Quotes
You can write the name of a quote, author or book among thousands of quotes.
The Prince
"“You can satisfy the people, for their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter wishing to oppress, while the former only desire not to be oppressed.”"
Man's Search For Meaning
"Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one's belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one's right to believe, and obey, his own conscience."
To the Lighthouse
"To be caught happy in a world of misery was for an honest man the most despicable of crimes."
Never Give In!
"The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is someone outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; some one strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action."
The Analects of Confucius
" "To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.""
By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
"We must never forget that spiritual experience is above all a practical experience of love. And with love, there are no rules."
The Cherry Orchard
" “Wisdom... comes not from age, but from education and learning.”"
The Winter of Our Discontent
"People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don't dream at all."
Self-Analysis
"[Neurotics are] torn by inner conflicts ... Every neurotic ... is at war with himself."
Book VII
"Direct thy attention to what is said. Let thy understanding enter into the things that are doing and the things which do them."
The Pastoral Symphony
"Sin is whatever obscures the soul."
Seagull
"Great Jove angry is no longer Jove."
The Blind Owl
"In life there are certain sores that, like a canker, gnaw at the soul in solitude and diminish it. "
Eat That Frog!
"“Say no to anything that is not a high-value use of your time and your life.”"
Book IV
"“Those who have forgotten where the road leads.” “They are at odds with what is all around them”—the all-directing logos. And “they find alien what they meet with every day.” "
Pride and Prejudice
"The pride of any mother is to give birth to a responsible and successful child."
The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People
"“At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn’t believe in yourself.”"
The Art Of War
"When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard."
Don Quixote
"The pen is the tongue of the soul; as are the thoughts engendered there, so will be the things written."
Counsels and Maxims
"the teaching of my philosophy... that our whole existence is something which had better not have been, and that to disown and disclaim it is the highest wisdom."
Midnight Library
"[…] it would have made things a lot easier if we understood there was no way of living that can immunize you against sadness. And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness. You can’t have one without the other."
Fathers and Sons
"my lad, as far as I can see, free-thinking women are all monsters." "
Never Give In!
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
Don Quixote
"Remember that there are two kinds of beauty: one of the soul and the other of the body. That of the soul displays its radiance in intelligence, in chastity, in good conduct, in generosity, and in good breeding, and all these qualities may exist in an ugly man. And when we focus our attention upon that beauty, not upon the physical, love generally arises with great violence and intensity. I am well aware that I am not handsome, but I also know that I am not deformed, and it is enough for a man of worth not to be a monster for him to be dearly loved, provided he has those spiritual endowments I have spoken of."
Never Give In!
"A cat looks down upon a man, and a dog looks up to a man, but a pig will look a man in the eye and see his equal."
Fragments
"In the One, above and below are the same, [just as] beginning and end are one in the circumference of a circle. That which is in conflict is also in concert; while things differ from one another, they are all contained in the most beautiful Unity."
Siddhartha
"“Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught.”"
The Name of The Rose
"The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came."
Surrounded by Idiots
"“The temperament and character traits we have inherited affect our behavior, a process already begun at the genetic stage.”"
Essays
"Marriage may be compared to a cage: the birds outside despair to get in and those within despair to get out. "
The Trial
"Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live. Where was the judge he had never seen? Where was the High Court he had never reached? He raised his hands and spread out all his fingers. But the hands of one of the men closed round his throat, just as the other drove the knife deep into his heart and turned it twice."
Beware of Pity
"People who are so much at the mercy of their moods should never be given serious responsibilities."
Fragment
"A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope."
Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales
"He only is anxious about the future, to whom the present is unprofitable."
Genealogy of Morals
"How much reverence has a noble man for his enemies!--and such reverence is a bridge to love.--For he desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction; he can endure no other enemy than one in whom there is nothing to despise and very much to honor! In contrast to this, picture "the enemy" as the man of ressentiment conceives him--and here precisely is his deed, his creation: he has conceived "the evil enemy," "the Evil One," and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a "good one"--himself!"
The Post Office Girl
"Once shame touches your being at any point, even the most distant nerve is implicated, whether you know it or not; any fleeting encounter or random thought will rake up the anguish and add to it."
Self-Analysis
"To search for truth about self is as valuable as to search for truth in other areas of life."
Atomic Habits
"The task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time."
Don Quixote
"There's not the least thing can be said or done, but people will talk and find fault."
The Prince
"“Fortune . . . shows her power where valour has not prepared to resist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and defences have not been raised to constrain her.”"
The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*Ck
"Our culture today confuses great attention and great success, assuming them to be the same thing."
Heartbreak House
"Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world."
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
""The environment has to be balanced against the economy." This quote portrays environmental concerns as a luxury, views measures to solve environmental problems as incurring a net cost, and considers leaving environmental problems unsolved to be a money-saving device. This one-liner puts the truth exactly backwards. Environmental messes cost us huge sums of money both in the short run and in the long run; cleaning up or preventing those messes saves us huge sums in the long run, and often in the short run as well. In caring for the health of our surroundings, just as of our bodies, it is cheaper and preferable to avoid getting sick than to try to cure illnesses after they have developed."
Between the Acts
"Books are the mirrors of the soul."
Fragment
"Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind."
Autumn Leaves
"Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again."
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."
Twilight of the Idols
"His world empire is still, as formerly, an under-world empire, a hospital, a subterranean empire, a Ghetto empire ... And he himself so pale, so weak, so décadent ... even the palest of the pale still became master over him."
Thyestes
"No one has had gods so favourable to him that he can promise himself a morrow."
Never Give In!
"Certainly the prolonged education indispensable to the progress of Society is not natural to mankind. It cuts against the grain. A boy would like to follow his father in pursuit of food or prey. He would like to be doing serviceable things so far as his utmost strength allowed. He would like to be earning wages however small to help to keep up the home. He would like to have some leisure of his own to use or misuse as he pleased. He would ask little more than the right to work or starve. And then perhaps in the evenings a real love of learning would come to those who are worthy – and why try to stuff in those who are not? – and knowledge and thought would open the ‘magic casements’ of the mind."