Libby > Libby's Quotes

“Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“The strong are strengthened by reverses; the trouble is that the true meaning of events scores next to nothing in the match we play with men. Appearances decide our gains or losses and the points are trumpery. And a mere semblance of defeat may hopelessly checkmate us.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you.”
― Jeanette Winterson

“There are times when it will go so wrong that you will barely be alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

“To me, these days will never end. I am always there, in that room with her,
or if not I, the imprint of myself - my fossil-love”
― Jeanette Winterson, Powerbook

“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"

I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?"

To shrug.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both, lady, not both.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“But you see, the measure of hell you're able to endure is the measure of your love.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“Have you felt it too? Have you seen how your best friends love everything about you- except the things that count? And your most important is nothing to them; nothing, not even a sound they can recognize.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered-and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.”
― Ayn Rand

“I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.”
― Ayn Rand

“But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself.”
― Ayn Rand

“There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
― Ayn Rand

“Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.”
― Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It?

“The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.

What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?

But I am done with this creed of corruption.

I am done with the monster of "We," the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.

And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.

This god, this one word:

"I.”
― Ayn Rand, Anthem

“Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?”
― Ayn Rand

“The past has no power over the present moment.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“To love is to recognize yourself in another.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita