Izzy > Izzy's Quotes

“Act without expectation.”
― Lao Tzu

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
― Lao Tzu

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

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

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“A real love letter is made of insight, understanding, and compassion. Otherwise it's not a love letter. A true love letter can produce a transformation in the other person, and therefore in the world. But before it produces a transformation in the other person, it has to produce a transformation within us. Some letters may take the whole of our lifetime to write.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Your True Home: The Everyday Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh

“ The Paradoxical Commandments

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.”
― Kent M. Keith, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
― Mother Teresa

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.”
― Anais Nin

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“[Dean] “My dear fellow, who will let you?”

[Roark] “That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
― E.E. Cummings

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
― Socrates

“Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”
― C.E.M. Joad

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections

“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
― John Lennon

“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you.”
― Carter Crocker

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

“A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.”
― Albert Einstein

“May you live every day of your life.”
― Jonathan Swift

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
― Anais Nin