Rumi > Rumi's Quotes

“But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“I knew that our time together was almost over, I asked her if she liked sports, she asked me if I liked chess, I asked her if she liked fallen trees, she went home with her father, the center of me followed her, but I was left with the shell of me, I needed to see her again, I couldn't explain my need to myself, and that's why it was such a beautiful need, there's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“...is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“This is why dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes they consume us completely.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me, you’d better go”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

“Няма рай, и ад няма - проумя изведнъж Анатолия. - Щастието е нашият рай, горестите - нашият ад. И нашият Бог е навсякъде, навред е не само защото е всемогъщ, но и защото е онези невидими нишки, които ни свързват един с друг.”
― Narine Abgaryan, С неба упали три яблока

“През май, свечери ли се, небето е ниско и лепкаво, с мастилен оттенък. Прокараш пръст по него и то се отдръпва уплашено, плисва се на вълни и оголва мекото си като кадифе живо лоно.”
― Narine Abgaryan, С неба упали три яблока

“The green painted concrete out in front of the house, which at first seemed like a novel way to save money on lawn-moving, was now just plain depressing. The hot water came reluctantly to the kitchen sink as if from miles away, and even then without conviction, and sometimes a pale brownish color. Many of the windows wouldn't open properly to let flies out. Others wouldn't shut properly to stop them getting in. The newly planted fruit trees died in the sandy soil of a too-bright backyard and were left like grave-markers under the slack laundry lines, a small cemetery of disappointment. It appeared to be impossible to find the right kinds of food, or learn the right way to say even simple things. The children said very little that wasn't a complaint.”
― Shaun Tan, Tales from Outer Suburbia

“Над езерото Ямдрог се надигнаха изпарения, които се омесиха в пухкаво валмо и закриха водата. Мъглата се сгъсти, залюля се като женски дъх, издигна се нагоре, разпростря се плавно и покри кървавото слънце. Зашава безмълвно по повърхността на езерото, отдели се от нея и бавно се разтече към полите на планината.”
― Ma Jian, Stick Out Your Tongue

“Страхът ми, колебанията ми и моята немощ. И всички тия гласове, всички тия болки в мене. Страхът ме кара да върша това, което не искам да върша, което не би требвало да върша. Подтиква ме против волята ми, против разсъдъка ми. Смущава ме, когато требва да бъда най-силен, разбърква, замъглява мислите ми, разклаща верата ми, сломява силата ми, кара ме да се разкайвам, да се срамувам от себе си. Аз вървя винаги срещу него, отивам винаги там, откъдето иска той да ме отблъсне, да ме прогони, да ме принуди да бегам. Винаги срещу него, за да го надвивам, но това е трудно и е една непрестанна борба, тежка, мъчителна. Аз искам да го изтръгна от сърцето си като зъл трън, който се е впил там. Искам да се освободя от него, да освободя от него ума си, волята си, душата си. Искам да бъда свободен човек. И аз винаги вървя срещу него, ала това ме мъчи и изтощава. Откъде иде тоя страх в мене? От какво се боя? Боя се от смъртта, боя се от страдания и всякакви болки, боя се да не направя нещо, за което после ще се разкайвам, от което ще се срамувам, боя се и от присъдата на другите, от присъдата на моите най-близки хора, на другарите ми, та и на враговете ми. Искам да върша неща, които никой не би могъл, не би имал право да осъжда. Искам да мисля и да действувам без страх. Да бъде ясна всяка моя мисъл, да бъде твърда волята ми, да бъде твърда верата ми. А откъде идват всички тия гласове и болки в мене?”
― Димитър Талев, Гласовете ви чувам

“Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything around it, except itself '.

Self pity will destroy relationships, it'll destroy anything that's good, it will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leave only itself. And it's so simple to imagine that one is hard done by, and that things are unfair, and that one is underappreciated, and that if only one had had a chance at this, only one had had a chance at that, things would have gone better, you would be happier if only this, that one is unlucky. All those things. And some of them may well even be true. But, to pity oneself as a result of them is to do oneself an enormous disservice.

I think it's one of things we find unattractive about the american culture, a culture which I find mostly, extremely attractive, and I like americans and I love being in america. But, just occasionally there will be some example of the absolutely ravening self pity that they are capable of, and you see it in their talk shows. It's an appalling spectacle, and it's so self destructive. I almost once wanted to publish a self help book saying 'How To Be Happy by Stephen Fry : Guaranteed success'. And people buy this huge book and it's all blank pages, and the first page would just say - ' Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself - And you will be happy '. Use the rest of the book to write down your interesting thoughts and drawings, and that's what the book would be, and it would be true. And it sounds like 'Oh that's so simple', because it's not simple to stop feeling sorry for yourself, it's bloody hard. Because we do feel sorry for ourselves, it's what Genesis is all about.”
― Stephen Fry

“От една страна, тибетците не приемаха смъртта с тъга, просто смятаха, че умрелият се е преместил в друг свят и толкова. От друга, не разбирах хората, които с часове се кланяха в храмовете и около тях. Откъде такъв страх от наказание?”
― Ma Jian, Stick Out Your Tongue

“Реакцията ни спрямо упражнено върху друг насилие е най-елементарният тест за човечност.”
― Капка Касабова, Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe

“People die crossing borders, and sometimes just being near them. The lucky ones are reborn on the other side.”
― Kapka Kassabova, Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe

“Няма смешна обич на тоя свят, има грешна обич, има нещастна обич, има истинска или въображаема и всяка от тях е едно от малките чудеса на живота.”
― Павел Вежинов, Нощем с белите коне

“I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“Why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“I've thought myself out of happinessone one million times, but never once into it.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

“I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how".”
― Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic "the self-transcendence of human existence." It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself--be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself--by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love--the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

“и ето какво исках да кажа
най-голямата болка - това не са градовете, които оставяме зад гърба си, не са улиците, по които няма да минем никога повече, не са дърветата, които няма да ронят под нашите прозорци цвят, не са звездите, до които няма да се докоснем
...
и ето какво исках да кажа
най-голямата болка е от това, че градовете умират точно
в деня, когато ги напускаме – за малко или завинаги”
― Narine Abgaryan, С неба упали три яблока

“I cannot understand what pleasures and joys they are that drive people to the overcrowded railways and hotels, into the packed cafés with the suffocating and oppressive music, to the Bars and variety entertainments, to World Exhibitions, to the Corsos. I cannot understand nor share these joys, though they are within my reach, for which thousands of others strive. On the other hand, what happens to me in my rare hours of joy, what for me is bliss and life and ecstasy and exaltation, the world in general seeks at most in imagination; in life it finds it absurd. And in fact, if the world is right, if this music of the cafés, these mass enjoyments and these Americanised men who are pleased with so little are right, then I am wrong, I am crazy. I am in truth the Steppenwolf that I often call myself; that beast astray who finds neither home nor joy nor nourishment in a world that is strange and incomprehensible to him.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“Solitude is independence. It had been my wish and with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold enough! But it was also still, wonderfully still and vast like the cold stillness of space in which the stars revolve.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf