Meredith L. > Meredith's Quotes

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats.”
― Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet

“The fact that Ferdinand and Isabella did not choose the path of tolerance is seen as an example of the intractability and inevitability of intolerance, especially in the premodern era. But their actions may be far better understood as the failure to make the more difficult decision, to have the courage to cultivate a society that can live with its own flagrant contradictions. They chose instead to go down the modern path, the one defined by an ethic of unity and harmony, and which is largely intolerant of contradiction.”
― Maria Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain

“Bullies, oppressors and all men who do violence to the rights of others are guilty not only of their own crimes, but also of the corruption they bring into the hearts of their victims.”
― Alessandro Manzoni, The Betrothed

“I have lived a thousand lives and I’ve loved a thousand loves. I’ve walked on distant worlds and seen the end of time. Because I read.”
― George R.R. Martin

“happiness comes not from bodily pleasures or wealth or power, but from living a life that's right for your soul”
― T.J. Klune, In the Lives of Puppets

“That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“You call me a monster because I won’t let you treat me like my life is worthless, a thing to be used and thrown away?” it said. “You call me a monster because I refuse to live like you think I deserve? If that’s what you mean by monster, watch me be monstrous!”
― Evan Winter, The Fires of Vengeance

“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings,
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings.
It is an attribute to God himself.
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this-
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“A man couldn't do what he did. He's a monster."
I laughed. "Ain't no monster. Monsters ain't real 'cept in kids' imaginations, under the beds, in the closets. We live in a world a' men and there ain't no good come out of tellin' them they monsters. Makes 'em think they ain't done nothin' wrong, that it's their nature and they can't do nothin' to change that. Callin' em a monster makes 'em something different from the rest of us, but they ain't. They just men, flesh and bone and blood.”
― Beth Lewis, The Wolf Road

“Some adventures require nothing more than a willing heart and the ability to trip over the cracks in the world.”
― Seanan McGuire, Down Among the Sticks and Bones

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”
― Margaret Fuller

“There was no spoken testimony, no verbal deposition, no swearing upon holy books, for words alone could lie. Decision and action, repeated over time, did not.”
― Karen Hancock, Arena

“This is what happens, when things are not quite a fairy tale.
You go into the woods to find your story. If you are brave, if you are fortunate, you walk out of them to find your life.”
― Kat Howard, Roses and Rot

“A book… it’s a world all on its own too. A world made of words, where you live for a while.”
― Patrick Ness, More Than This

“If you have two friends in your lifetime, you're lucky. If you have one good friend, you're more than lucky.”
― S.E. Hinton

“The part of philanthropist is indeed a dangerous one; and the man who would do his neighbour good must first study how not to do him evil, and must begin by pulling the beam out of his own eye.”
― George MacDonald, The Complete Works of George MacDonald

“A society that has to burn witches to hold itself together is a society that has already failed, and just doesn't know it yet.”
― Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky

“What you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Life is a sum of all your choices".

So, what are you doing today?”
― Albert Camus

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
― George Orwell

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Introverts are like the stars in star apples.
They don’t feel the need to reveal themselves, except someone rips them open.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover