Quotes about opening
page 2

“I am not dead I sit the sun closes my eyes when I open them I see the face I lost Sethe's is the face that left me Sethe sees me see her and I see the smile her smiling face is the place for me it is the face I lost she is my face smiling at me doing it at last a hot thing now we can join.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved (1987), Ch. 22

Smile, Sun, Dead

“Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

As quoted in The 48 Laws of Power (2000) by Robert Greene, p. 33

Fate

“MUSEUM
They came, they looked, they walked
their eyes wide open
they didn’t see
because their minds were closed

Their eyes wide open
they didn’t know they couldn’t see
because their minds were closed;
so they looked, and left.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

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

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

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

Pain, Way, Feeling, Change

“While the others had got married and moved out to suburbia, I had stayed in London and got into the arts scene through friends like Robert Fraser and Barry Miles and papers like The International Times. We opened the Indica gallery with John Dunbar, Peter Asher and people like that. I heard about people like John Cage, and that he’d just performed a piece of music called 4’33” (which is completely silent) during which if someone in the audience coughed he would say, ‘See?’ Or someone would boo and he’d say, ‘See? It’s not silence—it’s music.’ I was intrigued by all of that. So these things started to be part of my life. I was listening to Stockhausen; one piece was all little plink-plonks and interesting ideas. Perhaps our audience wouldn’t mind a bit of change, we thought, and anyway, tough if they do! We only ever followed our own noses—most of the time, anyway. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was one example of developing an idea.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 212

Life, People, Art, Music

“If you want to become a World Champion you should avoid playing in Open tournaments.”

Anatoly Karpov (1951) Russian chess player

Interview in Chess Life in 2003 quoted on anatolykarpovchessschool http://www.anatolykarpovchessschool.org/home/karpovinterview.html

World

“Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. There is no open violence such as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to match mass standards frequently prevent independent-minded people from giving their contribution to public life. There is a dangerous tendency to form a herd, shutting off successful development.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Harvard University address (1978)

Life, People, Books, Way

“And one his limb transpierced, and one lopped off, should show, it would be nothing to compare with the disgusting mode of the ninth Bolgia. A cask by losing centre-piece or cant was never shattered so, as I saw one rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind. Between his legs were hanging down his entrails; his heart was visible, and the dismal sack that maketh excrement of what is eaten. While I was all absorbed in seeing him, he looked at me, and opened with his hands his bosom, saying: "See now how I rend me; How mutilated, see, is Mahomet; in front of me doth Ali weeping go, cleft in the face from forelock unto chin; and all the others whom thou here beholdest, disseminators of scandal and of schism while living were, and therefore are cleft thus.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXVIII
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Heart

“[Do you have a motto or creed that as an artist you live by? ] Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will — through work — bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great "art idea". And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you'll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you did today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere.”

Chuck Close (1940–2021) American artist

Inside the Painter's Studio, Joe Fig, Princeton Architectural Press, 2009, p. 42

Art, Idea, Sense, Time

“For my part, I love to stand foot to foot with an honest foeman. To open warfare, bold and true hearts raise no objections but the ground of quarrel. It is rather covert enmity which we have most cause to fear and best reason to loathe. That crafty kindness which inveigles me to sacrifice principle is the serpent in the grass -- deadly to the incautious wayfarer.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Baptismal Regeneration (1864) http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0573.htm

Love, Fear, Grass, Heart

“At about the time when the autobiography first appeared I remember reading its opening chapters in the ill-printed pages of some Indian newspaper. They made a good impression on me, which Gandhi himself at that time did not.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Reflections on Gandhi (1949)

Appearance, Time, Reading

“Only two suppositions seem to be open to us — Either each species of crocodile has been specially created, or it has arisen out of some pre-existing form by the operation of natural causes.
Choose your hypothesis; I have chosen mine. I can find no warranty for believing in the distinct creation of a score of successive species of crocodiles in the course of countless ages of time.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1860s, On a Piece of Chalk (1868)

Age, Nature, Time, Success

“Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say, that their word of God came by divine inspiration: and the Turks say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.”

Thomas Paine book The Age of Reason

1790s, The Age of Reason, Part I (1794)

God, Books, Religion, Angels

“Open your doors and look abroad.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

85 The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915) Context: Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence? I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds. Open your doors and look abroad. From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before. In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years.

