – to other beings, our pets. I hate to call them pets. But you know, to other creatures that we share our lives with.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Hate, People

“God is the best option to put your trust in, instead of relying on another human being, who cannot even keep their own promises to themselves.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God

“People always said that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Rosa Parks: My Story, p. 116, Rosa Parks and James Haskins (1992)

People

“With all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.”

William of Ockham (1285–1349) medieval philosopher and theologian

Variant: The simplest explanation is usually the right one

“After being hurt by the world so much, they began to see the demons within humans. So without hiding it through trickery, they worked to express it.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

Source: No Longer Human

World, Hurt

“Ere long intelligence—transmitted without wires—will throb through the earth like a pulse through a living organism. The wonder is that, with the present state of knowledge and the experiences gained, no attempt is being made to disturb the electrostatic or magnetic condition of the earth, and transmit, if nothing else, intelligence.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Electrical Engineer, (24 Jun 1892), 11‎, 609.

Intelligence, Knowledge

“But I know for a fact that had I had a father, I'd have some discipline. I'd have more confidence. Your mother cannot calm you down the way a man can. Your mother can't reassure you the way a man can. My mother couldn't show me where my manhood was. You need a man to teach you how to be a man. When I was young I was quiet, withdrawn. I read a lot, wrote poetry, kept a diary. I watched TV all day. I stayed in front of the television. It was when I was in front of the TV by myself, being alone in the house by myself, having to cook dinner by myself, eat by myself. Just being by myself and looking at TV, at families and all these people out there in this pretend world. I knew I could be part of it if I pretended too, So early on I just watched and emulated … and I just thirsted for that. I thought if I could be and act like those characters, act like those people, I could have some of their joy. If I could act like I had a big family I wouldn't feel as lonely.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

People, World, Family, Way

“I was trying to figure out what I’m doing, and that was the first time I was constantly being kicked down for doing that. When I didn’t know, I just wanted to say, ‘This is what I want, this is where I am in my professional life, things changed in my personal life, things changed in my heart — everything.’ And people just thought, ‘Alright, this is what we think.’ And yeah, I made some decisions that weren’t great as well, and so did he and that’s why we went through all that to only make us better. And he has heard [the song] and he has seen the video, and it’s something that I feel like girls need hear, and it’s something I’m willing to share with people.”

Selena Gomez (1992) American singer and actress

Life, People, Feeling, Girl

“The killing was a means to an end. That was the least satisfactory part. I didn't enjoy doing that. That's why I tried to create living zombies with uric acid in the drill [to the head], but it never worked. No, the killing was not the objective. I just wanted to have the person under my complete control, not having to consider their wishes, being able to keep them there as long as I wanted.”

Jeffrey Dahmer (1960–1994) American serial killer, cannibal and necrophile

In an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC (29 November 1994)

Parting, Personality

“I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Variant: being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.
Source: Women

“People whose history and future were threatened each day by extinction considered that it was only by divine intervention that they were able to live at all. I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Life, God, People, History

“By being too sensitive I have wasted my life.”

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) French Decadent and Symbolist poet

Variant: Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.
Source: Selected Poems and Letters

Life

“No human being will ever know the truth, for even if they happened to say it by chance, they would not know they had done so.”

Xenophon (-430–-354 BC) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Truth, Chance

“How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum

Hell, Fight, Money

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd: the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world's existence. All these half-tones of the soul's consciousness create a raw landscape within us, a sun eternally setting on what we are.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Os sentimentos que mais doem, as emoções que mais pungem, são os que são absurdos – a ânsia de coisas impossíveis, precisamente porque são impossíveis, a saudade do que nunca houve, o desejo do que poderia ter sido, a mágoa de não ser outro, a insatisfação da existência do mundo. Todos estes meios tons da consciencia da alma criam em nós uma paisagem dolorida, um eterno sol-pôr do que somos.
The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 196

World, Feeling, Soul, Nostalgia

“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”

Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist

Pierre Curie (1923), as translated by Charlotte Kellogg and Vernon Lyman Kellogg, p. 168

World, Hope, Thinking, Time

“Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

“Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

Source: No Longer Human

Life

“A judgment is being visited upon the Jews that, while barbaric, is fully deserved by them. The prophecy which the Führer made about them for having brought on a new world war is beginning to come true in a most terrible manner. One must not be sentimental in these matters. If we did not fight the Jews, they would destroy us. It's a life-and-death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Dated 27 March 1942
Diary excerpts

Life, Death, War, World

“Life is suffering, and suffering can make you resentful, murderous, and then genocidal, if you take it far enough. So you need an antidote to suffering. And maybe you think that you can build walls of luxury around yourself, and that that will protect you from the suffering. Good luck with that. That isn't going to work. Maybe you think that you could build a delusion and live inside that. Well, that's going to fall apart. What is there, then, that's going to help you fight against suffering? That's easy: It's the Truth. The Truth is the antidote to suffering. The reason for that is because the Truth puts reality behind you, so that you can face the reality that's coming straight at you without becoming weak and degenerating and becoming resentful and wishing for the destruction of Being, because that's the final Hell. The final Hell is your soul wishing for the destruction of everything, because it's too painful, and you're too bitter. And that happens to people all the time.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Life, Pain, People, Truth

“Just as I was starting on my journey the idea came to me for a new symphony, this time with a program, but a program which will remain an enigma to all— let them guess it who can. It will be called "A Programmatic Symphony" (No. 6). During my trip, while composing in my mind, I frequently shed tears. When I got home I settled down to sketch it, and the work went so furiously that I had the first movement completely ready in less than four days and the remaining movements are already clearly outlined in my head. Half the third movement is already done. There will be much innovation of form in this symphony— and incidentally, the finale will not be a noisy allegro but, on the contrary, a long drawn-out adagio. You can't imagine what bliss I feel, being convinced that my time is not yet passed and I can still work. Perhaps, of course, I'm mistaken, but I don't think so.”

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) Russian composer

Letter to a nephew (late February 1893)

Feeling, Home, Imagination, Idea

“In what terms should we think of these beings, nonhuman yet possessing so very many human-like characteristics? How should we treat them? Surely we should treat them with the same consideration and kindness as we show to other humans; and as we recognize human rights, so too should we recognize the rights of the great apes? Yes.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

"Chimpanzees - Bridging the Gap", in Paola Cavalieri, Peter Singer, The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity (1996), p. 14

Thinking

“I think being humble is sexy.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, MTV interview with Tabitha Soren (1995)

Thinking

“I pity people who can't find laughter or at least some bit of amusement in the little doings of the day. I believe I could find something ridiculous even in the saddest moment, if necessary. It has nothing to do with being superficial. It's a matter of joy in life.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

As quoted in Christian Jazz Artists Newsletter (February/March 2005) http://www.songsofdavid.com/CJAFebMarch2005.htm; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote. Disputed

Life, People, Laughter, Joy

“Life isn't about how popular you are… What girl or boy you are dating or who you know.Life is about always being true to who you are or what you believe in. Never let anyone convince you that their way is better than your way. In the end all we have is our hearts… and our minds. This is the reason we sing… this is the reason we cry… this is why we live.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

Life, Way, Girl, Boy

“Being born is a blessing in itself. You have survived, despite all the odds.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“You must be willing to pay the price of being called an “adult”. Stop and reflect upon your life.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life

“In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author

Men, Behavior

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Love, Hate, People

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”

Joseph Conrad book Chance

Source: Chance (1913) part II, Ch. 5

For women, Men

“To be conscious of being poor while praying for riches is to be rewarded with that which you are conscious of being, namely, poverty. Prayers to be successful must be claimed and appropriated. Assume the positive consciousness of the thing desired.”

Neville Goddard (1905–1972) American author and lecturer

Source: Your Faith is Your Fortune

Success

“Whenever I happen to be in a city of any size, I marvel that riots do not break out everyday: Massacres, unspeakable carnage, a doomsday chaos. How can so many human beings coexist in a space so confined without hating each other to death?”

Emil M. Cioran book History and Utopia

History and Utopia (1960)

Death, Hate

“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Letter to Wilhelm Fliess (15 October 1897), as quoted in Origins of Psychoanalysis
1890s

Exercises

“All through my life, I have been tested. My will has been tested, my courage has been tested, my strength has been tested. Now my patience and endurance are being tested.”

Muhammad Ali book The Soul of a Butterfly

The Soul of a Butterfly, 2004
Variant: All through my life I have been tested. My will has been tested, my courage has been tested, my strength has been tested. Now my patience and endurance are being tested.
Source: The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey

Life, Courage, Patience

“All the loving acts that two human beings are capable of, the simple act of holding hands can often become the most intimate. Why is this so? Basically, because the nature of the hands and feet is such that the energy system finds expression in these two parts of the body in a very singular way. Two palms coming together have far more intimacy than the contact between any other parts of the body. You can try this with yourself. You don’t even need a partner. When you put your hands together, the two energy dimensions within you (right-left, masculine-feminine, solar-lunar, yin-yang, etc.) are linked in a certain way, and you begin to experience a sense of unity within yourself. This is the logic of the traditional Indian namaskar. It is a means of harmonizing the system. So, the simplest way to experience a state of union is to try this simple namaskar yoga. Put your hands together, and pay loving attention to any object you use or consume, or any form of life that you encounter. When you bring this sense of awareness into every simple act, your experience of life will never be the same again. There is even a possibility that if you put your hands together, you could unite the world!”

Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Love, Life, World, Way

“Enlightenment is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody you have to be except exactly who you're being right now.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Source: Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1

Understanding

“Take some exercise, try to recover the look of a human being.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Exercises

“Our lives are like the wind… or like sounds.

We come into being, resonate with each other…

Then fade away”

Hayao Miyazaki (1941) Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka

“I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Repudiei sempre que me compreendessem. Ser compreendido é prostituir-se. Prefiro ser tomado a sério como o que não sou, ignorado humanamente, com decência e naturalidade.
Source: The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 128

Nature

“I finally faced the fact that it isn`t a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems.”

Whitney Houston (1963–2012) American singer, actress, model, and record producer

Problem

“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.”

Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) American psychologist

Person to person: The problem of being human: A new trend in psychology (1967)
Source: page 187.

Positive, Life

“I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Color

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 22

Wise, Art

“And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter— they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Feeling, Soul

“Being an actress was kind of like when you’re a kid, and you want to run away and join the circus, it's something you really want to do, but then you grew up and got a proper job. It was a dream, but I didn’t think it would ever be reality, and yet here I am!”

Katie McGrath (1983) Irish actress

She's magic https://web.archive.org/web/20090408064322/http://sundayheraldsalon.com/salon/2008/10/shes_magic.html (April 8, 2009)

Dreams, Thinking, Reality

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Often misattributed to Friedrich Nietzsche. Source: As quoted from “Interview with an Immoral,” Arthur Gordon, Reader’s Digest (July 1959). Reprinted in the Kipling Society journal, “Six Hours with Rudyard Kipling”, Vol. XXXIV. No. 162 (June, 1967) pp. 5-8. Interview took place in June, 1935 https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/pdf/KJ162.pdf Context: Looking back, I think he knew that in my innocence I was eager to love everything and please everybody, and he was trying to warn me not to lose my own identity in the process. Time after time he came back to this theme. " The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

Business

“Being the companion of the folk of this world is fire. There must be an Abraham if the fire is not going to burn”

Shams-i Tabrizi (1185–1248) 1185-1248, spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi.

you
Me & Rumi (2004)

World

“There is no reality but God,
says the completely surrendered sheik, who is an ocean for all beings.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

"The Grasses" in Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 44
Disputed, The Essential Rumi (1995)

God, Reality

“The child is truly a miraculous being, and this should be felt deeply by the educator.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Part II : How Language Calls to the Child, p. 121
The Absorbent Mind (1949)

Education

“It's dangerous & humiliating. The whalers killed whales while green peace watched. Now, you don't walk by a child that is being abused, you don't walk by a kitten that is being kicked to death and do nothing. So I find it abhorrent to sit there and watch a whale being slaughtered and do nothing but "bear witness" as they call it. I think it was best illustrated a few years ago, the contradictions that we have, when a ranger in Zimbabwe shot and killed a poacher that was about to kill a black rhinoceros and uh human rights groups around the world said "how dare you? Take a human life to protect an animal". I think the rangers' answer to that really illustrated a hypocrisy. He said "Ya know, if I lived in, If I was a police officer in Herrari and a man ran out of Bark Place Bank with a bag of money and I shot him in the head in front of everybody and killed him, you'd pin a medal on me and call me a national hero. Why is that bag of paper more valued than the future heritage of this nation?" This is our values. WE fight, WE kill, WE risk our lives for things we believe in… Imagine going into Mecca, walk up to the black stone and spit on it. See how far you get. You’re not going to get very far. You’re going to be torn to pieces. Walk into Jerusalem, walk up to that wailing wall with a pick axe, start whacking away. See how far you’re going to get, somebody is going to put a bullet in your back. And everybody will say you deserved it. Walk into the Vatican with a hammer, start smashing a few statues. See how far you’re going to get. Not very far. But each and every day, ya know, people go into the most beautiful, most profoundly sacred cathedrals of this planet, the rainforests of the Amazonia, the redwood forests of California, the rainforests of Indonesia, and totally desecrate & destroy these cathedrals with bulldozers, chainsaws and how do we respond to that? Oh, we write a few letters and protest; we dress up in animal costumes with picket signs and jump up and down; but if the rainforests of Amazonia and redwoods of California, were as, or had as much value to us as a chunk of old meteorite in Mecca, a decrepit old wall in Jerusalem or a piece of old marble in the Vatican, we would literally rip those pieces limb from limb for the act of blasphemy that we’re committing but we won’t do that because nature is an abstraction, wilderness is an abstraction. It has no value in our anthropocentric world where the only thing we value is that which is created by humans.”

Paul Watson (1950) Canadian environmental activist

Life, Death, Money, People

“To truly know the world, look deeply within your own being; to truly know yourself, take real interest in the world.”

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian esotericist

Verses and Meditations

World

“You cannot love everyone; it is ridiculous to think you can. If you love everyone and everything you lose your natural powers of selection and wind up being a pretty poor judge of character and quality. If anything is used too freely it loses its true meaning. Therefore, the Satanist believes you should love strongly and completely those who deserve your love, but never turn the other cheek to your enemy!”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Love, Nature, Thinking

“Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, "'Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta."”

Diogenes of Sinope (-404–-322 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy

Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 27
Quoted by Diogenes Laërtius

Men, Boy

“When a human being takes his life in depression, this is a natural death of spiritual causes. The modern barbarity of 'saving' the suicidal is based on a hair-raising misapprehension of the nature of existence.”

Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899–1990) Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer, and author

The Last Messiah [Den sidste Messias] (1933)

Life, Death, Nature, Suicide

“The worker in a capitalist state—and that is his deepest misfortune—is no longer a living human being, a creator, a maker. He has become a machine. A number, a cog in the machine without sense or understanding. He is alienated from what he produces.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932).Translated as “Those Damned Nazis: Why a Workers Party? “Those Damn Nazis: Why Are We a Workers’ Party?” https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken, Nazi propaganda pamphlet (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932) 1930s

Understanding, Sense