Quotes about other
page 59

“Tsze-Kung asked, “Is there one word with which to act in accordance throughout a lifetime?” The Master said, “Is not reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Analects

“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

Waiting, For Friend

“If you zoom close-if you get really close to someone, if you really get close to yourself-then you lose the other person, you lose yourself entirely. You get so close you can't see anything anymore.”

David Levithan book Every You, Every Me

Source: Every You, Every Me

Personality

“Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had an agreement not to lie to each other.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Lie

“Someday, we’ll run into each other again, I know it.
Maybe I’ll be older and smarter and just plain better. If that happens,
that’s when I’ll deserve you. But now, at this moment, you can’t hook
your boat to mine, because I’m liable to sink us both.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

“Theres this other half of him i dont know of, its like he is trying it keep it a secret…. if he would just let me inside so i can help”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Secret, Help

“Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world's problems?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985-1995: An Exhibition Catalogue

World, Problem, Peaceful

“Furthermore, worrying about people and problems doesn't help. It doesn't solve problems, it doesn't help other people, and it doesn't help us. It is wasted energy.”

Melody Beattie (1948) American writer

Source: Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

People, Problem, Help

“Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

People, World, Sense

“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Source: Mansfield Park

“There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Happiness, Smile, Music, Light

“But a man is not forgotten, as long as there are two people left under the sky. One, to tell the story; the other, to hear it.”

Diana Gabaldon book Drums of Autumn

Source: Drums of Autumn

People

“Only parts of us will ever touch only parts of others.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Parting

“The message of "The Winner Takes It All" is straightforward: It argues that the concept of relationships ending on mutual terms is an emotional fallacy. One person is inevitably okay and the other is inevitably devastated.”

Chuck Klosterman Eating the Dinosaur

Source: Eating the Dinosaur

Personality

“Alice wonders if other women in the middle of the night have begun to resent their Formica.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

Women, Night

“Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window, and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22 (1961)
Context: Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably.... It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.

Secret

“You can only control your own actions. Not other people’s reactions.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Something Blue

People

“It is in our relations with other people that we gain a sense of ourselves; it's that, pretty much, that makes relations with other people unbearable.”

Michel Houellebecq book Platform

Source: Platform

People, Sense

“Finding your passion isn't just about careers and money. It's about finding your authentic self. The one you've buried beneath other people's needs.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Distant Shores

Money, People, Passion

“I just won't sleep," I decided. There were so many other interesting things to do.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Sleep

“The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.”

Iris Murdoch book The Red and the Green

Source: The Red and the Green

Heart

“A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

“Ahenny (adj.) - The way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves.”

Douglas Adams book The Meaning of Liff

Source: The Deeper Meaning of Liff

People, Way

“The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other,… but to beeach other.”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

“Dudes," He said, "Do not follow other dudes to the bathroom."

Isabelle sighed. "Latent homosexual panic will do you in every time”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Time

“I really believe there are some people who hate to contemplate the happiness of others.”

Eleanor Hibbert (1906–1993) English novelist

Source: Victoria Victorious: The Story of Queen Victoria

Hate, Happiness, People

“Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves.”

Stephen Kendrick book The Love Dare

Source: The Love Dare

Hate, People, Motivation, Selfishness

“I'm sorry," he says. "I don't usually like people. So when I do, part of me is really amused and the other part refuses to believe it's happening.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

People, Parting

“The grandiose person is never really free; first because he is excessively dependent on admiration from others, and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Dependency, Personality

“the price of creation
is never
too high.

the price of living
with other people
always
is.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

People

“How strange to have the power to literally transform yourself into other people, and yet be so unable to put yourself in their place.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

People

“Don't argue for other people's weaknesses. Don't argue for your own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn from it / immediately.”

Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker

People, Learning

“We weren’t ourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves – surprise! – we were poison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest possible way.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Love, Way

“If you don't want to be in an argument with someone, it is probably best to try to solve the problem, rather than lying around hoping the other person will do it for you.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them

Hope, Lying, Problem, Personality

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Courage, Courageous

“We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel, and looked at each other for the last time.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Love, Time

“In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

Fear, Communication, Light, Past

“When we don’t forgive, we’re not hurting the other person. We’re not hurting the company that did us wrong. We’re not hurting God. We’re only hurting ourselves.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

God, Forgiveness, Hurt, Personality

“When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you got two new people. Maybe that means — hell, it's complicated.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), unplaced by chapter

People, Hell, Change

“we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Life, Death, Thinking

“I was the green monkey, the pariah. And I had no friends. Not just a few friends, or one good friend, or grudging acceptance by other misfits and outcasts. I was alone. All stinking alone, without even an imaginary playmate.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

“When we are set free from the bondage of pleasing others, when we are free from currying others'approval-then no one will be able to make us miserable or dissatisfied. And then, if we know we have pleased God, contentment will be our consolation.”

