Stefanie Brekne > Stefanie's Quotes

“Well-read people are less likely to be evil.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Slippery Slope

“There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.”
― Christopher Morley, Pipefuls

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

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
― Voltaire

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.”
― Albert Einstein

“In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Religion is like a pair of shoes.....Find one that fits for you, but don't make me wear your shoes.”
― George Carlin

“Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

“I consider it an extremely dangerous doctrine, because the more likely we are to assume that the solution comes from the outside, the less likely we are to solve our problems ourselves.”
― Carl Sagan

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“Who, being loved, is poor?”
― Oscar Wilde

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Narcotics Anonymous

“I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.”
― Mae West

“Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.”
― William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part Two

“Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.”
― William Shakespeare, The Passionate Pilgrim

“In time we hate that which we often fear.”
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!”
― Lewis Carroll

“The more I see, the less I know for sure.”
― John Lennon

“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”
― Bertrand Russell

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
― Bertrand Russell

“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.”
― Bertrand Russell

“No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.”
― Bertrand Russell, On Education: On Education

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“And, in the end
The love you take
is equal to the love you make.”
― Paul McCartney, The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
― Barack Obama

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark