Ali > Ali's Quotes

“Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre , Nausea

“Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

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

“I've not much interest in the important things of life. Only in the beautiful things. Just this lilac here makes me happy.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Three Comrades

“I cannot really play. Either at piano or at life; never, never have I been able to. I have always been too hasty, too impatient; something always intervenes and breaks it up. But who really knows how to play, and if he does know, what good is it to him? Is the great dark less dark for that, are the unanswerable questions less inscrutable, does the pain of despair at eternal inadequacy burn less fiercely, and can life ever be explained and seized and ridden like a tamed horse or is it always a mighty sail that carries us in the storm and, when we try to seize it, sweep us into the deep? Sometimes there is a hole in me that seems to extend to the center of the earth. What could fill it? Yearning? Dispair? Happiness? What happiness? Fatigue? Resignation? Death? What am I alive for? Yes, for what am I alive?”
― Erich Maria Remarque, The Black Obelisk

“- Ты хочешь знать, как быть, если сделал что-то не так? Отвечаю, детка: никогда не проси прощения. Ничего не говори. Посылай цветы. Без писем. Только цветы. Они покрывают все. Даже могилы.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Three Comrades

“The best way to lose a woman was to show her a kind of life that one could offer her for only a few days.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country

“Someone said to me once that a cigarette at the right moment is better than all the ideals in the world.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“- Никогда, Робби, не стремись знать слишком много! Чем меньше знаешь, тем проще живется. Знание делает человека свободным, но и несчастным. Давай выпьем за наивность, за глупость и все, что к ним относится - за любовь, за веру в будущее, за мечты о счастье - за божественную глупость, за потерянный рай...”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Three Comrades

“Кто хочет удержать - тот теряет. Кто готов с улыбкой отпустить - того стараются удержать.”
― Эрих Мария Ремарк, Heaven Has No Favorites

“Regret is the most useless thing in the world. One cannot recall anything. And one cannot rectify anything. Otherwise we would all be saints. Life did not intend to make us perfect. Whoever is perfect belongs in a museum.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country

“Then when I am sad and understand nothing anymore, I say to myself that it's better to die while you still want to live, than to die and want to die.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Three Comrades

“... but that's what mankind is like: they only prize what they no longer possess.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, The Black Obelisk

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
― Rumi

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

“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins ... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”
― Thomas Paine

“Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
― L.M. Montgomery

“Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.”
― Laozi

“Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?”
― Annie Dillard

“Frailty, thy name is woman!”
― William Shakespeare

“There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask "What if I fall?"
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?”
― Erin Hanson

“Risks

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.”
― Leo F. Buscaglia

“I know of no better life purpose than to perish attempting the great and impossible. The fact that something seems impossible should not be a reason to not pursue it. That’s exactly what makes it worth pursuing. Where would the courage and greatness be if success was certain and there was no risk. The only true failure is shrinking away from life’s challenges.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“In one window looked two. One saw the rain and mud.
Other — green foliage ligature, spring and the sky is blue.
In one window looked two.”
― Omar Khayyám

“You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor. He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure, must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done. You’ve hit no traitor on the hip. You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip. You’ve never turned the wrong to right. You’ve been a coward in the fight.”
― Charles Mackay

“If you have enemies, good that means you stood up for something.”
― Eminem

“When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend”
― William Blake

“You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do no bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.”
― Victor Hugo, Choses vues 1849-1885

“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke