Austin Madden > Austin's Quotes

“Compassion is the basis of morality.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms

“It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“Get you gone, you dwarf,
You minimus of hindering knotgrass made,
You bead, you acorn!”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge.”
― Mikhail Bakunin

“There are heights of the soul from which even tragedy ceases to look tragic; and rolling together all the woe of the world -- who could dare to decide whether its sight would necessarily seduce us and compel us to feel pity and thus double this woe?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“Chaos is rejecting all you have learned, Chaos is being yourself.”
― Emil Cioran, A Short History of Decay

“To have committed every crime but that of being a father.”
― Emil Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“To know nothing about yourself is to live. To know yourself badly is to think.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“If I write what I feel, it's to reduce the fever of feeling. What I confess is unimportant, because everything is unimportant.”
― Fernando Pessoa , The Book of Disquiet

“The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people!”
― Fernando Pessoa

“My melancholy is the most faithful sweetheart I have had.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity -- then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.”
― David Suzuki

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The sun shines today also.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

“In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

“Dr. King's policy was that nonviolence would achieve the gains for black people in the United States. His major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That's very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”
― Stokely Carmichael

“Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.”
― Max Stirner

“All things are Nothing to Me”
― Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own

“No matter how bad a state of mind you may get into, if you keep strong and hold out, eventually the floating clouds must vanish and the withering wind must cease.”
― Dogen Zenji

“If you want to travel the Way of Buddhas and Zen masters, then expect nothing, seek nothing, and grasp nothing.”
― Dogen Zenji

“Melancholy: an appetite no misery satisfies.”
― Emil Cioran, All Gall is Divided: Aphorisms

“Tears do not burn except in solitude.”
― Emil Cioran, On the Heights of Despair

“We are all deep in a hell each moment of which is a miracle.”
― Emil Cioran