Js > Js's Quotes

“Comparison is the death of joy.”
― Mark Twain

“Live to the point of tears.”
― Albert Camus

“But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.”
― Albert Camus

“The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force.”
― Michael Parenti, Against Empire

“You will have no sensation of a leash around your neck if you sit by the peg. It is only when you stray that you feel the restraining tug.”
― Michael Parenti

“People who think they're free in this world just haven't come to the end of their leash yet.”
― Michael Parenti

“The very concept of "revolutionary violence" is somewhat falsely cast, since most of the violence comes from those who attempt to prevent reform, not from those struggling for reform. By focusing on the violent rebellions of the downtrodden, we overlook the much greater repressive force and violence utilized by the ruling oligarchs to maintain the status quo, including armed attacks against peaceful demonstrations, mass arrests, torture, destruction of opposition organizations, suppression of dissident publications, death squad assassinations, the extermination of whole villages, and the like.”
― Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.”
― Martin Niemöller

“Hell is—other people!”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“I longed to be forgotten in order to be able to complain to myself.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“But do you know why we are always more just and generous toward the dead? The reason is simple. With them there is no obligation. They leave us free and we can take our time, fit the testimonial between a cocktail party and a nice little mistress, in our spare time, in short.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“I’ll tell you a big secret, mon cher. Don’t wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Don’t wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day. There are always reasons for murdering a man. On the contrary, it is impossible to justify his living. That’s why crime always finds lawyers, and innocence only rarely.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Last year nothing happened
The year before nothing happened
And the year before that nothing
happened.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“I am afraid because I can so clearly foresee my own life rotting away of itself, like a leaf that rots without falling, while I pursue my round of existence from day to day.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“When I pretended to be precocious, people started the rumor that I was precocious. When I acted like an idler, rumor had it I was an idler. When I pretended I couldn't write a novel, people said I couldn't write. When I acted like a liar, they called me a liar. When I acted like a rich man, they started the rumor I was rich. When I feigned indifference, they classed me as the indifferent type. But when I inadvertently groaned because I was really in pain, they started the rumor that I was faking suffering. The world is out of joint.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“I like roses best. But they bloom in all four seasons. I wonder if people who like roses best have to die four times over again.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“People talk of “social outcasts.” The words apparently denote the miserable losers of the world, the vicious ones, but I feel as though I have been a “social outcast” from the moment I was born. If ever I meet someone society has designated as an outcast, I invariably feel affection for him, an emotion which carries me away in melting tenderness.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“Living itself is the source of sin.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“The absurd man catches sight of a burning and frigid, transparent and limited universe in which nothing is possible but everything is given, and beyond which all is collapse and nothingness. He can then decide to accept such a universe and draw from it his strength, his refusal to hope, and the unyielding evidence of a life without consolation.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
― Confucius

“Respect yourself and others will respect you.”
― Confucius, The Sayings of Confucius

“To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it.”
― Confucius