Davide Borrelli > Davide's Quotes

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
― Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”
― Mark Twain

“You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“The era we live in has provided humanity with extraordinary tools, forcing us to view the world differently than we did not so long ago. It presents us with new challenges and demands that we confront new problems. Retreating into the past, evoking the idea of eternal conflict, will not eliminate the challenges that lie ahead.”
― Davide Smith Borrelli, Zombies of Marx: The Return of Practical Reason

“if knowledge is a journey across an unknown ocean, even the bravest explorer cannot do without maps and a compass to avoid retracing the same routes endlessly.”
― Davide Smith Borrelli, Zombies of Marx: The Return of Practical Reason

“There is only one enemy at present: fascism. Communism is its unwitting accomplice. The violence and dictatorship preached by the former become the pretext and justification for the violence and dictatorship carried out by the latter.”
― Giacomo Matteotti

“Forgive before they do, and nothing can get to you.”
― Matthew Edward Hall

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
― Confucious

“Freedom is lost slowly, through a process that begins when illusions take the place of reason”
― Davide Smith Borrelli, Five Lessons on Wisdom: Power, Freedom, and Human Nature in the Panchatantra

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

“A man cannot govern a nation if he cannot govern a city; he cannot govern a city if he cannot govern a family; he cannot govern a family unless he can govern himself; and he cannot govern himself unless his passions are subject to reason.”

By understanding many things, I have accomplished nothing.”

Hugo Grotius”
― Hugo Grotius

“The entire tension of life is oriented toward thisdesire—until human beings finally discover themselves.And discover that they are not truly separate beings, butpart of the One and the All: an organism interconnectedwith other organisms. A single heartbeat that is theuniverse itself.The entire path of each one of us is an eternal returntoward what we are—not what we think we are.For everything moves in circles, within an endlessredundancy.”
― M. Alexandra Nesci, Narcissus, my love

“Ma allora cos'è che ti conforta?"
"La certezza della mia libertà interiore" disse lui dopo aver riflettuto "questo bene prezioso, inalterabile, e che dipende sola da me perdere o conservare. la convinzione che le passioni spinte al parossismo come capita come capita ora finiscono poi per placarsi. Che tutto ciò che ha un inizio avrà una fine. In poche parole, che le catastrofi passano e che bisogna cercare di non andarsene prima di loro, ecco tutto. Perciò, prima di tutto vivere: Primum vivere. Giorno per giorno. Resistere, attendere, sperare.”
― Irène Némirovsky

“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend”
― Albert Camus

“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”
― Aristotle

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
― Robert Frost

“I want to live. I want to feel the pulse of life. That excitement that brings both pleasure and terror. I want to feel joy, even at the risk of sadness.”
― Philippe Besson, In the Absence of Men

“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
― Plato, The Republic

“Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: The criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they were forced to execute many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being