Quotes about use page 12
“Little things comfort us because little things distress us.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher
Source: Pensées and Other Writings
Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
As cited in The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (2007), Alan Greenspan, Penguin Press, Chapter 4 (Private Citizen), p. 87 : ISBN 15942 01315
1980s
“Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.”
Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist
New York Times (July 28, 1976).
“I used to think it was mere homesickness, then I started getting it at home.”
John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
“maybe death
isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us”
Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer
Source: Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays
Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes
Clary and Jace, pg. 137
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Variant: Just as iron rusts from disuse... even so does inaction spoil the intellect.
“When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
“God put us here on this carnival ride, we close our eyes never knowing where it will take us next.”
Carrie Underwood (1983) American country music singer
From the booklet of Carnival Ride.
Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994)
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
“It's strange how pain marks our faces, and makes us look like family.”
Stephen King book The Green Mile
Source: The Green Mile
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Source: The Gay Science
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Said to portrait painter Samuel Johnson Woolf, cited in Here am I (1941), Samuel Johnson Woolf; this has often been abbreviated: Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.
Context: A critic never made or killed a book or a play. The people themselves are the final judges. It is their opinion that counts. After all, the final test is truth. But the trouble is that most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession and therefore are most economical in its use.
Hubert Selby Jr. book Last Exit to Brooklyn
Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964)
“When He tells us to love our enemies He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”
Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer
Source: The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom
Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac
“Arizona and New Mexico: Thinking Like a Mountain”, p. 133. <br class="br">This is a paraphrase of Thoreau: see explanation by the Walden Woods project http://www.walden.org/Library/Quotations/The_Henry_D._Thoreau_Mis-Quotation_Page). <br class="br">Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Arizona and New Mexico: On Top," & "Arizona and New Mexico: Thinking Like a Mountain"
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist
Our Eternity, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“If you aren't rich you should always look useful.”
Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night
Source: Journey to the End of the Night (1932)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
No known source; also attributed to Susan Sarandon.[citation needed]
Disputed
“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.”
Thomas Paine book The Age of Reason
1790s
Source: The Age of Reason
“Yet one thing secures us what ever betide, the scriptures assures us that the Lord will provide.”
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics
“Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.”
Mark Twain book Life on the Mississippi
Source: Life on the Mississippi
“If we train our conscience, it kisses us while it hurts”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
“You young people never say anything. And us old folks don't know how to stop talking.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
Attributions in an "Oration upon the Death of General Washington, Delivered at the Request of the Corporation of the City of New York On the 31st of December, 1799", by Gouverneur Morris. Though these words, supposedly given at the opening of the Constitutional Convention, were not recorded in James Madison's summary of the events of 25 May 1787, George Bancroft accepted them as genuine (History of the United States of America, volume VI, Book III, Chapter I). Henry Cabot Lodge however gave cogent reasons for rejecting them (George Washington, Volume II, Chapter I). The attribution to Washington was so widely accepted that it was engraved above the Fifteenth Street entrance to the Department of Commerce Bldg. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015060022434;view=1up;seq=48 in Washington, D.C., on the arch in Washington Square Park in New York City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Square_Arch and on a bronze plaque above the Eighteenth Street doorway to Constitution Hall http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015060022434;view=1up;seq=50. <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Context: Americans! let the opinion then delivered by the greatest and best of men, be ever present to your remembrance. He was collected within himself. His countenance had more than usual solemnity; his, eye was fixed, and seemed to look into futurity. "It is (said he) too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God." This was the patriot voice of Washington; and this the constant tenor of his conduct. With this deep sense of duty, he gave to our Constitution his cordial assent; and has added the fame of a legislator to that of a hero.
“Time stays long enough for those who use it.”
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
“Why is it only in darkness that we remember what sustained us even in the light?”
Francine Rivers book A Voice in the Wind
Source: A Voice in the Wind
“Some of us learn from other people’s mistakes and the rest of us have to be other people.”
Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
“Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of this scene”
Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
“99.99 percent of all species that have ever lived are no longer with us.”
Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything
Source: A Short History of Nearly Everything
“We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us.”
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
Speech at Founding Rally http://www.panafricanperspective.com/mxoaaufounding.html of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (28 June 1964) <br class="br">Context: We are African, and we happened to be in America. We're not American. We are people who formerly were Africans who were kidnapped and brought to America. Our forefathers weren't the Pilgrims. We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us. We were brought here against our will. We were not brought here to be made citizens. We were not brought here to enjoy the constitutional gifts that they speak so beautifully about today.
“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.”
Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest
Miss Prism, Act II
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Source: La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind) (2001)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: Sceptical Essays
“it is strange how the dead leap out on us at street corners, or in dreams”
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer
Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta
Source: Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle
“Use your head; cut off theirs.”
Max Brooks book The Zombie Survival Guide
Source: The Zombie Survival Guide
“A book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Variant: Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Variant: Nothing will surprise us more than when we get to heaven and see the Father and realize how well we know Him and how familiar His face is to us.
“Using no way as way; Having no limitation as limitation.”
Bruce Lee book Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Variant: Using no way as way; Having no limitation as limitation.
Source: Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Source: The Warrior Within : The Philosophies of Bruce Lee (1996), p. 112, "To further emphasize this principle [of transcending all styles and forms], Lee placed Chinese characters around the circumference of his jeet kune do emblem that read"
“Every impulse we strangle will only poison us.”
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views.”
George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin
Source: Letters Of George Sand
Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Magic Bleeds
“Seeing things a human shouldn't have to see makes us human.”
Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time
Source: Thief of Time