Mathew > Mathew 's Quotes

“Nothing ever happened - Not even this ”
― Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”
― John Muir

“But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“But now to die would be, indeed, to give way to the sarcasm of destiny.”
― Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Govinda said: “But what you call thing, is it something real, something intrinsic? Is it not only the illusion of Maya, only image and appearance? Your stone, your tree, are they real?”

“This does not trouble me much,” said Siddhartha. “If they are illusion, then I also am illusion, and so they are always of the same nature as myself. It is that which makes them so loveable and venerable. That is why I can love them. And here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.”
― Hermann Hesse

“Swift horses are curbed for hauling dung-carts in the field.
When Tao does not reign in the world,
War horses are bred on the commons outside the cities.
There is no greater crime than seeking what men desire;
There is no greater misery than knowing no content;
There is no greater calamity than indulging in greed.
Therefore the contentment of knowing content will ever be contented.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Even if you were destined to live three thousand years, or ten times that long, nevertheless remember that no one loses any life other than the one he lives, or lives any life other than the one he loses. It follows that the longest and the shortest lives are brought to the same state. The present moment is equal for all; so what is passing is equal also; the loss therefore turns out to be the merest fragment of time. No one can lose either the past or the future — how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess?”
― Marcus Aurelious

“All dogs love God. They're wiser than their masters.”
― Jack Kerouac

“People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly.”
― Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea

“We classify too much and enjoy too little.”
― Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea

“The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”
― Matthew

“5: So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!”
― James

“There are poisons that blind you, and poisons that open your eyes.”
― August Strindberg, The ghost sonata

“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“So my first thought when I saw this
murderous shape rushing toward me was: So it’s you. Here you are. It is
said that Henry James’s last words were “So it has come at last, the
distinguished thing.” Death was coming at me, too, but it didn’t strike me as
distinguished. It struck me as anachronistic”
― Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

“Like every man I am my own worst enemy, but unlike most men I know too that I am my own saviour.”
― Henry Miller, Henry Miller on Writing

“The most important of these things is that art challenges orthodoxy. To reject or vilify art because it does that is to fail to understand its nature. Art sets the artist's passionate personal vision against the received ideas of its time. Art knows that recieved ideas are the enemies of art, as Flaubert told us in Bouvard and Pecuchet. Cliches are received ideas and so are ideologies, both those which depend on the sanction of invisible sky gods and those which do not. Without art, our ability to think, to see freshly, and to renew our world would wither and die.

Art is not a luxury. It stands at the essence of our humanity, and it asks for no special protection except the right to exist.

It accepts argument, criticism, even rejection. It does not accept violence.”
― Salman Rushdie;, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

“It is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.”
― Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea

“and I began, fatally, with Dostoevsky”
― James Baldwin, Letter from a region in my mind

“Is it not true that no two human beings understand anything whatsoever about each other, that those who consider themselves bosom friends may be utterly mistaken about their fellow and, failing to realize this sad truth throughout a lifetime, weep when they read in the newspapers about his death?”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
― Albert Camus

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“So this is old age! I’ve seen half my friends die.
I say prayers at their passing, too tired to cry.”
― Saladin Ahmed, Throne of the Crescent Moon (Crescent Moon Kingdoms) by Saladin Ahmed

“If man were never to fade away... but lingered on forever in the world, how things would lose their power to move us. The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.”
― Kenko Yoshida

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Let my grave be forgotten. Give me your word of honour that you will allow no monument of any sort — not even the commonest tombstone — to mark the place of my burial. Let me sleep, nameless. Let me rest, unknown.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone

“10. Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a
‘lamp’; not a woman, but a ‘woman’. To perceive Camp in objects and
persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest
extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.”
― Susan Sontag, Notes on ‘Camp’