“You dare not think that you ever might experience your self differently: free instead of cowed; open instead of tactical; loving openly instead of like a thief in the night.”

Wilhelm Reich book Listen, Little Man!

Listen, Little Man! (1948)
Context: "What right do you have to tell me things?" I can see this question in your apprehensive look. I hear this question from your impertinent mouth, Little Man. You are afraid to look at yourself, you are afraid of criticism, Little Man, just as you are afraid of the power they promise you. You would not know how to use this power. You dare not think that you ever might experience your self differently: free instead of cowed; open instead of tactical; loving openly instead of like a thief in the night. You despise yourself Little Man. You say: "Who am I to have an opinion of my own, to determine my own life and to declare the world to be mine?" You are right: Who are you to make a claim to your life?

Love, Thinking, Night

“Remain in wonder if you want mysteries to open up for you.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

The Book of Wisdom
Context: Remain in wonder if you want mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or later end up in a library. They end up with scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers. And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder.

“I will be compelled to show some colonial stratagem which will open the eyes of not only the Victoria Police and inhabitants but also the whole British army”

Ned Kelly (1855–1880) Australian bushranger

Jerilderie Letter (1879)
Context: It will pay Government to give those people who are suffering innocence, justice and liberty. if not I will be compelled to show some colonial stratagem which will open the eyes of not only the Victoria Police and inhabitants but also the whole British army and no doubt they will acknowledge their hounds were barking at the wrong stump.

“But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Suzanne"
Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
Context: And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

Wisdom

“To have ego means to believe in your own strength. And to also be open to other people's views. It is to be open, not closed.”

Barbra Streisand (1942) American singer, actress, writer, film producer, and director

Playboy interview (1977), as quoted in No Glass Slipper : Surviving and Conquering Painful Life Experiences (2006), p. 32
Context: To have ego means to believe in your own strength. And to also be open to other people's views. It is to be open, not closed. So, yes, my ego is big, but it's also very small in some areas. My ego is responsible for my doing what I do — bad or good.

People

“The proper education of the young does not consist in stuffing their heads with a mass of words, sentences, and ideas dragged together out of various authors, but in opening up their understanding to the outer world, so that a living stream may flow from their own minds, just as leaves, flowers, and fruit spring from the bud on a tree.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

World, Education, Spring, Flowers

“The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief. A man who saw clearly and with open eyes and was then living could see how this miracle took place and how the whole of a society could, in a single day, be transformed. In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.”

Ivo Andrič book The Bridge on the Drina

Source: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 22

Life, Men, People, Jealousy

“This is nihilism; or this is truth. He has to push past his boundaries. There is the outline of a body, distinct, separate, its integrity an illusion, a tragic deception, because un seen there is a slit between the legs, and he has to push into it. There is never a real privacy of the body that can coexist withe intercourse: with being entered. The vagina itself is muscled and the muscles have to be pushed apart. The thrusting is persistent invasion. She is opened up, split down the center. She is occupied - physically, internally, in her privacy.”

Andrea Dworkin book Intercourse

Source: Intercourse (1987), Chapter 7, "Occupation/Collaboration"

Truth, Past

“Was there no sword, nothing with which to batter down these walls, this protection, this begetting of children and living behind curtains, and becoming daily more involved and committed, with books and pictures? Better burn one’s life out like Louis, desiring perfection; or like Rhoda leave us, flying past us to the desert; or choose one out of millions and one only like Neville; better be like Susan and love and hate the heat of the sun or the frost-bitten grass; or be like Jinny, honest, an animal. All had their rapture; their common feeling with death; something that stood them in stead. Thus I visited each of my friends in turn, trying, with fumbling fingers, to prise open their locked caskets. I went from one to the other holding my sorrow — no, not my sorrow but the incomprehensible nature of this our life — for their inspection. Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends, I to my own heart, I to seek among phrases and fragments something unbroken — I to whom there is not beauty enough in moon or tree; to whom the touch of one person with another is all, yet who cannot grasp even that, who am so imperfect, so weak, so unspeakably lonely. There I sat.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Bernard, section IX
The Waves (1931)

Love, Life, Death, Hate

“When one door opens, another closes.
this is the eternity's circle,
mistakes belongs to us, but not all,
the fate mapped out for us to follow,
but does not define our choices,
beings of necessity and randomness,
we're rattling over the abyss
in the vicinity of dying stars”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: An ocean of souls

“Learning about our history and diving deep in Enslaved, opened my eyes to a new way of thinking. Playing my character really inspired me – he was an author who had a role in the abolition of slavery and even signed the document.”

Solomon B Taiwo (1990) English actor and author

Impact interview (2020)

Way, History, Thinking, Learning

“Genuine sincerity opens people's hearts, while manipulation causes them to close.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

People, Heart, Sincerity

“One who seeks will find, and for [one who knocks] it will be opened”

Jesus (-7–30 BC) Jewish preacher and religious leader, central figure of Christianity

94
Gnostic Gospels, Gospel of Thomas (c. 2nd century AD manuscript)

“My heart is open to all who choose to enroll for exclusive membership. However, never betray, lie, act selfishly or speak ill of me when I am not present; for it shall be locked and you may never enter again.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1979

Lie, Heart

“Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ!”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Homily of His Holiness John Paul II for the Inauguration of his Pontificate, St. Peter's Square, Vatican City, on Sunday, 22 October 1978. Archived https://web.archive.org/web/20220324025630/https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1978/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19781022_inizio-pontificato.html from the original https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1978/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19781022_inizio-pontificato.html on March 24, 2022. Other Quotes by Pope John Paul II

Christ

“Oh no." I said panic rising in my chest. "No, no, no, Somebody get a can opener. I've got a god in my head!!”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

God

“May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Kiss, Night, Good Night

“What if there's a fire?" Glenna said sweetly, and Cian merely smiled. "Then I guess you'd better open a window, and fly.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Morrigan's Cross

Smile, Flying

“I opened the door and blinked out into the bright hall. I had the impression it wasn't night and it wasn't day, but some lurid third interval that had suddenly slipped between them and would never end.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Night

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Variant: Open your eyes, the Frenchman on the radio used to say, and see what you can with them before they close forever.
Source: All the Light We Cannot See

“We are broken open, or we willfully shed.”

Mark Nepo (1951) American writer

Source: Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

“When we talk of "exploring the mystical," we are not trying to dig into creation, because if you dig into creation, it will only get more complex. It will not bring clarity; it will only bring more complexity. That is why the yogis looked in a different direction. We looked inward. If you look inward, a different dimension opens up. Now instead of things getting more complex, you get to clarity. It is because of this that we say that those who look inward have a third eye. They see things that others cannot see. They have brought a new clarity to life.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Of Mystics & Mistakes

Life

“Open your heart. Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Variant: Someone will come for you, but first you must open your heart...
Source: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Heart

“Open your eyes and then open your eyes again.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

“In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the
cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat
could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

Cats, Dead, Box

“I see again my schoolroom in Vyra, the blue roses of the wallpaper, the open window.… Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Speak, Memory

Source: Speak, Memory

Change

“Nothing determines me from outside, not because nothing acts upon me, but, on the contrary, because I am from the start outside myself and open to the world.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty book Phenomenology of Perception

Source: Phenomenology of Perception

World

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“… how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you?”

Elias Canetti (1905–1994) Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer

Source: Kafka's Other Trial: The Letters to Felice

Fools, Home, Training

“I love the way that each book—any book—is its own journey. You open it, and off you go….”

Sharon Creech (1945) American writer of children's novels

Love, Books, Way

“So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But it also means you have to let them go!”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 153

Life, People

“The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion… open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.”

Orhan Pamuk (1952) Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient

Source: My Name is Red

World, Beauty, Color

“There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in… We should be thankful we cannot see the horrors and degradations lying around our childhood, in cupboards and bookshelves, everywhere.”

Graham Greene book The Power and the Glory

Source: The Power and the Glory

Lying, Future, Childhood

“Love has nothing to do with someone else. It is all about you. It is a way of being. It essentially means you have brought sweetness into your emotion. If a loved one travels to another country, would you still be able to love them? You would. If a loved one passed away, would you still be able to love them? You would. Even if a loved one is not physically with you anymore, you are still capable of being loving. So, what is love then? It is just your own quality. You are only using the other person as a key to open up what is already within you.”

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

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

Love, Way, Travel, Personality

“What she wants to do if she can get the time to do it, is not so much to live in the past as to open it up and get one good look at it".”

Alice Munro book Runaway

Source: Runaway

Time, Past

“Watch out for each other. Love everyone and forgive everyone, including yourself. Forgive your anger. Forgive your guilt. Your shame. Your sadness. Embrace and open up your love, your joy, your truth, and most especially your heart.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Love, Truth, Sadness, Forgiveness

“In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”

Mark Twain book The Innocents Abroad

Source: The Innocents Abroad (1869), Ch. 61.
Context: The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

Understanding

“There are poisons that blind you, and poisons that open your eyes.”

August Strindberg (1849–1912) Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter

“So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!”

Dr. Seuss book One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

Horton Hears a Who! (1954)
Source: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
Context: "This", cried the Mayor, "is your town's darkest hour!
The time for all Whos who have blood that is red
To come to the aid of their country!", he said.
"We've GOT to make noises in greater amounts!
So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!"

“I am a house gutted by fire where only the guilty sometimes sleep before the punishment that devours them hounds them out in the open.”

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

Source: Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Sleep, Housing

“Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to Jabez Bowen https://founders.archives.gov/GEWN-04-04-02-0428 (9 January 1787) 1780s

Money, Fraud

“A second floor window opened, and Kyle stuck his head and shoulders out so he could look down at us. “If you two are finished playing Cowboy and Indian out there, some of us would like to get their beauty sleep.”

I looked at Warren. “You heard ‘um Kemo Sabe. Me go to my little wigwam and get ‘um shut-eye.”

“How come you always get to play the Indian?” whined Warren, deadpan.

“Cause she’s the Indian, white boy,” said Kyle.”

Patricia Briggs book Iron Kissed

Source: Iron Kissed

Beauty, Boy, Sleep

“He opened his arms and she moved into the space they made in the world, and laying her head against his chest she permitted herself the almost unimaginable luxury of grief.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book The Lions of Al-Rassan

Source: The Lions of Al-Rassan

World

“… All the shops have been smashed open. There was a whole bunch of people across the street helping themselves to musical instruments, can you believe that?"

"Yeah," said Rincewind. "… Luters, I expect.”

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

Source: The Light Fantastic

People, Music, Help

“Oh my only friend, my best beloved, the gates are open in my
house—do not pass by like a dream.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Source: Gitanjali: Song Offerings

Dreams, Housing

“Once you had a good excuse, you opened the door to bad excuses.”

Terry Pratchett Thud!

Source: Thud!

“The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"Ars Poetica?"

Housing, Personality

“Reality is harsh. It can be cruel and ugly. Yet no matter how much we grieve over our environment and circumstances nothing will change. What is important is not to be defeated, to forge ahead bravely. If we do this, a path will open before us.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Reality, Change

“I will not be "famous," "great." I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one's self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Source: A Writer's Diary

Change

“I'm open to everything. When you start to criticize the times you live in, your time is over.”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

Time

“Blessings be on this house," Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a witch. It concentrated people's minds on what other things might be on this house.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

People, Housing

“I don't just pray for God to open doors, I also pray for God to close doors.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

God

“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

Source: Waiting and Dating

People

“We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

People, Courage, For Bestfriend

“So she sat on with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality.”

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

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Reality, Change

“Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.”

Carol Shields (1935–2003) American author

Source: The Republic of Love

Books, Reading

“This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.”

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

Love

“Go anywhere you wish, talk to everyone. Ask any questions; you will be given answers. When you want to learn, you will be taught. Use the library. Open any book.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Books, Question, Learning

“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

Source: The Prophecy Answer Book

War, People, Books, World

“Here you discover that so long as books are kept open, then minds can never be closed.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Books

“HOLLY: Are you suggesting I occasionally stray from the rule book?
FOALY: No. I'm suggesting you do not own a copy of the rule book, and if you do, you have certainly never opened it.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox (2008)

Books

“As soon as you concern yourself with the "good" and "bad" of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weakens and defeats you.”

Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) founder of aikido

Source: The Art of Peace (1992)

Heart

“Art like life is an open secret.”

