Quotes

The Gambler

Fyodor Dostoevski

"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

Plato

"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

Marcus Aurelius

"Choose not to be harmed—and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed—and you haven't been. "

Metamorphosis and Other Stories

Franz Kafka

""Gregor, despite his current sad and revolting form, was a family member who could not be treated as an enemy.""

Book IV

Marcus Aurelius

"Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions. "

Modern Man in Search of a Soul

Carl Gustav Jung

"The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it."

Republic

Plato

"“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

Andre Gide

"In hell there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime."

The Gambler

Fyodor Dostoevski

"Is it really not possible to touch the gaming table without being instantly infected by superstition?"

The Culture Consumers

Alvin Toffler

"The Law of Raspberry Jam: the wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets."

Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare

"Cry 'Havoc!,' and let slip the dogs of war."

The Art Of War

Sun Tzu

"The greatest victory is that which requires no battle."

The Art Of War

Sun Tzu

"A leader leads by example, not by force."

Man's Search For Meaning

Viktor E Frankl

"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

Andre Gide

"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

George Bernard Shaw

"Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny. They have only shifted it to another shoulder."

The Gambler

Fyodor Dostoevski

"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

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands."

Don Quixote

Miguel De Cervantes

"Virtue is persecuted by the wicked more than it is loved by the good."

The Prince

Niccolo Machiavelli

"“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

Herman Melville

"Never joke at funerals, or during business transactions."

Nicholas Nickleby

Charles Dickens

"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

Jared Diamond, Ph.D. (UCLA)

"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

John Steinbeck

"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

Kahlil Gibran

"For in truth it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness."

Fragments

Heraclitus

"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

Charles Dickens

"I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul."

The Analects of Confucius

Confucius

" "A superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.""

Ulysses

James Joyce

"Life is the great teacher."

The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Oscar Wilde

"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

Karen Horney

"To search for truth about self is as valuable as to search for truth in other areas of life."

Fragments

Heraclitus

"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!

Winston S Churchill

"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

J.R.R Tolkien

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

Book IV

Marcus Aurelius

"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

Anton Chekhov

" "Your ego breaks in two: you begin to think of yourself in the third person.”"

My Sweet Orange Tree

José Mauro de Vasconcelos

"“The child’s heart forgets but does not forgive.”"

The Blind Owl

Sadegh Hedayat

"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

VICTOR HUGO

"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

John Steinbeck

"What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness."

Siddhartha

Hermann Hesse

"“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

Marcus Aurelius

"That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before."

Don Quixote

Miguel De Cervantes

"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

Carl Gustav Jung

"Where pride is insistent enough, memory prefers to give way."

Samarkand

Amin Maalouf

" “Our bodies may be extensions of our words. But they can neither replace nor refute them.”"

The Three Sisters

Anton Chekhov

""After a cigar or a glass of vodka you are no longer Peter Sorin, but Peter Sorin plus somebody else.""

A Study in Scarlet

Arthur Conan Doyle

"London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained."

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain

"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

Jose Ortega y Gasset

"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

John Steinbeck

"It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion."