Quotes about inside

A collection of quotes on the topic of inside, likeness, doing, use.

Albert Schweitzer quote: “The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.”

Yoko Ono quote: “You may think I’m small, but I have a universe inside my mind.”

Quotes about inside

“She kept saying “I love you,” every time they finished, every time he lost himself inside her, every time they reached that amazing ecstasy of two bodies that already know each other; But, deep down, she, little by little, had begun to doubt that “eternal love,” that verb so easy to conjugate.”

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

Love, Time

“Man invented clothing to cover the superficial and to discover the inside.”

Andrzej Majewski (1966) Polish writer and photographer

Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)

Clothes

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive. Never surrender.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Variant: Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive. Never surrender.

Life, Death, Loss

“I can’t win. Love is Russian roulette for me. No one loves the real me inside. they're all in love with my fame, my stardom.
I fall in love far too quickly and end up getting hurt all the time. I've got scars all over. But I can't help myself because basically I'm a softie I have this hard, macho shell — which I project on stage but there's a much softer side. too, which melts like butter.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"Rock On Freddie" (1985).

Love, Time, Help, Hurt

“Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Life, Pain, Art, Flowers

“We can only learn and advance with contradictions.
The faithful inside should meet the doubtful. The doubtful should meet the faithful. Human slowly advances and becomes mature when he accepts his contradictions.”

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

Faith, Learning

“Can you imagine how terrible it is when you've got everything and you're still desperately lonely? That is awful beyond words.
I'm so powerful on stage that I seem to have created a monster. When I'm performing I'm an extrovert, yet inside I'm a completely different man.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

As quoted in "Rock On Freddie" (1985).

Imagination

“It's important to remember that we all have magic inside us.”

Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series

“I go through a lot of depression, and I know other people do, too, but I have an outlet that so many people don't. If you have that inside of you and can't get it out, what do you do?”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

People

“My life has made me
Stronger.
I never knew that I had it inside me
to move up from the ashes.
My life is a victory…I am not a victim.
I have been through the worst situations
and
am still here.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life, Victory

“We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized that they were inside us.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

“I have no advice for anybody; except to, you know, be awake enough to see where you are at any given time, and how that is beautiful, and has poetry inside. Even places you hate.”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

Hate, Beauty, Time

“The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.”

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

Variant: The tragedy in a man’s life is what dies inside of him while he lives.

Sad, Life

“I went deep inside myself. I had time to explore my beliefs and because of that I'm stronger.
Bob Marley (March 1981)”

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

Time

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”

Franz Kafka book The Metamorphosis

Source: The Metamorphosis (1915)

Understanding, Sad

“You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

Love

“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

“You'll never know until you try it
You don't have to keep it quiet
And I know it makes you nervous
But I promise you, it's worth it
To show 'em everything you kept inside
Don't hide, don't hide
Too shy to say, but I hope you stay
Don't hide away
Come out and play”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

Come Out and Play (20 November 2018), co-written with Finneas O'Connell.
Singles (2017 - )

Making love, Hope

“One must always be careful of books," said Tessa, "and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: The Infernal Devices, Clockwork Angel (2010), p. 87

Books, Change

“You may think I’m small, but I have a universe inside my mind.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

Thinking, Universe

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

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

Dreams, Heart

“We're all golden sunflowers inside.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

“People say I make strange choices, but they’re not strange for me. My sickness is that I’m fascinated by human behavior, by what’s underneath the surface, by the worlds inside people.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

People, World, Behavior

“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

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter One

Death, Fate, Imagination, Sense

“You can't expect to rule anyone with the memorised laws inside your head, but you must adapt your attitude according to the time in which you are currently living in.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Time, Law

“When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight.”

Jack Welch (1935) American executive: General Electric CEO

Variant: If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.