Kay Arthur (1933) International Bible teacher/four-time ECPA Christian Book Award winning author

God

“Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Love, Personality

“When you know that everything matters—that every move counts as much as any other—you will begin living a life of permanent purpose.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Life

“There was a pause, static, a muttered "Give me that," by an indignant female. Then the normally quiet reserved Ashlyn was demanding, "Did you just drunk dial my husband?"
"Yes, ma'am," Strider said, and the other two finally burst into laughter.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Secret

Laughter

“She is no longer a person in his life; instead, she is a person that other people will remind him of.”

David Levithan book Are We There Yet?

Source: Are We There Yet?

Life, People, Personality

“I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God's business.”

Eugene H. Peterson (1932–2018) American translator

Source: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society

Life, God, Business

“My friend Terry says that when you need to make a decision, in your work or otherwise, and you don’t know what to do, just do one thing or the other, because the worst that can happen is that you will have made a terrible mistake.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Decision

“The other day I was playing Scrabble. I saw that I could close the space in D-E- -Y. I had an N and an F. Which do you think I chose? What was the word I made?”

Amy Hempel (1951) Short story writer

Source: The Collected Stories

Thinking

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Men, Hope, Thinking

“The war which is coming
Is not the first one. There were
Other wars before it.
When the last one came to an end
There were conquerors and conquered.
Among the conquered the common people
Starved. Among the conquerors
The common people starved too.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

Source: Poems 1913-1956

War, People

“The entire point of life is to find ways to get others to do your work for you. Don’t you know anything about basic economics?”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Life, Way

“Sitting with her on Sunday evening — a wet Sunday evening — the very time of all others when if a friend is at hand the heart must be opened, and every thing told…”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Source: Mansfield Park

Time, Heart

“And yet you are all that you have, so you must be enough. There is no other way.”

Marya Hornbacher book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Way

“Perhaps," said the man, "you would like to be lost with us. I have found it much more agreeable to be lost in the company of others.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Source: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

“Just because things don't work out, it doesn't mean there aren't other people you can't love. Love is too big a thing for you to go without it in life.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Heat

Love, Life, People

“The ocean was the best place, of course. That was what she loved most. It was a feeling of freedom like no other, and yet a feeling of communion with all the other places and creatures the water touched.”

Ann Brashares (1967) American children's writer

Love, Feeling, Freedom, Water

“Fire can warm or consume,
water can quench or drown,
wind can caress or cut.

And so it is with human relationshps;
we can both create and destroy,
nurture and terrorize,
traumatize and heal each other”

Bruce D. Perry (1955) American psychiatrist

Water

“On the other side of pain, there is still love.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Love, Pain

“Even those who do not, or cannot, avail themselves of a scientific education, choose to benefit from the technology that is made possible by the scientific education of others.”

Richard Dawkins book A Devil's Chaplain

Source: A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love

Education

“I understand that love and tragedy go hand in hand, for there can’t be one without the other, but nonetheless I find myself wondering whether the trade-off is fair.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Ira Levinson, Chapter 17, p. 237
Source: 2009, The Longest Ride (2013)
Context: My marriage brought great happiness into my life, but lately there's been nothing but sadness. I understand that love and tragedy go hand in hand, for there can't be one without the other, but nonetheless I find myself wondering whether the tradeoff is fair. A man should die as he had lived, I think; in his final moments, he should be surrounded and comforted by those he's always loved.

Love, Understanding

“Sometimes a crumb falls
From the tables of joy,
Sometimes a bone
Is flung.

To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only heaven.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Love, People, Joy

“Some cynical Frenchman has said that there are two parties to a love-transaction: the one who loves and the other who condescends to be so treated.”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Vol. I, ch. 13.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

Love

“The Writer's Oath

I promise solemnly:

1. to write as often and as much as I can,

2. to respect my writing self, and

3. to nurture the writing of others.

I accept these responsibilities and shall honor them always.”

Gail Carson Levine (1947) American writer

Source: Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly

“No artist is ahead of his time. He is the time. It is just that others are behind the time.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

Time

“The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. The many other things we 'give' are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

God, Personality

“He knows that the only way he can accept losing her is if he can continue to hold her or be held by her. If they can somehow nurse each other out of this. Not with a wall.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Way

“No such thing as a hard woman, Memphis, just soft men. With that, I turned, and the others followed me.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Skin Trade

Source: Skin Trade

Men

“Forgiveness is the best part of valor… Discretion is easy. It's finding the courage to forgive yourself and others that is hard. [Acheron]”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

Forgiveness, Courage, Parting

“The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Source: History of Woman Suffrage, Volumes I-III

People, Soul

“Thus we use our supposed "knowledge" of others to speak on their behalf, and condemn them for their words we ourselves put in their silent mouths.”

Margaret George (1943) American writer

Source: The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers

Knowledge

“It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Quoted by Gerard Irvine, "Antipanegyric for Tom Driberg," [memorial service for Driberg] (8 December 1976)
1970s
Variant: It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.