Quotes from literature

~ Quotes from literature ~

'Resolve to be thyself; and know, that he who finds himself loses his misery.'
(Matthew Arnold Self-Dependence)
'An eye for an eye leads only to more blindness.'
(Margaret Atwood Cat's Eye)
'It is the worst solitude to have no true friendships.'
(Francis Bacon The Advancement Of Learning)
'Knowledge itself is power.'
(Francis Bacon Of Heresies)
'They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.'
(Laurence Binyon For The Fallen)
'To live in hearts we leave behind. Is not to die.'
(Thomas Campbell Hallowed Ground)
'Study the past, if you would divine the future.'
(Confucius Analects)
'A seed may die in an ear of corn. Yet the valley shall be filled with grain.'
(Mahmud Darwish Ein Insan)
'Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not home and to find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the happy old home, which was like a dream I could never dream again!'
'My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!'
(Charles Dickens David Copperfield)
'No man is an island, entire of it's self; every man is a piece of a continent, a part of the main...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'
(John Donne Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions)
'Is it so bad then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood and Socrates and Jesus and Luther and Copernicus and Galileo and Newton and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.'
(Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance)
'Men are what their mothers made them.'
(Ralph Waldo Emerson The Conduct Of Life)
'The sea that calls all things unto her calls me and I must embark.
For to stay, though the hours burn in the night, is to freeze and crystallise and be bound in a mould.'
'Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.'
'When love beckons to you, follow him.
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him.
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him.
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.'
(Khalil Gibran The Prophet)
'Whoever is not acquainted with foreign lanuagues knows nothing of his own.'
(Goethe On Art And Antiquity)
'Seize the day.'
(Horace Odes)
'The strongest man in the world is the man who stands alone.'
(Henrik Ibsen An Enemy Of The People)
'A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness; but still will keep a bower quiet for us and a sleep full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing.'
(John Keats Endymion)
'Wisdom tells us to forget the past, but it is the only time we have had.'
'The true weakling is the fool who does not know his secret strength.'
(Naguib Mahfouz Children of Gebelaawi)
'No power on earth can preserve this godly moment, a moment which has confered a secret meaning to the universe. You stand on its threshold, with your hand stretched out imploringly towards the darkness, the horizon and the depths where the moon has fallen. A firebrand seems to burn in your chest as the dawn breaks forth and fears of bankruptcy and want recede.'
(Naguib Mahfouz The Beggar)
'Solitude gives rise to what is original, to what is daringly and displeasingly beautiful, to poetry. Solitude however also gives rise to what is wrong, excessive, absurd and forbidden.'
(Thomas Mann Death In Venice)
'Believe me, I shall live is not the saying of a wise man. Tomorrow's life is too late. Live today.'
(Martial Epigrammata)
'Curiosity is the key to creativity.'
(Akio Morita Made in Japan)
'They could be tracked down by enquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings: for that matter you could not alter them yousrelf, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.'
(George Orwell 1984)
'They did not unwind their arms or move apart but held each other in a long embrace, their bodies slowly merging into one and the whole world stood still to watch a scene of love, to see two beings changing into one, never to part again, never afraid of the light, never afraid of death, for each of them had known what dying was. Now he and she were gone, lost in one another, dissolved. Now no force in the world could make them part again, neither the noise of guns and rockets all around nor the loud abuse pf enemies or the whispers of their friends, nor the orders of the Imam or the Devil or the Chief of Security himself.'
(Nawal Al Saadawi The Fall of the Imam)
'Loneliness is the poverty of self;
solitude is the richness of self.'
(Mary Sarton Mrs Stevens Hears The Mermaids Singing)
'Doubt that the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love'
(William Shakespeare Hamlet)
'Parting is such sweet sorrow.
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.'
(William Shakespeare Romeo & Juliet)
'Pay no attention to what the critics say. No statue has ever been put up to a critic.'
(Jean Sibelius The Smith Of Smiths)
'Tis better to have loved and lost. Than never to have loved at all.'
(Lord Alfred Tennyson In Memorium A.H.H.)
'Fortune favours the brave.'
(Terence Phormio)
'Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'
(Dylan Thomas Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night)
'Though they go mad, they shall be sane. Though they sink through the sea, they shall rise again. Though lovers be lost, love shall not. And death shall have no dominion.'
(Dylan Thomas And Death Shall Have No Dominion)
'It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.'
(Leo Tolstoy The Kreutzer Sonata)
'It was a long time before she could get to sleep. She kept thinking that no one could understand all the things that she understood, and all that was in her.'
(Leo Tolstoy War And Peace)
'Let's stop blaming ourselves and stop running and stop apologizing and let's start to please ourselves once and for all. The "beautiful" woman does not win under the myth; neither does anyone else. The woman who is subjected to the continual adulation of strangers does not win, nor does the woman who denies herself attention. You do not win by struggling to the top of a caste system, you win by refusing to be trapped within one at all.'
(Naomi Wolf The Beauty Myth)
'Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth.'
(Virginia Woolf Orlando)
'Recently people who are called 'clever' adorn themselves with superficial wisdom and only deceive others. For this reason they are inferior to dull witted folk. A dull witted person is direct.'
'Even if it seems certain that you will lose, retaliate.'
'If there is something that must be done, it is better not to rely on others.'
(Josho Yamamoto The Hagakure)