Steve > Steve's Quotes

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“...all members of Congress should be required wear NASCAR uniforms. You know, the kind with the patches? That way we'd know who is sponsoring each of them. I think he was kidding; they'd never be able to do it but it's a great idea and would wake people up in this country.”
― Brad Thor, Full Black

“Si vis pacem, para bellum - If you want peace, prepare for war.”
― J.B. Salsbury, Fighting to Forgive

“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“We always think there's enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like 'if'.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“And time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. One of the most painful moments in a person's life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. Memories, perhaps.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“You only need one ray of light to chase all the shadows away,”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Men like Ove and Rune were from a generation in which one was what one did, not what one talked about.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“All roads lead to something you were predestined to do.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“But if anyone had asked, he would have told them that he never lived before he met her. And not after either.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth.
You are also as strong as your strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean
by the frailty of its foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be –the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer – which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.”
― Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves

“The problem with any philosophical consideration is that once you open a door in your mind, you can never close it. Once you learn something, you can never convince your mind that you didn't learn it. If you learn the world is round, you can never fit in with a world that thinks it's flat.”
― Ted Dekker, The Priest's Graveyard

“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”
― Mark Twain

“Success is determined not by whether or not you face obstacles, but by your reaction to them. And if you look at these obstacles as a containing fence, they become your excuse for failure. If you look at them as a hurdle, each one strengthens you for the next.”
― Ben Carson, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

“Happiness doesn't result from what we get, but from what we give.”
― Ben Carson

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god.”
― Jack Carr, Savage Son

“The nun said, “I can forgive the language. I’m not sure I can forgive your making an obscene gesture at your mother.” “Ya gotta know her,” Holland said. “If you knew her, you’d give her the finger, too.”
― John Sandford, Holy Ghost

“where there’s government subsidy, there is always corruption.”
― Michael Connelly, The Law of Innocence

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“The Army might screw you and your girlfriend might dump you and the enemy might kill you, but the shared commitment to safeguard one another’s lives is unnegotiable and only deepens with time. The willingness to die for another person is a form of love that even religions fail to inspire, and the experience of it changes a person profoundly.”
― Sebastian Junger, War

“I finally reached a person that spoke English.”
― Brad Taylor, Days of Rage

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
― Gerald R. Ford

“Reader's Bill of Rights

1. The right to not read

2. The right to skip pages

3. The right to not finish

4. The right to reread

5. The right to read anything

6. The right to escapism

7. The right to read anywhere

8. The right to browse

9. The right to read out loud

10. The right to not defend your tastes”
― Daniel Pennac