Henri C Ducard > Henri's Quotes

“Once invited, always welcome. Once invited, never free.”
― A.C. Wise, Hooked

“His eyes were the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the great seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told he was a raconteur of repute. He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding...”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“It's the injustice that I hate, more than anything," he'd said to Smee one night, his eyes red and glassy, slurring his words, his head lolling as he tried to focus. He'd vomited, and then promptly passed out on a bush. "I hate the world that does not work out fair.”
― Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily

“Though his heart denied it with every fiber of its being, his mind knew that home was no longer an option. And he didn't cry. He didn't fret. He lay there on the earth, realizing and accepting and hardening. That was the night that James Hook began to grow up.”
― Brianna R. Shrum

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
― Carl Sagan

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action comes, stop thinking and go in.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“The only victories which leave no regret are those which are gained over ignorance.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“You don't reason with intellectuals. You shoot them.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon's Memoirs

“Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“Health Alteration Committee”
― Annie Jacobsen, Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Solitude sometimes is best society.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Me miserable! Which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell. ”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Knowledge forbidden?
Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord
Envy them that? Can it be a sin to know?
Can it be death?”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost