Sunanda > Sunanda's Quotes

“At the head of all understanding – is realizing what is and what cannot be, and the consoling of what is not in our power to change.”
― Solomon ben Judah a.k.a. Solomon ibn Gabirol Shelomo ben Yehuda ibn Gabirol Avicebron

“To die, it's easy. But you have to struggle for life.”
― Art Spiegelman, Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History

“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“When left alone with her, I ignored her and kept my eyes on my book, though I confess I turned over more pages than I read.”
― Mary Street, The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Vanity, not love, has been my folly.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Elizabeth was excessively disappointed...but it was her business to be satisfied — and certainly her temper to be happy; and all was soon right again.”
― Jane Austen

“Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby”
― George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

“Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep—it can't be done abruptly.”
― Colm Tóibín

“People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.”
― Saul Bellow

“If you can’t appreciate what you’ve got, you’d better get what you can appreciate.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

“What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn’t come every day.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

“HIGGINS
I find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.

PICKERING
At what, for example?

HIGGINS
Oh, Lord knows! I suppose the woman wants to live her own life; and the man wants to live his; and each tries to drag the other on to the wrong track. One wants to go north and the other south; and the result is that both have to go east, though they both hate the east wind.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

“The weak may not be admired and hero-worshipped; but they are by no means disliked or shunned; and they never seem to have the least difficulty in marrying people who are too good for them. They may fail in emergencies; but life is not one long emergency: it is mostly a string of situations for which no exceptional strength is needed, and with which even rather weak people can cope if they have a stronger partner to help them out.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

“PICKERING:Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you a man of good character where women are concerned?

HIGGINS [moodily]:Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned?”
― George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

“You See, really and truly, apart from things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated”
― Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw

“Sometimes it's hard to see the rainbow when there's been endless days of rain.”
― Christina Greer, Two-Week Wait: Motherhood Lost and Found

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein

“Love is more than simply being open to experiencing the anguish of another person's suffering. It is the willingness to live with the helpless knowing that we can do nothing to save the other from his pain. (23)”
― Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients

“He prefers the security of known misery to the misery of unfamiliar insecurity.”
― Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients

“I cannot find anywhere in my life a time, or a kind of time, that is unoccupied. I am free, but my time is not. My time is fully and vitally occupied.... None of this is spare time. I can't spare it. ... I have no time to spare.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters

“If memory remains sound and the thinking mind retains its vigor, an old intelligence may have extraordinary breadth and depth of understanding.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters

“This is morally problematic when personal decision is confused with personal opinion.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters

“Old Age Is Not for the Young.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters

“The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is ‘escapism’ an accusation of?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters

“A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“There's a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“To see that your life is a story while you're in the middle of living it may be a help to living it well.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Gifts