Quotes about being

page 8

“If you have not done things worthy of being written about, at least write things worthy of being read.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

“It was much pleasanter at home," thought poor Alice, "when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down the rabbit-hole--and yet--and yet--…”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

“I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

“Memory is the happiness of being alone.”

Lois Lowry book Anastasia Krupnik

“Choking with dry tears and raging, raging, raging at the absolute indifference of nature and the world to the death of love, the death of hope and the death of beauty, I remember sitting on the end of my bed, collecting these pills and capsules together and wondering why, why when I felt I had so much to offer, so much love, such outpourings of love and energy to spend on the world, I was incapable of being offered love, giving it or summoning the energy with which I knew I could transform myself and everything around me.”

Stephen Fry book Moab Is My Washpot

“Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

“Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, but by people being fundamentally people.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“the worst part about being lied to is knowing you werent worth the truth”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“Ah! The anguish, the vile rage, the despair
Of not being able to express
With a shout, an extreme and bitter shout,
The bleeding of my heart.”

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

“I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature..”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

“When I look at small things, I think I shall go on living: drops of rain, leather gloves shrunk by being wet… When I look at something too big, I want to die: the Diet Building, or a map of the world…”

Kóbó Abe book The Box Man

“Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to.”

Sogyal Rinpoche (1947–2019) Tibetan Dzogchen lama of the Nyingma tradition

“Don't worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

“Hell is being alone.”

Barry Lyga (1971) American writer

“Keep on being yourself.”

Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director

“I love making, I love doing. I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart.”

John Fowles book The Collector

“If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

“The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being.”

Tom Robbins book Jitterbug Perfume

“If I say you're a goatherd's son, you say, 'Yes, Lord Ralon.'"
Alanna gasped with fury. "I'd as soon kiss a pig! Is that what you've been doing-kissing pigs? Or being kissed?”

Tamora Pierce book Alanna: The First Adventure

“The brave man is not the one without fear but the one who does what he must despite being afraid. To succeed, you must be willing to risk total failure; you must learn this.”

Raymond E. Feist book The King's Buccaneer

“But because truly being here is so much; because everything here apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

“As much as I live I shall not imitate them or hate myself for being different to them”

Orhan Pamuk book Snow

“The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents — because they have a tame child-creature in their house.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

“Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once.”

Stephen King book The Long Walk

“That is the principal thing-not to remain with the dream, with the intention, with the being-in-the-mood, but always forcibly to convert it all into things.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

“Fame or infamy, either one is preferable to being forgotten when you have passed from this realm.”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

“Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

“don't treat me like a child."
He smiled. "Of course I do, but you seem to have this ridiculous notion that being treated like a child means to be treated with less respect than an adult.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

“This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some--perhaps many--may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

“And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Never met such a Gorgon… I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

“In today's rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

“I am afraid that woman appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

“You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

“Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“Obey the principles without being bound by them.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

“What do you think? I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

“You would be amazed how many magicians have died after being bitten by mad rabbits. It's far more common than you might think.
-Angela the Herbalist”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

“In mystical traditions, it is one's own readiness that makes experiences exoteric or esoteric.
The secret isn't that you're not being told.
The secret is that you're not able to hear.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

“Not being tense but ready.
Not thinking but not dreaming.
Not being set but flexible.
Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement.
It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.”

Bruce Lee book Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“Every intelligent being, whether it breathes or not, coughs nervously at some time in its life.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“Sometimes being a good friend means saying nothing.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

“The human being is not the lord of beings, but the shepherd of Being.”

Martin Heidegger Letter on Humanism

“We all have two lives: The true, the one we dreamed of in childhood And go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin.”

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

“People work too hard to figure out the meaning of their lives. Why me, why now. The truth is, sometimes things don't happen to you for a reason. Sometimes it's just about being in the right place at the right time for someone else.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

“Yeah, I love being famous. It's almost like being white, y'know?”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

“Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a PROFOUND tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

“Being open to correction means making ourselves vulnerable, and many people are not willing to do that.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

“The educator has the duty of not being neutral.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

“… there are two ways of being unhappy. Not getting what you want is one. Getting what you want is the other.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

“The secret to life is to enjoy the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“The greatest discovery of any generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering the attitudes of their minds.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

“Doing anything when you're bored is veryboring. Anyway, isof being bored. Theof being bored isand”

Aidan Chambers (1934) British children's writer

“If you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“One has only to set a loved human being against the fact that we are all in peril all the time to get back a sense of proportion. What does anything matter compared to the reality of love and its span, so brief at best, maintained against such odds?”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

“true weanedness from the world don't consist in being beat off from the world by the affliction of it, but a being drawn off by the sight of something better.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

“Jesus tells us to keep our eyes open so we are not fooled by the signs indicating that the End Times are near. As we get closer to the End Times, many people are going to claim to be the Messiah and claim to have the answers for a troubled world. Additionally, the book of Revelation tells us to expect a period of ceaseless, unending, terrible war. It appears that we are already preparing for this time as fifty percent of all research scientists today are involved in arms development and there is at least one military weapon and four thousand pounds of explosives for every man, woman, and child on earth. Finally, there will be more and more disease and devastation. Today, as you read this, millions of people in the world are being afflicted by insufficient food, the spread of new diseases, and the devastating effects of natural disasters. As we get closer to the End Times, there will be more and more famine. There will also be an increase in earthquakes and natural disasters. Christ also spoke of pestilence: the spread of new diseases. Our world will experience a spate of tragic new diseases that we will be unable to control.”

David Jeremiah

“Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up; if not, I'll stay down here till I'm someone else.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“What is the seal of liberation? — No longer being ashamed in front of oneself.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.”

Laurens van der Post (1906–1996) South African writer

“Maybe the only significant difference between a really smart simulation and a human being was the noise they made when you punched them.”

Terry Pratchett The Long Earth

“Sometimes love isn't about being smart. Sometimes it's about being stupid together.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Affliction

“Men don't think and differently from women - they just make more noise about being able to.”

Tamora Pierce The Woman Who Rides Like a Man

“Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

“Hearts Live By Being Wounded”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Perhaps the crescent moon smiles in doubt
at being told that it is a fragment
awaiting perfection.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

“If Shakespeare had never existed, he asked, would the world have differed much from what it is today? Does the progress of civilization depend upon great men? Is the lot of the average human being better now that in the time of the Pharaohs?”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

“You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism, don't you?”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“If we give what we treasure most to a Being we love with all our hearts, if we can do that without expecting anything in return, then the world becomes a beautiful place.”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

“They don't have intelligence. They have what I call 'thintelligence.' They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it 'being focused.' They don't see the surround. They don't see the consequences.”

Michael Crichton book Jurassic Park

“a samurai is a total human being, whereas a man who is completely absorbed in his technical skill has degenerated into a ‘function’, one cog in a machine.”

Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) Japanese author

“What's worse? Being strung out or being fat?”

Nikki Sixx (1958) American musician

“When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.”

Michael Ende book The Neverending Story

“The artist stands on the human being as a statue does on a pedestal.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

“Being a detective isn't all about torture and murder and monsters. Sometimes it gets truly unpleasant… The fate of the world may depend on whether or not you can bring yourself to visit your relatives.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

“The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

“It is a better world. A place where we ate responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and becauseit is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.”

Christopher Paolini book Eldest

“Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Dear to me is sleep: still more, being made of stone,
While pain and guilt still linger here below,
Blindness and numbness--these please me alone;
Then do not wake me, keep your voices low.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

“All thought of something is at the same time self-consciousness […] At the root of all our experiences and all our reflections, we find […] a being which immediately recognises itself, […] and which knows its own existence, not by observation and as a given fact, nor by inference from any idea of itself, but through direct contact with that existence. Self-consciousness is the very being of mind in action.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty book Phenomenology of Perception

“I know there’s evil in the world, and there always has been. But you don’t need to believe in Satan or demons to explain it. Human beings are perfectly capable of evil all by themselves.”

Tess Gerritsen book The Mephisto Club

“Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back.”

Eve Ensler (1953) American playwright, performer, feminist, activist and artist

“Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.”

B.F. Skinner Walden Two

“Mindfulness should guide all your actions and your spiritual endeavors. Whatever you do, always apply three essential points: undertake the action with the intention of doing so for the good of all beings; execute it with perfect concentration, free of attachment to concepts of subject, object, and action; and, finally, dedicate the merit you have created to the enlightenment of all beings.”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

“They call you heartless; but you have a heart and I love you for being ashamed to show it.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.”

Walter Kirn (1962) American novelist

“I manage because I have to. Because I've no other way out. Because I've overcome the vanity and pride of being different, I've understood that they are a pitiful defense against being different. Because I've understood that the sun shines differently when something changes. The sun shines differently, but it will continue to shine, and jumping at it with a hoe isn't going to do anything.”

Andrzej Sapkowski book The Last Wish

“Believe something and the Universe is on its way to being changed. Because you've changed, by believing. Once you've changed, other things start to follow. Isn't that the way it works?”

Diane Duane book So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Many of us lead family lives. At most, the members of a family stay together for the duration of a lifetime, often much less. While that fleeting moment of being together still lasts, we should try to remain in perfect harmony with each other, while observing the Dharma as much as possible. Night and day, let us turn our minds toward goodness, love, and compassion.”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

“It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.”

Bruce Lee book Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“The highest point at which human life and art meet is in the ordinary. To look down on the ordinary is to despise what you can't have. Show me a man who fears being ordinary, and I'll show you a man who is not yet a man.”

Yukio Mishima book Thirst for Love

“In any case life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows.”

Virginia Woolf book Jacob's Room

“The time is a critical one, for it marks the beginning of the second half of life, when a metanoia, a mental transformation, not infrequently occurs.

(on being 36 yrs old)”

C.G. Jung book Symbols of Transformation

“Having kids — the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings — is the biggest job anyone can embark on”

Maria Shriver (1955) journalist and author from the United States

“Pleasures may turn a heart to stone, riches may make it callous, but sorrows cannot break it. Hearts live by being wounded.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet