Deon Samia > Deon's Quotes

“The mind is an incredibly complex machine, Stuart. Nobody fully understands the workings of it. Everyone has their own perception of the lives they lead and the environment in which they live them. For most of us, the perceptions are complimentary, so we accept reality as a collective experience. For instance, who is to say you see the colour of this t-shirt in the same way I do. We both perceive it as green, but whether or not we see the same colour, we can’t say. It doesn’t matter though as long as we all agree. Nevertheless, if a person comes in and says my t-shirt is red and everyone else says it is green then we have to question his or her perception of my t-shirt. There has to be a reason why their perception is different to ours. Of course, in that case, we would suspect colour blindness, a condition in which the receptors in the eye send erroneous signals to the brain. For whatever reason, Stuart, we are all seeing green, but you see red. We need to find out what is causing your brain to do that.”
― D.S. Smith, Unparalleled

“A Mission Statement is your purpose, and a Vision Statement is what you are driving to.”
― Mark Villareal, A Script for Aspiring Women Leaders: 5 Keys to Success

“And wasn't my mind also like another crib in the depths of which I felt I remained ensconced, even in order to watch what was happening outside? When I saw an external object, my awareness that I was seeing it would remain between me and it, lining it with a thin spiritual border that prevented me from ever directly touching its substance; it would volatize in some way before I could make contact with it, just as an incandescent body brought near a wet object never touches its moisture because it is always preceded by a zone of evaporation.”
― Marcel Proust

“Outside, the afternoon sun was an orange sliver on an icy horizon.”
― Tracy Kidder

“It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated. Perfect is boring on live TV.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants

“Englishmen do love to bury one thing so completely in another that the two can only be separated by force: peanuts in candy, indigo in glass, Africans in irons. Standing”
― Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes: The award-winning classic bestseller

“There's no story,' I say. 'I saw you one day, and I just knew.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Isla and the Happily Ever After

“The moment you allow yourself to walk on eggshells, there will be eggs at every turn.”
― Mark Villareal, Leadership Lessons From Mom

“We can be happy with less and miserable with more.”
― Robert Gill Jr., Happiness Power: How to Unleash Your Power and Live a More Joyful Life

“The toleration of racism and xenophobia by most westerners contradicts their delusional assumptions — the result of mass indoctrination — of belonging to civilised and enlightened democracies where religious and political leaders abide by the truth with freedom and justice prevailing over racial preference, class privilege, negative preconceptions, and cowardly conformity. Such repressive indoctrination facilitates either silent complicity, or active involvement in the unspeakable crimes being committed against most of humanity.”
― William Hanna, The Grim Reaper

“Truthfully, Professor Hawking? Why would we allow tourists from the future muck up the past when your contemporaries had the task well in Hand?"
Brigadier General Patrick E Buckwalder 2241C.E.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Paradox Effect: Time Travel and Purified DNA Merge to Halt the Collapse of Human Existence

“#metooasachild”
― Aimee Cabo Nikolov, Love is the Answer, God is the Cure: A True Story of Abuse, Betrayal and Unconditional Love

“By being yourself, you fulfill your destiny. It’s your unique gifts, thoughts, and ideas that the world needs. No one else can give them to the world because they’re yours. Be yourself and bask in the power derived from self-realization.”
― Art Rios, Let's Talk: ...About Making Your Life Exciting, Easier, And Exceptional

“Yet, all armor—from a lobster’s shell to a Navy SEAL’s
flak jacket—ultimately reveals the same truth. All armor highlights
vulnerability. It trumpets the fact that below that hard exterior lies
an interior that is soft, fragile, and in need of protection.”
― J.K. Franko, Eye for Eye

“Billy,” Emily said. “Billy Wallace is the father.” “Not that musician, the druggie who left school?”
― Jack Getze, Making Hearts

“Yes, he was a good man, but he was also a black man. And when you’re black, being good isn’t always enough.”
“No, sweetheart, it isn’t. A black man walks a different line, a tightrope. Sometimes that line is hard to see. That seems to be what happened here.”
― Mark M. Bello, Betrayal In Black

“What are these?" Maxon asked, brushing across the tips of my fingers as we walked.
"Calluses. They're from pressing down on violin strings four hours a day."
"I've never noticed them before."
"Do they bother you?" I was the lowest caste of the six girls left, and I doubted any of them had hands like mine.
Maxon stopped moving and lifted my fingers to his lips, kissing the tiny, worn tips.
"On the contrary. I find them rather beautiful." I felt myself blush. "I've seen the world – admittedly mostly through bulletproof glass or from the tower of some ancient castle – but I've seen it. And I have access to the answers of a thousand questions at my disposal. But this small hand here?" He looked deeply into my eyes. "This hand makes sounds incomparable to anything I've ever heard. Sometimes I think I only dreamed that I heard you play the violin, it was so beautiful. These calluses are proof that it was real.”
― Kiera Cass, The Elite

“Erezia unei generații este ortodoxia generației următoare.”
― Irving Stone, Viața lui Freud: (2) paria

“Be sweet and carry a sharp knife, was her motto.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior

“She even learnt the language of a strange country which Senior Cosetti had been told some people believed still existed, although no-one in the world could say where it was. The name of this country was Wales.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“How can thinking about the misery of others help if you’re miserable yourself”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“If you die, I’ll kill you.” He smiles sadly. “Likewise.”
― Victoria Aveyard, Glass Sword

“Like attracts like and our center of gravity is finally able to make a permanent shift.
”
― Katherine Parker, Resonance Alchemy: Awakening the Tree of Life

“Yes, she had been right to come back to Guernsey and hopefully this cottage would be the haven she had been seeking since…”
― Anne Allen, The Ghost of Seagull Cottage: Inspired by The Ghost and Mrs Muir

“2004 was a momentous year: a space craft landed on Mars, Mark Zuckerberg launched the Facebook, Michael Schumacher won his seventh world championship, and I met Elina.I couldn’t take my eyes off her and NASA must have been able to see her smile from Mars; it lit up the whole square. The town. My world. I had never felt so good”
― Brian J. Twiddy, Blessing

“And we’ll plant more next year!”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“This acute, “a selfdissolving contradiction,” Marx had very precisely seen and foreseen that “it establishes a monopoly in certain spheres and thereby requires state interference.” This contradiction “reproduces a new financial aristocracy” (how much Marx was right!), no matter it will call itself Communist Party of Soviet Union or DuPont Financial Circle. It reproduces “a new variety of parasites . . . , a whole system of swindling and cheating by means of corporation promotion, stock issuance, and stock speculation.”
― Todor Bombov, Socialism Is Dead! Long Live Socialism!: The Marx Code-Socialism with a Human Face

“In breathing, as in everything in life, the numbers are staggering – indeed fantastical. Every time you breathe, you exhale some 25 sextillion (that’s 2.5 × 1022) molecules of oxygen – so many that with a day’s breathing you will in all likelihood inhale at least one molecule from the breaths of every person who has ever lived.1 And every person who lives from now until the sun burns out will from time to time breathe in a bit of you. At the atomic level, we are in a sense eternal.”
― Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants

“legs,”
― Jean Craighead George, My Side of the Mountain

“of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no”
― Founding Fathers, The United States Constitution