Lawrence Durrell The Alexandria Quartet

Source: The Alexandria Quartet

Life, Secret, Art

“When you were young, and your heart, was an open book. You used to say, live and let live.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

Books, Heart

“The polite thing would be to go back inside, give you privacy when you read it. But, I’m just not that mature.'
'It’s nothing. Fine.' Feeling foolish, Laurel opened the envelope.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Savor the Moment

Feeling, Reading

“Not knowing when the dawn will come
I open every door.”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“I would like to write a Book which would drive men mad, which would be like an open door leading them where they would never have consented to go, in short, a door that opens onto reality.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

Source: Selected Writings

Men, Books, Reality, Madness

“We ask only to be reassured
About the noises in the cellar
And the window that should not have been open”

T.S. Eliot The Family Reunion

Source: The Family Reunion

“… and then, in dreaming, / The clouds methought would open and show riches / Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked / I cried to dream again.”

William Shakespeare The Tempest

Source: The Tempest

Dreams

“When children are loved, they live off trust; their bides and hearts open up to those who respect and love them, who understand and listen to them.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Becoming Human

Love, Children, Understanding, Heart

“The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Flowers, Tree, Light, Summer

“Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart.”

Phil Jackson (1945) basketball player and coach from the United States

Heart, For Team

“A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”

Walter Benjamin book Theses on the Philosophy of History

Source: Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), IX

Angels, History, Past, Future

“I am alone again and I want to be so; alone with the pure sky and open sea.”

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

Sea

“I remained standing in the middle of the room, swaying on my feet as though I had received a blow. I thought of my life and saw what it had been. No one could swim against such a current of mud. I had been a man so horrible that he could have no friend. But wasn't that, I asked myself, because I had always been incapable of wearing a disguise? If all men went through life with unmasked faces, as I had done for half a century, one might be surprised to find how little difference there was between them. But, in fact, no one lives with his face uncovered, no one. Most men ape greatness or nobility. Though they do not know it, they conform to certain fixed types, literary or other. This the saints know, and they hate and despise themselves because they see themselves with unclouded eyes. I should not have been so universally condemned had I not been so defenseless, so open, and so naked.”

Francois Mauriac (1885–1970) French author

Source: Viper's Tangle

Life, Men, Hate, Universe

“Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Happiness, Happy

“A visiting pastor at our church in Plains once told a story about a priest from New Orleans. Father Flanagan’s parish lay in the central part of the city, close to many taverns. One night he was walking down the street and saw a drunk thrown out of a pub. The man landed in the gutter, and Father Flanagan quickly recognized him as one of his parishioners, a fellow named Mike. Father Flanagan shook the dazed man and said, “Mike!” Mike opened his eyes and Father Flanagan said, “You’re in trouble. If there is anything I can do for you, please tell me what it is.ℍ “Well, Father,” Mike replied, “I hope you’ll pray for me.” “Yes,” the priest answered, “I’ll pray for you right now.” He knelt down in the gutter and prayed, “Father, please have mercy on this drunken man.ℍ At this, a startled Mike woke up fully and said, “Father, please don’t tell God I’m drunk.ℍ Sometimes we don’t feel much of a personal relationship between God and ourselves, as though we have a secret life full of failures and sins that God knows nothing about. We want to involve God only when we plan to give thanks or when we’re in trouble and need help. But the rest of our lives, we’d rather keep to ourselves.”

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

Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President

Life, God, Secret, Hope

“He had the kind of real deep tan that rich people spent ages trying to achieve with expensive holidays and bits of tinfoil, when really all you need to do to obtain one is work your arse off in the open air everyday.”

Terry Pratchett book Equal Rites

Source: Equal Rites

People, Age, Holiday

“So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them."

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

Source: Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose and Diary Excerpts

People, Box

“I'm a born entertainer, when I open the fridge and the light comes on, I burst into song.”

Robbie Williams (1974) British singer and entertainer

Light

“Choosing not to read is like closing an open door to paradise”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Reading

“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss… The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

People

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”

Terry Pratchett book Diggers

The Nome Trilogy (1989 - 1990)
Variant: The problem with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and putting things in it.
Source: Diggers (1990)

People, Funny

“Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.”

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

As quoted in Sunbeams : A Book of Quotations (1990) by Sy Safransky, p. 42

Solitude, Patience