Change

“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

As quoted in Networking the Kingdom: A Practical Strategy for Maximum Church Growth (1990) by O. J. Bryson, p. 187; this is the earliest source yet found for this attribution.
Disputed

Inspirational, Love

“If you ever leave me again,’ she said, her eyes stinging, ‘I swear to all the gods-‘
Percy had the nerve to laugh. Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside Annabeth.
‘Consider me warned,’ Percy said. ‘I missed you, too.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

God

“The divine is not something high above us. It is in heaven, it is in earth, it is inside us”

Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) founder of aikido

“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Nature, Happiness

“After a year and half Mamu told me if you see anything don’t talk about it. One night I was playing deep in meditation. I smelled something. It was an indescribable scent, something like sandalwood and jasmine. I thought it was the aroma of Ganges but the scent got more powerful. When I opened my eyes, there was Balaji standing right next to me, exactly as he is pictured. My door was locked from inside; nobody was allowed to enter when I did riyaz.”

Bismillah Khan (1916–2006) Indian musician

He said ‘play my son’ but I was sweating. I stopped playing.
Khan used to do riyaz (practice) before the temple of Balaji as advised by his mamu (maternal uncle) who had also told him not talk to any body about anything that might happen. But when he told his mamu about his seeing Balaji, mamu was annoyed and slapped him.
Quote, Power Profiles

Night

“Brooklyn saw me, empty at the news
There's no water inside this swimming pool
Almost over, had enough from you
And I've been praying, I never did before
Understand I'm talking to the walls
I've been praying ever since New York”

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

"Ever Since New York", written by Harry Styles, Mitch Rowland, Jeff Bhasker, Ryan Nasci, Alex Salibian, Tyler Johnson
Lyrics, Harry Styles (2017)

Understanding, Water

“Inside the united and indivisible universal Wholeness, every thought and action we make concerning the part, creates the reaction of the whole towards us. In short, whatever we are doing and in whichever way we are doing it, has a multiple effect on us, from every “corner” of the universal unity. The meaning of universal, indivisible unity creates a new social and ecological awareness, since the social and the nature are structural parts of the whole and every action we take against it, results in a reaction of the whole cosmic creation against us.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos

Nature, Universe, Way, Making love

“The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had become a physical necessity.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Feeling

“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“Since that day, when people have spoken to me of "genius", I have felt the inside pocket to make sure my wallet's still there.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Source: Memoirs

People

“One thing you can't hide - is when you're crippled inside.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Sad, Depressing, Hurtful

“Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

History

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it”

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

“Every once in a while she'll get worked up and cry like that. But that's ok. She's letting her feelings out. The scary thing is not being able to do that. Then your feelings build up and harden and die inside. That's when you're in big trouble.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Feeling, Cry

“I will always carry you, inside, outside, on my fingertips, and at brain edges.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

love

“Have courage and do not fear the assaults of the Devil. Remember this forever; it is a healthy sign if the devil shouts and roars around your conscience, since this shows that he is not inside your will.”

Padre Pio (1887–1968) Italian saint, priest, stigmatist and mystic

Fear, Courage

“When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Variant: When you love someone you let them take care of you.
Source: Handle with Care

Love

“If you want the truth,
I’ll tell you the truth:
Listen to the secret sound,
the real sound,
which is inside you.”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

Truth, Secret

“She's a tear that hangs inside my soul forever”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

Soul, Tear

“Your calling isn’t something that somebody can tell you about. It’s what you feel. It is the thing that gives you juice. The thing that you are supposed to do. And nobody can tell you what that is. You know it inside yourself.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Feeling

“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Soul

“Things outside you are projections of what's inside you, and what's inside you is a projection of what's outside. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you're stepping into the labyrinth inside.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Time

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

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

Dreams

“I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there's somebody nobody knows about”

Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British filmmaker

Feeling

“The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

Life, Death

“I'm nothing,
I'll always be nothing.
I can't even wish to be something.
Aside from that, I've got all the world's dreams inside me.”

