Gillian > Gillian's Quotes

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
― Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

“My mother's death supervened, and this was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul.”
― Salvador Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí

“An unpredictable, faithful and objective hazard seems to have systematically singled out my life to make what are normally uneventful incidents violent, phenomenal and memorable.”
― Salvador Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí

“The degree to which I can create relationships, which facilitate the growth of others as separate persons, is a measure of the growth I have achieved in myself.”
― Carl R Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

“It is a condition of monsters that they do not perceive themselves as such. The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry 'Monster!' and looked behind him.”
― Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

“How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me. I mean, there are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage monster'; instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do. If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees. But then you take a look at what the corporation does, the effect of its legal structure, the vast inequalities in pay and conditions, and you see the reality is something far different.”
― Noam Chomsky

“So many years I had spent as a child sifting his bright features for his thoughts, trying to glimpse among them one that bore my name. But he was a harp with only one string, and the note it played was himself.

“You have always been the worst of my children,” he said. “Be sure to not dishonor me.”

“I have a better idea. I will do as I please, and when you count your children, leave me out.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Even the most beautiful nymph is largely useless, and an ugly one would be nothing, less than nothing. She would never marry or produce children. She would be a burden to her family, a stain upon the face of the world. She would live in the shadows, scorned and reviled. But a monster,” he said, “she always has a place. She may have all the glory her teeth can snatch. She will not be loved for it, but she will not be constrained either. So whatever foolish sorrow you harbor, forget it. I think it may be said that you improved her.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Is it not our human tragedy that some men must be beaten like donkeys before they will see reason?”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I had been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that was only a shape I had been poured into. I did not have to keep it.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Have you ever asked yourself, do monsters make war, or does war make monsters?”
― Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

“Love is a luxury."
"No. Love is an element."
An element. Like air to breathe, earth to stand on.”
― Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”
― Emily Jane Brontë , Wuthering Heights

“You are cruel, Elias,” she whispers against my mouth. “To give a girl all she desires only to tear it away.”
“This isn't the end for us, Laia of Serra.” I cannot give up what we could have. I don't care what bleeding vow I made. “Do you hear me? This is not our end.”
“You've never been a liar.” She dashes her hands against the wetness in her eyes. “Don't start now.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“Needing protection is not a weakness. Refusing to trust your allies is.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“Love. I sigh. Love is joy coupled with misery, elation bound to despair. It is a fire that beckons me gently and then burns when I get too close. I hate love. I yearn for it. And it drives me mad.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“Skies save me from the men in my life and all the things they think they know.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“Hope is stronger than fear. It is stronger than hate.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“Curse this world for what it does to the mothers, for what it does to the daughters. Curse it for making us strong through loss and pain, our hearts torn from our chests again and again. Curse it for forcing us to endure.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“Strange how monsters can reach from beyond the grave, as potent in death as they were in life.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“My song is not one of peace. It is one of failure and pain. My song is one of battle and blood, death and power. It is not the song of Helene Aquilla. It is the song of the Blood Shrike.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“The ocean waves thunder on, and it is man who must swim amongst them. The wind blows, cold and brittle, and it is man who must protect against it. The earth shakes and cracks, swallows and destroys, but it is man who must walk upon it. So it is with death. I cannot surrender.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“You cannot walk in the shadows as long as I have and not become one.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“Love cannot live here.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“But I must prepare myself, for such stories are dragons drawn from a deep well in a dark place. Does one summon a dragon? No. One may only invite it and hope it emerges.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“What are you doing to me, you plague of a girl?” he whispered.
“If I’m a plague, then you should keep your distance, unless you plan on being destroyed.” The weapons still in her grasp, she shoved against his chest.
“No.” His hands dropped to her waist. “Destroy me.”
― Renee Ahdieh, The Wrath and the Dawn