Nina > Nina's Quotes

“The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.”
― Abigail Van Buren

“That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly -- that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to oneself. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion -- these are the two things that govern us.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Stories

“There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“There is something noble as well as terrible about suicide. The downfall of many men is not dangerous, for they fall like children, too near the ground to do themselves harm. But when a great man breaks, he has soared up to the heavens, espied some inaccessible paradise, and then fallen from a great height. The forces that make him seek peace from the barrel of a gun cannot be placated. How many young talents confined to an attic room wither and perish for lack of a friend, a consoling wife, alone in the midst of a million fellow humans, while throngs of people weary of gold are bored with their possessions.”
― Honoré de Balzac, The Wild Ass's Skin

“Don't mistake my kindness for weakness. I am kind to everyone, but when someone is unkind to me, weak is not what you are going to remember about me.”
― Al Capone

“If you expect the worst from a person you can never be disappointed.”
― Anthony Burgess, The Wanting Seed

“Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses to be bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“If you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power, power. Think of it: perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become. Hitler an example. Fair makes the old brain reel, doesn't it?”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“I am a clown...and I collect moments.”
― Heinrich Böll, The Clown

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

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

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend”
― Albert Camus

“And when the sun goes down and the mood comes upon me, I'll watch the play of the colors on the water, yield to the fleetly dissolving images, and turn into pure feeling, all soft and nice.... ”
― Günter Grass, My Century

“When Satan's not in the mood, virtue triumphs. Hasn't even Satan a right not to be in the mood once in a while?”
― Günter Grass, The Tin Drum

“Einerseits geben Wörter Sinn, andererseits sind sie tauglich, Unsinn zu stiften. Wörter können heilsam oder verletzend sein. Das Wort als Waffe. Sich spreizende, auftrumpfende, mit Bedeutung gemästete Wörter. Manche sind Zungenbrecher, andere lassen erkennen, verschleiern, leugnen ab, decken zu oder auf. Oft liegen winzige Wahrheiten unter Wortlawinen begraben. Aus Wortstreit entspringen Schimpfwörter. Flüche, Beschwörungen, Zaubersprüche bannen, rufen herbei, lassen wahre Wunder geschehen.”
― Günter Grass, Grimms Wörter. Eine Liebeserklärung

“Our true passions are selfish.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“I am mad, I am going under, I must follow the advice of a friend, and pay no heed to myself.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“საზოგადოებრივი აზრი? - ეს ხომ ყოველ მეძავ ქალზე უფრო გარყვნილი არსებაა.”
― Honoré de Balzac, The Wild Ass's Skin