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

Não sou nada.
Nunca serei nada.
Não posso querer ser nada.
À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.
Álvaro de Campos (heteronym), Tabacaria ["The Tobacconist's" or "The Tobacco Shop"] (15 January 1928)
Variant translations:
I am nothing.
Never shall be anything.
Cannot will to be anything.
This apart, I have in me all the dreams of the world.
trans. Jonathan Griffin, in Selected Poems (Penguin Books, 1974), p. 111
I am not nothing.
I will never be nothing.
I cannot ever want to be nothing.
Apart from that, I have in me all the dreams of the world.
In Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations (2005), p. 649
I am nothing.
I shall never be anything.
I cannot even wish to be anything.
Apart from this, I have within me all the dreams of the world.
Variant: I am nothing.
I will never be anything.
I cannot wish to be anything.
Bar that, I have in me all the dreams of the world.

World, Dreams

“Sorry, girl. But, you missed out. Well tough luck; that boy's mine now. We are more than just good friends; this is how the story ends. Too bad that you couldn't see; see the man that boy could be. There is more than meets the eye; I see the soul that is inside. He was a boy, she was girl. Can I make it any more obvious? We are in love, haven't you heard? How, we rock each other's world!”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"Sk8er Boi"
Let Go (2002)

Love, World, Soul, Girl

“I have never regarded any man as my superior, either in my life outside or inside prison.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

Nelson Mandela on equaliy, From a letter to General Du Preez, Commissioner of Prisons, Written on Robben Island, Cape Town, South Africa (12 July 1976). Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes 1970s

Life

“She wants to go home, but nobody's home. It's where she lies, broken inside.”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"Nobody's Home" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eLfvdeInFg (2004)

Home

“I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

God, Age, World, Education

“This family has no outsiders. Everyone is an insider.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

"And God Smiles," sermon preached at All Saints Church, Pasadena, California (6 November 2005)
Context: This family has no outsiders. Everyone is an insider. When Jesus said, "I, if I am lifted up, will draw..." Did he say, "I will draw some"? "I will draw some, and tough luck for the others"? He said, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all." All! All! All! – Black, white, yellow; rich, poor; clever, not so clever; beautiful, not so beautiful. All! All! It is radical. All! Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Bush – all! All! All are to be held in this incredible embrace. Gay, lesbian, so-called "straight;" all! All! All are to be held in the incredible embrace of the love that won’t let us go.

Family

“Never discredit your gut instinct. You are not paranoid. Your body can pick up on bad vibrations. If something deep inside of you says something is not right about a person or situation, trust it.”

Ralph Smart

Personality, Bad luck

“Your basic problem is that you don’t yet know yourself inside and simply want to know what’s outside. This will only make you agitated and confused, without serving any purpose.”

Ajahn Maha Bua (1913–2011) monk

Straight from the Heart

Problem, Making love

“I sat brooding intensely on the atrocities perpetrated on Hinduism and its dark and deadly future if left to face Islam outside and Gandhi inside, and (…) decided all of a sudden to take the extreme step against Gandhi.”

Nathuram Godse (1910–1949) Assassin of Mahatma Gandhi

Nathuram Godse: Why I Assassinated Gandhi (1993)

Future

“The sun does not rise from East, nor set to West; it is all inside our minds and within the limits of our planet Earth.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Sun

“The ideas of the sun rises from the East and sets on West will stop, including the idea of day and night, will cease to exist except inside our imaginations.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Imagination, Night, Sun, Idea

“The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself — the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us — that's where it's at.”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

As quoted in Blackthink: My Life as Black Man and White Man https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0688011632 (1970) 1970s

Motivational, Success, Inspirational, Life

“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Way, Thinking, Time

“Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“And she moves among the sparrows. And she floats upon the breeze. She moves among the flowers. She moves something deep inside of me”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Flowers

“Sometimes I feel quite distinctly that what is inside me is not all of me. There is something else, sublime, quite indestructible, some tiny fragment of the Universal spirit. Don't you feel that?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book Cancer Ward

Source: Cancer Ward

Feeling, Universe

“The only thing that stands between you and your wellbeing is a simple fact: you have allowed your thoughts and emotions to take instruction from the outside rather than the inside. On”

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

Variant: The only thing that stands between you and your well-being is a simple fact: you have allowed your thoughts and emotions to take instruction from the outside rather than the inside. On
Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

“Nothing ever happens in the world that does not happen first inside human hearts.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Life Is Worth Living

World, Heart

“We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.”

Tennessee Williams Orpheus Descending

Val ( Act 2, Scene 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=oOhF2S_tsIoC&q=%22We're+all+of+us+sentenced+to+solitary+confinement+inside+our+own+skins+for+life%22&pg=PA33#v=onepage) Orpheus Descending (1957)

Life

“I learned how to stop crying.
I learned how to hide inside of myself.
I learned how to be somebody else.
I learned how to be cold and numb.”

Sherman Alexie book Flight

Source: Flight

Learning, Cry

“I'm not close to people, I am close to myself. I spend a lot of time inside.”

Henry Rollins book Black Coffee Blues

Source: Black Coffee Blues

People, Time

“We are always the same age inside.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

As quoted in The American Treasury, 1455-1955 (1955) edited by Clifton Fadiman, p. 946

Age

“A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

Life, Lying

“Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.”

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter

World, Change

“Like water leaking through a dam," said Piper.
"Yeah," smiled Percy. "We've got a dam hole."
"What?" Piper asked.
"Nothing," he said. "Inside joke.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Smile, Water

“Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.”

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

In his letter to Theo, from The Hague, 21 July 1882, http://www.vggallery.com/letters/245_V-T_218.pdf 1880s, 1882 Context: What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.

Music

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Feeling, Reality, Sense, Freedom

“Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

“I've never been free in my whole life. Inside I've always chased myself. I've become intolerable to myself. I live in a lacerating duality. I'm seemingly free, but I'm a prisoner inside of me.”

Clarice Lispector book A Breath of Life

Source: A Breath of Life

Life

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Truth, Lie

“This life we live nowadays! It's not life, it's stagnation, death-in-life. Look at all these bloody houses, and the meaningless people inside them! Sometimes I think we're all corpses. Just rotting upright.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 5

Life, Death, People, Thinking

“Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Benefit Of Clergy: Some Notes On Salvador Dalí," Dickens, Dali & Others: Studies in Popular Culture (1944) http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/dali/english/e_dali

Life, Lying

“And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren't any other people living in the world.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

People, World, Way, Heart

“We all have an unsuspected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test.”

Isabel Allende (1942) Chilean writer

Source: Island Beneath the Sea

For women, Hope, Positive, Life

“I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“Without patience, magic would be undiscovered - in rushing everything, we would never hear its whisper inside.”

Tamora Pierce book Sandry's Book

Source: Sandry's Book

Patience

“Everyone thinks you're so strong and self-confident, but inside you're a frightened child, waiting to suffer betrayal again from those who should love you most.”

Christina Dodd (1957) American writer

Source: A Well Pleasured Lady

Love, Confidence, Thinking, Strong

“[Ibn Battuta’s description of the preparation of samosa would make one’s mouth water even today:] “Minced meat cooked with almond, walnut, pistachios, onion and spices placed inside a thin bread and fried in ghee.””

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1
Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

Water, Cooking

“Most of the employees were the hard-boiled, Americanized, go-getting type to whom nothing in the world is sacred, except money. They had their cynical code worked out. The public are swine; advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill-bucket. And yet beneath their cynicism there was the final naivete, the blind worship of the money-god.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 3

Money, God, World, Swine

“Oh dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Socrates' prayer, Phaedrus, 279
Plato, Phaedrus

God, Beauty

“… exclude the need for appearances: what counts is not appearances; the value of life does not depend on the approval of others or on success, but on what we have inside us.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

As quoted in "Imposition of the Ashes - Homily of pope Francis" at www.vatican.va (5 March 2014) http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/homilies/2014/documents/papa-francesco_20140305_omelia-ceneri_en.html 2010s, 2014

Life, Appearance, Success, Dependency