Sonia > Sonia's Quotes

“A First Sign of the Beginning of Understanding is the Wish to Die.”
― Franz Kafka

“Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Bitter, too, to be forced to acknowledge in one's heart how little love has to do with kindness.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Sibyl

“It is incomprehensible that he should want to have these futile people here, and still more incomprehensible that he should be able to sit and listen to them and their stupid chatter. I can understand that he may occasionally listen to poets reciting their verses; they can be regarded as buffoons such as are always kept at court. They laud the lofty purity of the human soul, great events and heroic feats, and there is nothing to be said against all that, particularly if their songs flatter him. Human beings need flattery; otherwise they do not fulfill their purpose, not even in their own eyes. And both the present and the past contain much that is beautiful and noble which, without due praise, would have been neither noble nor beautiful. Above all, they sing the praises of love, which is quite as it should be, for nothing else is in such need of transformation into something different. The ladies are filled with melancholy and their breasts heave with sighs; the men gaze vaguely and dreamily into space, for they all know what it is really like and realize that this must be an especially beautiful poem.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“-No, the man said, looking past him with his empty gaze, the realm of the dead isn't anything. But to those who have been there, nothing else is anything either.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, Barabbas

“And they are deformed though it does not show on the outside. I live only my dwarf life. I never go around tall and smooth-featured. I am ever myself, always the same, I live one life alone. I have no other being inside me. And I recognize everything within me, nothing ever comes up from my inner depths, nothing there is shrouded in mystery. Therefore I do not fear the things which frighten them, the incoherent, the unknown, the mysterious. Such things do not exist for me. There is nothing "different" about me.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“There's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
― Theodore Parker

“Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. ... A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“A right delayed is a right denied.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles;
Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it.
Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
Expediency ask the question, is it politic?
Vanity asks the question, is it popular?

But conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

“It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“A lie cannot live.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Find a voice in a whisper.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

“We shall overcome.”
― Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World

“When you are right, you cannot be too radical; When you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World

“The conservatives who say, "Let us not move so fast," and the extremists who say, "Let us go out and whip the world ," would tell you that they are as far apart as the poles. But there is a striking parallel: They accomplish nothing; for they do not reach the people who have a crying need to be free.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The 'tide in the affairs of men' does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late.”
― Martin Luther King

“This Revolution is genuine because it was born from the same womb that always gives birth to massive social upheavals - the womb of intolerable conditions and unendurable situations.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait