Tamar > Tamar's Quotes

“We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.”
― Henry Ward Beecher

“Resilience is not a commodity you are born with, waiting silently on tap. It is self-manufactured painstakingly over time by working through your problems and never giving up, even in the face of difficulty or failure.”
― Lorii Myers, No Excuses, The Fit Mind-Fit Body Strategy Book

“‎Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself-and be lenient to everybody else.”
― Henry Ward Beecher

“A good half of the art of living is resilience.”
― Alain de Botton

“There’s no such thing as ruining your life. Life’s a pretty resilient thing, it turns out.”
― Sophie Kinsella, The Undomestic Goddess

“Bear in mind, now, that most of this work was done by men who had no intention whatever, when they enlisted, of making war to end slavery. Slavery was killed by the act of war itself. It was the one human institution on all the earth which could not possibly be defended by force of arms, because that force, once called into play, was bound to destroy it. The Union armies which ended slavery were led by men like Grant and Sherman, who had profound sympathies with the South and who had never in their lives shown the slightest sympathies with the abolitionists. But they were also men who believed in the one great, fearful fact about modern war--that when you get into it, the guiding rule is that you have to win it.”
― Bruce Catton

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“What do I care how 'e looks? I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my husband is brave!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“When a girl feels that she’s perfectly groomed and dressed she can forget that part of her. That’s charm”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Short Stories

“Being liked for the way you looked is worse than not being liked at all.”
― Amanda Hocking, My Blood Approves

“Our lives are mere flashes of light in an infinitely empty universe. In 12 years of education the most important lesson I have learned is that what we see as “normal” living is truly a travesty of our potential. In a society so governed by superficiality, appearances, and petty economics, dreams are more real than anything anything in the “real world”. Refuse normalcy. Beauty is everywhere, love is endless, and joy bleeds from our everyday existence. Embrace it. I love all of you, all my friends, family, and community. I am ceaselessly grateful from the bottom of my heart for everyone. The only thing I can ask of you is to stay free of materialism. Remember that every day contains a universe of potential; exhaust it. Live and love so immensely that when death comes there is nothing left for him to take. Wealth is love, music, sports, learning, family and freedom. Above all, stay gold.”
― Dominic Owen Mallary

“People who need to bully you are the easiest to push around.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“Is," "is," "is"—the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Nature's God

“People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools. ”
― Alice Walker

“Sometimes it takes a lowly, title-less man to humble the world. Kings, rulers, CEOs, judges, doctors, pastors, they are already expected to be greater and wiser.”
― Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

“Some people's affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Illustrious Client

“Appearances are not reality; but they often can be a convincing alternative to it. You can control appearances most of the time, but facts are what they are. When the facts are too sharp, you can craft a cheerful version of the situation and cover the facts the way that you can covered a battered old four-slice toaster with a knitted cozy featuring images of kittens.”
― Dean Koontz, The Good Guy

“The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“The devil, depend upon it, can sometimes do a very gentlemanly thing.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”
― Nelson Mandela

“A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.”
― Nelson Mandela

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, Or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to His Friends in the Country, by Dr. Goldsmith

“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
― Nelson Mandela

“Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.”
― Carlos Castaneda

“The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive.”
― Carlos Castaneda

“A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting. ”
― Carlos Castaneda

“We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.”
― Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan

“You have little time left, and none of it for crap. A fine state. I would say that the best of us always comes out when we are against the wall, when we feel the sword dangling overhead. Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way.”
― Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power