Cai Lu > Cai's Quotes

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#1

“The American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a man, and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there's no reliable small talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal.”
― Peter Hessler

tags: america, conversation, intimacy, loneliness, solitude, talk

39 likes

#2

“A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be.”
― Douglas Pagels

tags: douglas-pagels, friend, friends

169 likes

#3

“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.”
― Henry David Thoreau

tags: friendship

1220 likes

#4

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.”
― Marilyn Monroe

tags: inspirational, misattributed, self-acceptance, self-esteem

2707 likes

#5

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.”
― Harvey Fierstein

tags: be-yourself, identity, individuality, inspirational, life, self-determination, self-esteem, self-expression

2940 likes

#6

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
― Sharon Salzberg

tags: inspiration, life, love, self-acceptance, self-esteem, wisdom

3445 likes

#7

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

tags: ataraxy, defiance, empowerment, independence, individuality, self-assurance, self-awareness, self-containment, self-determination, self-esteem, self-reliance, self-respect, self-sufficiency, self-trust, solitude

4945 likes

#8

“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.”
― Mark Twain

tags: self-acceptance, self-esteem

2361 likes

#9

“There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

tags: anorexia, self-esteem

1252 likes

#10

“In youth, it was a way I had,
To do my best to please.
And change, with every passing lad
To suit his theories.

But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do,
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker

tags: adaptation, change, character, empowerment, love, men, nature, pleasing, self-discovery, self-esteem, self-respect, truthfulness, wisdom, women, youth

2173 likes

#11

“Some Westerners […] have argued that the West does not have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists. Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise.”
― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

tags: islam, western-civilization

72 likes

#12

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

tags: international-relations, violence, western-civilization, world-order

219 likes

#13

“Expectations should not always be taken as reality; because you never know when you will be disappointed.”
― Samuel P. Huntington

tags: expectations

56 likes

#14

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
― Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays

tags: music

4208 likes

#15

“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.”
― Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82

tags: arts, life, music, poetry

2955 likes

#16

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

tags: inspirational, life, yourself

27255 likes

#17

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
― George Bernard Shaw

tags: art, life

8211 likes

#18

“Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.”
― George Bernard Shaw

24 likes

#19

“We are doomed to choose and every choice may entail irreparable loss.”
― Isaiah Berlin

162 likes

#20

“Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted.”
― Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas

tags: equality, liberty, paradox, power, rights, weakness

110 likes

#21

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind

717 likes

#22

“Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.”
― Billy Wilder

30 likes

#23

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
― Albert Einstein

tags: 1929, viereck-interview

37575 likes

#24

“The greatest enemy of clear language is insincerity.”
― George Orwell

tags: language, political-correctness

328 likes

#25

“Love begets wisdom, thus it is, as often misconceived, more than vain layers of tenderness; it is inherently rational and comprehensive of the problem within the problem: for instance, envy is one of the most excused sins in the media of political correctness. Those you find most attractive, or seem to have it all, are often some of the most insecure at heart, and that is because people assume that they do not need anything but defamation.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

tags: appearance, attractiveness, compassion, comprehensive, defamation, discernment, envy, insecure, love, media, political-correctness, problem-solving, problems, rational, understanding, wisdom

31 likes

#26

“Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you, --will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others, --or to diminish something of their pains.”
― Jeremy Bentham

tags: ethics, happiness, misery, morality, pain, secular-morality

203 likes

#27

“The rationality of the ruled is always the weapon of the rulers.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust

100 likes

#28

“One day you will be called upon to break a big law in the name of justice and rationality. Everything will depend on it. You have to be ready. How are you going to prepare for that day when it really matters? You have to stay "in shape" so that when the big day comes you will be ready. What you need is "anarchist calisthenics." Every day or so break some trivial law that makes no sense, even if it’s only jaywalking. Use your own head to judge whether a law is just or reasonable. That way, you'll keep trim; and when the big day comes, you'll be ready.”
― James C. Scott, Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity and Meaningful Work and Play

64 likes

#29

“Love without sacrifice is like theft”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

tags: compromise, love, manipulation, marriage, marriage-advice, narcissism, narcissists, passive-aggressive, passive-aggressiveness, real-love, relationships, sacrifice, true-love

427 likes

#30

“...there are often many things we feel we should do that, in fact, we don't really have to do. Getting to the point where we can tell the difference is a major milestone in the simplification process.”
― Elaine St. James, Living the Simple Life: A Guide to Scaling Down and Enjoying More

tags: saying-no, simple-life, simple-living

34 likes

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