Roxana > Roxana's Quotes

“It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

“I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point.
Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens. I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the
thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable;
the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.

It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together—that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated?”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

“The crying sounded even louder out of doors. It was as if all the pain in the world had found a voice. Yet had I known such pain was in the next room, and had it been dumb, I believe—I have thought since—I could have stood it well enough. It is when suffering finds a voice and sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us. But in spite of the brilliant sunlight and the green fans of the trees waving in the soothing sea-breeze, the world was a confusion, blurred with drifting black and red phantasms, until I was out of earshot of the house in the stone wall.”
― H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau

“But there are times when the little cloud spreads, until it obscures the sky. And those times I look around at my fellow men and I am reminded of some likeness of the beast-people, and I feel as though the animal is surging up in them. And I know they are neither wholly animal nor holy man, but an unstable combination of both.”
― H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau

“An animal may be ferocious and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.”
― H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau

“Numai când e singur omul cu sufletul său, numai atunci există un echilibru între lumea lui cea mică dinăuntru şi restul universului; îndată ce intervine realitatea de-afară, omul devine o jucărie neputincioasă, fără voinţă adevărată, mergând încotro îl mână puteri şi hotărâri străine de fiinţa lui...”
― Liviu Rebreanu, Pădurea spânzuraţilor

“Am citit undeva, excelenţă, zise Apostol cu glasul de adineauri, că inima omului, în primele săptămâni ale vieţii embrionare, se află nu în piept, ci în cap, în mijlocul creierilor, şi că de-abia pe urmă coboară mai jos, despărţindu-se de creier pentru totdeauna... Ce minunat ar fi, excelenţă, dacă inima şi creierul ar fi rămas împreună, îngemănate, să nu facă niciodată inima ce nu vrea creierul şi mai cu seamă creierul să nu facă ce sfâşie inima!”
― Liviu Rebreanu, Pădurea spânzuraţilor

“Azi, din pricina lipsei de organizare, nouăzeci la sută cel puţin din munca creierului omenesc se risipeşte. Închipuieşte-ţi ce-ar fi când s-ar uni, printr-o organizare perfectă, sforţările mintale ale tuturor oamenilor spre aceeaşi ţintă!... Câţi oameni trăiesc azi pe pământ? Două miliarde, să zicem... Ei bine, ar mai exista oare necunoscutul dacă două miliarde de kilograme de materie cenuşie, într-un avânt comun, ar porni la asaltul porţilor închise?”
― Liviu Rebreanu, Pădurea spânzuraţilor

“We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.”
― H.G. Wells

“Darkness was cheap, and Scrooge liked it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“All men, however highly educated, retain some superstitious inklings.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“...the voice was indisputable. It continued to swear with that breadth and variety that distinguishes the swearing of a cultivated man.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“And being but two-and-twenty and full of enthusiasm, I said, ‘I will devote my life to this. This is worth while.’
You know what fools we are at two-and-twenty?”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."
"I don't much care where –"
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

“If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.”
― Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Alice: How long is forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second.”
― Lewis Carroll

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“These illustrations suggest four general maxims[...].
The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself.
The second is: don't over-estimate your own merits.
The third is: don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself.
And the fourth is: don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be almost all friendships would be dissolved; the second effect, however, might be excellent, for a world without any friends would be felt to be intolerable, and we should learn to like each other without needing a veil of illusion to conceal from ourselves that we did not think each other absolutely perfect.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“The secret of happiness is very simply this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds the contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of
prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“It is quite impossible to guess in advance what will interest a man, but most men are capable of a keen interest in something or other, and when once such an interest has been aroused their life becomes free from tedium.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Being right is based upon knowledge and experience and is often provable. Knowledge comes from the past, so it's safe. It is also out of date. It's the opposite of originality. Experience is built from solutions to old situations and problems. The old situations are probably different from the present ones, so that old solutions will have to be bent to fit new problems (and possibly fit badly). Also the likelihood is that, if you've got the experience, you'll probably use it. This is lazy. Experience is the opposite of being creative. If you can prove you're right you're set in concrete. You cannot move with the times or with other people. Being right is also being boring. Your mind is closed. You are not open to new ideas. You are rooted in your own rightness, which is arrogant. Arrogance is a valuable tool, but only if used very sparingly. Worst of all, being right has a tone of morality about it. To be anything else sounds weak or fallible, and people who are right would hate to be thought fallible. So: it's wrong to be right, because people who are right are rooted in the past, rigid-minded, dull and smug. There's no talking to them.”
― Paul Arden, It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be

“her spirits wanted the solitude and silence which only numbers could give.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Fiecare imobil e un coșciug, gardul curții, un zid de închisoare, fericirea o găsești pe stradă, libertatea are gust de benzină și praf.”
― Jakob Schrenk, Arta exploatării de sine: sau Minunata lume nouă a muncii