John > John's Quotes

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On!' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
― Calvin Coolidge

“Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you've got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back.”
― David Milch

“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”
― Augustine of Hippo

“Failure isn’t a necessary evil. In fact, it isn’t evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Fear can be created quickly; trust can’t.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”
― Michelangelo

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
― Harry Crosby, Transit of Venus

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
― T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
― Epicurus

“I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar”
― Robert Brault

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams, Twilight Hours: A Legacy of Verse

“Cecil Graham: What is a cynic?
Lord Darlington: A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
Cecil Graham: And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood.

She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

“Do what is right, not what is easy nor what is popular.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.”
― Charles Schwab

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“You lived what anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 7: Brief Lives

“Limitation makes for power. The strength of the genie comes of his being confined in a bottle.”
― Richard Wilbur

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“Life is just a dream on the way to death.”
― James O'Barr, The Crow

“The waves are high and the sunset's red.
So now it's time to go to bed.
The tide is up and the wind does rip.
But this old ship'll never tip.
We're far at sea, days from land.
But if you're scared just take my hand.
Just hold on tight Boy-o-mine.
In my arms you'll be just fine.
The moon is full and the sea is deep.
And we rock and rock and rock to sleep.”
― Jeff Lemire, The Underwater Welder

“Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.”
― Cameron Crowe, from his screenplay for Vanilla Sky

“The little things... there's nothing bigger is there?”
― Cameron Crowe, from script for Vanilla Sky

“The sweet is never as sweet without the sour”
― Cameron Crowe, from script for Vanilla Sky