A > A's Quotes

“Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walking

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski

“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.”
― Epicurus

“we generally find pleasure to be not nearly so pleasant as we expected, and pain very much more painful.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Studies in Pessimism

“In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means. Nevertheless, every man desires to reach old age; in other words, a state of life of which it may be said: "It is bad to-day, and it will be worse to-morrow; and so on till the worst of all." If”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Studies in Pessimism

“Politics is war without blood, while war is politics with blood.”
― Mao Tse-tung

“Political power grows out of the barrel of the gun...”
― Mao Tse-tung

“When you point a finger at the moon to indicate the moon, instead of looking at the moon,the stupid ones look at your finger.”
― Mao Tse-tung

“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

“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Live simply so that others may simply live.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite time in the future.”
― George S. Patton Jr.

“We become strongest, I feel, when we have no friends upon whom to lean, or to look for moral gudance”
― Benito Mussolini

“I would rather be the hammer than the anvil”
― Erwin Rommel

“When there's no clear option, it's better to do nothing.”
― Erwin Rommel

“Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas.”
― Erwin Rommel

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
― Winston Churchill

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
― Winston Churchill

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.”
― Albert Einstein