Peter Kalnin > Peter's Quotes

“He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.”
― William Blake

“I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
― Albert Einstein

“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink”
― George Orwell, 1984

“To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.”
― Socrates

“Death was a friend, and sleep was Death's brother.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.”
― joseph heller, Catch-22

“Be calm. God awaits you at the door.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

“The old man smiled. 'I shall not die of a cold, my son. I shall die of having lived.”
― Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

“My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

“What passing bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers, nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells,
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes,
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall,
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each, slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.”
― Wilfred Owen, The War Poems

“We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone. But how far away that future may be, there is no knowing.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“I wanted to keep looking at her because I wanted to never take my eyes from her, but still I had to
lower my eyes, I was so ashamed that even now Jenny was reading my mind so perfectly.
'Listen, that's the only goddamn thing I'm asking, Ollie. Otherwise, I know you'll be okay.' That thing in my gut was stirring again, so I was afraid to even speak the word 'okay.' I just
looked mutely at Jenny.”
― Erich Segal, Love Story

“We born dyin'...But you ask a man an' he talk like he gonna live forevah.”
― Walter Mosley, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

“The reason dying is so easy is because death has no meaning... And the reason death has no meaning is because life has no meaning. All the same, have fun!”
― Janne Teller, Nothing

“I suppose each of us has his own fantasy of how he wants to die. I would like to go out in a blaze of glory, myself, or maybe simply disappear someday, far out in the heart of the wilderness I love, all by myself, alone with the Universe and whatever God may happen to be looking on. Disappear - and never return. That's my fantasy.”
― Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

“The flesh would shrink and go, the blood would dry, but no one believes in his mind of minds or heart of hearts that the pictures do stop.”
― Saul Bellow

“Many African societies divide humans into three categories: those still alive on the earth, the sasha, and the zamani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living-dead. They are not wholly dead, for they still live in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead. As generalised ancestors, the zamani are not forgotten but revered. Many … can be recalled by name. But they are not the living-dead. There is a difference.”
― James W Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

“Between the dark, heavily laden treetops of the spreading chestnut trees could be seen the dark blue of the sky, full of stars, all solemn and golden, which extended their radiance unconcernedly into the distance. That was the nature of the stars. and the trees bore their buds and blossoms and scars for everyone to see, and whether it signified pleasure or pain, they accepted the strong will to live. flies that lived only for a day swarmed toward their death. every life had its radiance and beauty. i had insight into it all for a moment, understood it and found it good, and also found my life and sorrows good.”
― Hermann Hesse

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."

(Little Gidding)”
― T.S. Eliot

“Her silence is mine.”
― Marc Chagall, My Life

“You could wonder for hours what flowers mean, but for me, they're life itself, in all its happy brilliance. We couldn't do with out flowers. Flowers help you forget life's tragedies.”
― Marc Chagall

“I am a child who is getting on.”
― Marc Chagall

“Art seems to me to be a state of soul more than anything else.”
― Marc Chagall

“In the arts, as in life, everything is possible provided it is based on love.”
― Marc Chagall

“Only love interests me, and I am only in contact with things I love.”
― Marc Chagall

“Mine alone is the country of my soul.”
― Marc Chagall

“I have always painted pictures where human love floods my colors.”
― Marc Chagall

“All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.”
― Marc Chagall

“What a genius, that Picasso. It is a pity he doesn't paint.”
― Marc Chagall