Claudia > Claudia's Quotes

“Never ever depend on governments or institutions to solve any major problems. All social change comes from the passion of individuals.”
― Margaret Mead

“You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves. A whole society composed of men afraid of the unknown within them!”
― Hermann Hesse

“The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

“...disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business....”
― Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

“Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“Anything that just costs money is cheap.”
― John Steinbeck

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“I mean that gods do not limit men. Men limit men.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

“The function of the artist,' the Navajo answered, 'is to provide what life does not.”
― Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction

“Beer's nice for being glad and dizzy, and sometimes for the mystery and stuff, but the happy that comes out of a beer can is not like the real happy you got to make in your heart.”
― Tom Robbins, B Is for Beer: A Philosophical Investigation for Adults and Children into Reality and Beer

“It's personal freedom, not hundred dollar bills that lights the soul's cigar.”
― Tom Robbins, B Is for Beer: A Philosophical Investigation for Adults and Children into Reality and Beer

“Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.”
― James Baldwin

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

“A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to committ outrages...”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”
― Walt Disney

“A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness.”
― Mother Teresa

“Among our egocentric sad-sacks, despair is as addictive as heroin and more popular than sex, for the single reason that when one is unhappy one gets to pay a lot of attention to oneself. Misery becomes a kind of emotional masturbation.”
― Tom Robbins, Wild Ducks Flying Backward

“True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

“To keep our faces toward change, and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate, is strength undefeatable.”
― Helen Keller

“Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others...By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley

“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

“For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.”
― Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

“I think men are afraid to be with a successful woman, because we are terribly strong, we know what we want and we are not fragile enough.”
― Shirley Bassey

“People do not lack strength, they lack will.”
― Victor Hugo

“We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”
― Marcel Proust

“He unzipped his pants and his brains fell out.”
― Rita Mae Brown, Venus Envy

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
― Mark Twain

“Our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible; and we all could be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously.”
― Tom Robbins

“Do the right thing by whoever crosses your path. Those coincidental people are your people.”
― Maxine Hong Kingston, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book