Elena > Elena's Quotes

“Rules may teach you to be blindly obedient, but they’re no real protection against the world,”
― Deborah Harkness, Time's Convert

“But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caverns and forests. Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself! And your way goes past yourself, and past your seven devils! You will be a heretic to yourself and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and villain. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.”
― Andrei Tarkovsky

“In a certain sense the past is far more real, or at any rate more stable, more resilient than the present. The present slips and vanishes like sand between the fingers, acquiring material weight, only in its recollection.”
― Andrei Tarkovsky

“I don’t know… I think I’d like to say only that they should learn to be alone and try to spend as much time as possible by themselves. I think one of the faults of young people today is that they try to come together around events that are noisy, almost aggressive at times. This desire to be together in order to not feel alone is an unfortunate symptom, in my opinion. Every person needs to learn from childhood how to spend time with oneself. That doesn’t mean he should be lonely, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with himself because people who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger, from a self-esteem point of view.”
― Andrei Tarkovsky

“You learned people and artists have, no doubt, all sorts of superior things in your heads; but you're human beings like the rest of us, and we, too, have our dreams and fancies.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“Because the world is so full of death and horror, I try again and again to console my heart and pick the flowers that grow in the midst of hell.”
― Herman Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

“My goal is this: always to put myself in the place in which I am best able to serve, wherever my gifts and qualities find the best soil to grow, the widest field of action. There is no other goal.”
― Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

“Did all this make sense?”
― Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

“Вот как я изображу тебя. Я положу черты твои на бумагу, как после страшной бури, взрывающей море до основания, ложатся на песок следы сильнейшей, дальше всего доплескивавшейся волны. Ломаной извилистой линией накидывает море пемзу, пробку, ракушки, водоросли, самое легкое и невесомое, что оно могло поднять со дна. Это бесконечно тянущаяся вдаль береговая граница самого высокого прибоя. Так прибило тебя бурей жизни ко мне, гордость моя. Так я изображу тебя.”
― Boris Pasternak , Doctor Zhivago

“Тот человек, кого ты любишь во мне, конечно, лучше меня: я не такой. Но ты люби, и я постараюсь быть лучше себя.”
― Михаил Пришвин

“Those who are never afraid can never be brave.”
― Katherine Roberts, The Crystal Mask

“We like the dark," said all the dwarves. "Dark for dark business! There are many hours before dawn.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“Not all those who wander are lost.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the height,
The wind was moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“There are different kinds of darkness,” Rhys said. I kept my eyes shut. “There is the darkness that frightens, the darkness that soothes, the darkness that is restful.” I pictured each. “There is the darkness of lovers, and the darkness of assassins. It becomes what the bearer wishes it to be, needs it to be. It is not wholly bad or good.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“You could rattle the stars," she whispered. "You could do anything, if only you dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you most.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass

“Thomas Paine had come to believe that religion was the worst form of tyranny because it pursued you through death and into eternity—something no king or despot had yet managed to do. At last, Marcus settled on repeating something Thomas himself had written. “ ‘My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”
― Deborah Harkness, Time's Convert

“The world is a weird and wonderful place. Why must we try and explain it all away?”
― T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

“But I allow him to dream of such things because he’s a child, and who knows what the future will bring? Change often starts with the smallest of whispers. Like-minded people building it up to a roar.”
― T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

“The things we fear the most are often the things we should fear the least. It’s irrational, but it’s what makes us human. And if we’re able to conquer those fears, then there is nothing we’re not capable of.”
― T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

“A home isn't always the house we live in. It's also the people we choose to surround ourselves with.”
― T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

“Funny how that works out, isn’t it? That we can find the most unexpected things when we aren’t even looking for them.”
― T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea