Bruno > Bruno's Quotes

“Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.”
― Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

“Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind.”
― Giacomo Leopardi

“Cold, hunger, and sleeplessness rendered any friendship impossible, and Dugaev – despite his youth – understood the falseness of the belief that friendship could be tempered by misery and tragedy. For friendship to be friendship, its foundation had to be laid before living conditions reached that last border beyond which no human emotion was left to a man – only mistrust, rage, and lies. Dugaev remembered well the northern proverb that listed the three commandments of prison life: ‘Don’t believe, don’t fear, don’t ask.”
― Varlam Shalamov, Kolyma Tales

“Only in Russia poetry is respected--it gets people killed.”
― Ossip Mandelstam

“He who limps is still walking.”
― Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

“The moon will never lie to anyone. Be like the moon. No one hates the moon or wants to kill it. The moon does not take antidepressants and never gets sent to prison. The moon never shot a guy in the face and ran away. The moon has been around a long time and has never tried to rip anyone off. The moon does not care who you want to touch or what color you are. The moon treats everyone the same. The moon never tries to get in on the guest list or use your name to impress others. Be like the moon. When others insult or belittle in an attempt to elevate themselves, the moon sits passively and watches, never lowering itself to anything that weak. The moon is beautiful and bright. It needs no makeup to look beautiful. The moon never shoves clouds out of its way so it can be seen. The moon needs not fame or money to be powerful. The moon never asks you to go to war to defend it. Be like the moon.”
― Henry Rollins, Solipsist

“Nobody even imagines how well one can lie about the state of one’s own heart.”
― Yukio Mishima, Thirst for Love

“I am I, and I wish I weren't.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.”
― Meister Eckhart

“I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.”
― Franz Kafka

“All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Collected Writings Of Ambrose Bierce

“A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness.”
― Jean Genet

“A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Le Horla et autres contes fantastiques

“Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.”
― Herman Hesse

“People who love horror films are people with boring lives... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news.”
― Ryu Murakami, In the Miso Soup

“Historians are to nationalism what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to heroin-addicts: we supply the essential raw material for the market.”
― Eric Hobsbawn

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.

[These words are also inscribed upon his grave]”
― Karl Marx, Eleven Theses on Feuerbach

“Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.”
― Emil Cioran

“Tears do not burn except in solitude.”
― Emil Cioran, On the Heights of Despair

“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses