Carol > Carol's Quotes

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“But wishes are only granted in fairy tales.”
― Simone Elkeles, Perfect Chemistry

“You can't see yourself. You know what you look like because of mirrors and photographs, but out there in the world, as you move among your fellow human beings, whether strangers or friends or the most intimate beloveds, your own face is invisible to you. You can see other parts of yourself, arms and legs, hands and feet, shoulders and torso, but only from the front, nothing of the back except the backs of your legs if you twist them into the right position, but not your face, never your face, and in the end - at least as far as others are concerned - your face is who you are, the essential fact of your identity. Passports do not contain pictures of hands and feet. Even you, who have lived inside your body for sixty-four years now, would probably be unable to recognize your foot in an isolated photograph of that foot, not to speak of your ear, or your elbow, or one of your eyes in close-up. All so familiar to you in the context of the whole, but utterly anonymous when taken piece by piece. We are all aliens to ourselves, and if we have any sense of who we are, it is only because we live inside the eyes of others.”
― Paul Auster, Winter Journal

“One of the most effective ways to learn about oneself is by taking seriously the cultures of others. It forces you to pay attention to those details of life which differentiate them from you.”
― Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language

“People carry around with them internalization's fixed-feature space learned early in life. Man is like other members of the animal kingdom , first, last and always a prisoner of his biological organism. No matter how hard he tries, it is impossible for him to the best himself of his own culture, where it has penetrated to the roots of his nervous system and determines how he perceives the world.”
― Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension

“Perhaps the most devastating and damaging thing that can happen to someone is to fail to fulfill his potential. A kind of gnawing emptiness, longing, frustration, and displaced anger overwhelms people when this occurs. Whether the anger is turned inward on the self, or outward towards others, dreadful destruction results.”
― Edward T. Hall

“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”
― Aristotle

“You willed yourself to where you are today, so will yourself out of it.”
― Stephen Richards

“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

“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”
― George Carlin

“I think that consciousness is the way information feels when being processed in certain complex ways.”
― Max Tegmark, Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality

“There’s no better guarantee of failure than convincing yourself that success is impossible, and therefore never even trying.”
― Max Tegmark, Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“There are perhaps many causes worth dying for, but to me, certainly, there are none worth killing for.”
― Albert Dietrich, Army GI, Pacifist CO: The World War II Letters of Frank Dietrich and Albert Dietrich

“When I look at my life and its secret colours, I feel like bursting into tears.”
― Albert Camus, A Happy Death

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
― Albert Camus

“I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.”
― Albert Camus

“I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.”
― Albert Camus, L'Étranger

“Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth”
― Albert Camus

“I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

“Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”
― Albert Camus, Neither Victims Nor Executioners

“Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“What is a rebel? A man who says no.”
― Albert Camus

“Life can be magnificent and overwhelming -- that is the whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live. ”
― Albert Camus

“If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.”
― William S. Burroughs, The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
― Rumi