Quotes
You can write the name of a quote, author or book among thousands of quotes.
The Gambler
"A gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far beneath a gentleman that it is hardly worth troubling about."
The Trials Of Socrates
"Absolute greatness will never be great and also small, but that greatness in us or in the concrete will never admit the small or admit of even being exceeded; instead of this, one of two things will happen—either the greater will fly and retire before the opposite, which is the less, or the advance of the less will cease to exist; but will not, if allowing or admitting smallness, be changed by that...nor can any other opposite which remains the same ever be or become its own opposite, but either passes away or perishes in the change."
Book IV
"Choose not to be harmed—and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed—and you haven't been. "
Metamorphosis and Other Stories
""Gregor, despite his current sad and revolting form, was a family member who could not be treated as an enemy.""
Book IV
"Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions. "
Modern Man in Search of a Soul
"The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it."
Republic
"“Is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?”"
Autumn Leaves
"In hell there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime."
The Gambler
"Is it really not possible to touch the gaming table without being instantly infected by superstition?"
The Culture Consumers
"The Law of Raspberry Jam: the wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets."
Julius Caesar
"Cry 'Havoc!,' and let slip the dogs of war."
The Art Of War
"The greatest victory is that which requires no battle."
The Art Of War
"A leader leads by example, not by force."
Man's Search For Meaning
"To be sure, man's search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how"
If it Die
"When I think over the past, I am like a person whose eyes cannot properly measure distances and is liable to think things extremely remote which on examination prove to be quite near."
Man and Superman
"Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny. They have only shifted it to another shoulder."
The Gambler
"And now once again I asked myself the question: do I love her? And once more I could not answer, that is to say, again, for the hundreth time, I answered that I hated her."
Ecce Homo
"After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands."
Don Quixote
"Virtue is persecuted by the wicked more than it is loved by the good."
The Prince
"“The people do not wish to be ruled nor oppressed by the nobles, and the nobles wish to rule and oppress the people.”"
Israel Potter
"Never joke at funerals, or during business transactions."
Nicholas Nickleby
"Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal."
Guns, Germs And Steel
"It invites a search for ultimate causes: why were Europeans, rather than Africans or Native Americans, the ones to end up with guns, the nastiest germs, and steel?"
Of Mice and Men
"Just like heaven. Ever'body wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It's just in their head. They're all the time talkin' about it, but it's jus' in their head."
The Prophet
"For in truth it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness."
Fragments
"Without It, the fairest universe is but a randomly scattered dust-heap. If we are to speak with intelligence, we must found our being on that which is common to all... For that Logos which governs man is born of the One, which is Divine. It [the Divine] governs the universe by Its will, and is more than sufficient to everyone."
A Tale of Two Cities
"I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul."
The Analects of Confucius
" "A superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.""
Ulysses
"Life is the great teacher."
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
"They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist."
Self-Analysis
"To search for truth about self is as valuable as to search for truth in other areas of life."
Fragments
"Everyone is ruled by the Logos, which is common to all; yet, though the Logos is universal, the majority of men live as if they had an identity peculiar to themselves."
Never Give In!
"I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact."
The Fellowship of the Ring
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Book IV
"That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within."
Seagull
" "Your ego breaks in two: you begin to think of yourself in the third person.”"
My Sweet Orange Tree
"“The child’s heart forgets but does not forgive.”"
The Blind Owl
"My life appeared to me as unnatural, uncertain and incredible as the design on the pencase I am using at this moment. It seems that a painter who has been possessed, perhaps a perfectionist, has painted the cover of this pencase. Often, when I look at this design, it seems familiar; perhaps it is because of this design that I write or perhaps this design makes me write."
The Last Day of a Condemned Man
"You say "society must exact vengeance, and society must punish." Wrong on both counts. Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God."
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
"What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness."
Siddhartha
"“Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself: “But what is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach you?” And he found: “It was the self, the purpose and essence of which I sought to learn. It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it. Truly, no thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha! And there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about Siddhartha!”″"
Book IV
"That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before."
Don Quixote
"The reason for the unreason with which you treat my reason , so weakens my reason that with reason I complain of your beauty."
Man and His Symbols
"Where pride is insistent enough, memory prefers to give way."
Samarkand
" “Our bodies may be extensions of our words. But they can neither replace nor refute them.”"
The Three Sisters
""After a cigar or a glass of vodka you are no longer Peter Sorin, but Peter Sorin plus somebody else.""
A Study in Scarlet
"London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained."
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
"H'aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?"
the Revolt of the Masses
"The most radical division that it is possible to make of humanity is that which splits it into two classes of creatures: Those who make great demands on themselves, piling up difficulties and duties; and those who demand nothing special of themselves, but for whom to live is to be every moment what they already are, without imposing on themselves any effort towards perfection, mere buoys that float on the waves."
East Of Eden
"It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion."