Rasmus Bertilsson > Rasmus's Quotes

“Born as I was the citizen of a free state and a member of its sovereign body, the very right to vote imposes on me the duty to instruct myself in public affairs, however little influence my voice may have in them.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

“In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an example, if he can be left to live without danger to society.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature

“Först är allmänt veterligt, att alla våra grannar äre våre fiender, de Polen, Rysser och Dankske, så att ingen ort i Sverige, Finland och Livland kan säga, att han är för fienden säker, så att vi, snarast sagt, ingen landsort have fullkomligen att lita på. [...] Till det andre have vi platt inge vänner, som vår olägenhet går till hjärtat, och där än någre kunde finnes, som icke voro oss obevågne, är dock ingen hjälp eller undsättning av dem att förmoda. - Axel Oxenstierna, 1612.”
― Axel Oxenstierna

“Never Explain Anything”
― H.P. Lovecraft

“For I have always been a seeker, a dreamer, and a ponderer on seeking and dreaming...”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Night Ocean et autres nouvelles

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
― George Washington

“There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”
― George Washington

“Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.”
― Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

“We are born into this time and must bravely follow the path to the destined end. There is no other way. Our duty is to hold on to the lost position, without hope, without rescue, like that Roman soldier whose bones were found in front of a door in Pompeii, who, during the eruption of Vesuvius, died at his post because they forgot to relieve him. That is greatness. That is what it means to be a thoroughbred. The honorable end is the one thing that can not be taken from a man.”
― Oswald Spengler, Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life

“Optimism is cowardice.”
― Oswald Spengler, Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life

“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”
― Alan Watts

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

“Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“But how could you live and have no story to tell?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights

“I would like to take this opportunity to reassure Muggle purchasers that the amusing creatures described hereafter are fictional and cannot hurt you.To wizards, I say merely: Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.”
― J.K. Rowling, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”
― Alan Bennett, The History Boys

“History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
― Mark Twain

“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
― Mark Twain

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.”
― Neil Gaiman

“I know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude - we've proven that time and time again. People are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and force action. They kill and revive, corrupt and cure.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“The true purpose of mankind is to bear the torch of truth aloft and shine it, even into the darkest places. To share our forensic, unforgiving, liberating understanding with the dimmest reaches of the cosmos. To emancipate those shackled in ignorance. To free ourselves and others from false gods, and take our place at the apex of sentient life. That… that is what we may pour faith into. That is what we can harness our boundless faith to.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising