ℒ. > ℒ.'s Quotes

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire

“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviour.”
― Stephen M.R. Covey, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.”
― Epictetus, The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Deep knowledge is to be aware of disturbance before disturbance, to be aware of danger before danger, to be aware of destruction before destruction, to be aware of calamity before calamity. Strong action is training the body without being burdened by the body, exercising the mind without being used by the mind, working in the world without being affected by the world, carrying out tasks without being obstructed by tasks.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War: Complete Texts and Commentaries

“The noblest of ideas have always been protected by warriors.”
― Tom Clancy, The Sum of All Fears

“A conscience is the price of morality, and morality is the price of civilization.”
― Tom Clancy, Patriot Games

“A lively discussion is usually helpful, because the hottest fire makes the hardest steel.”
― Tom Clancy, Debt of Honor

“The dead were gone and didn't know or care what they left behind.. If the dead still lived on the surface of this earth then it was in the minds of those who remembered them...”
― Tom Clancy, Without Remorse

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams

“You can only come to the morning through the shadows.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
― Confucius

“Some people, I believe, are paid for dreaming. But most, I think, are punished.”
― Steve Rasnic Tem, Onion Songs

“The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.”
― John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

“Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.”
― Stephen Fry

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Reading brings us unknown friends”
― Honore de Balzac

“If you haven't read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren't broad enough to sustain you.”
― Jim Mattis, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead

“Where is the land of Luthany,
Where is the tract of Elenore?
I am bound therefore.

'Pierce thy heart to find the key;
With thee take
Only what none else would keep;
Learn to dream when thou dost wake;
Learn to wake when thou dost sleep.
Learn to water joy with tears,
Learn from fears to vanquish fears;
To hope, for thou dar'st not despair;
Exult, for that thou dar'st not grieve;
Plough thou the rock until it bear;
Know, for thou else couldst not believe;
Lose, that the lost thou may'st receive;
Die, for none other way canst live.

'When earth and heave lay down their veil,
And that apocalypse turns thee pale;
When thy seeing blindeth thee
To what thy fellow-mortals see;
When their sight to thee is sightless;
Their living, death; their light, most lightless;
Search no more--
Pass the gates of Luthany,
Tread the region Elenore!'

Where is the land of Luthany?
And where the region Elenore?
I do faint therefore.

'When to the new eyes of thee
All things by immortal power,
Near or far,
Hiddenly
To each other linked are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star;
When thy song is shield and mirror
To the fair snake curled pain,
Where thou dar'st affront her terror
That on her thou may'st attain
Persean Conquest; seek no more,
O seek no more!
Pass the gates of Luthany,
Tread the region Elenore!”
― Francis Thompson