Abdullah A. > Abdullah A.'s Quotes

“Foolishness? No, It’s Not

Sometimes I spend all day trying to count the leaves on a single tree. To do this I have to climb branch by branch and write down the numbers in a little book. So I suppose, from their point of view, it’s reasonable that my friends say: what foolishness! She’s got her head in the clouds again.

But it’s not. Of course I have to give up, but by then I’m half crazy with the wonder of it — the abundance of the leaves, the quietness of the branches, the hopelessness of my effort. And I am in that delicious and important place, roaring with laughter, full of earth-praise.”
― Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings: Poems

“We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“One of the strange things about adulthood is that you are your current self, but you are also all the selves you used to be, the ones you grew out of but can't ever quite get rid of.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will. ”
― Epictetus

“The alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages, he found a story about Narcissus.

The alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the narcissus.

But this was not how the author of the book ended the story.

He said that when Narcissus died, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.

'Why do you weep?' the goddesses asked.

'I weep for Narcissus," the lake replied.

'Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus,' they said, 'for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand.'

'But... was Narcissus beautiful?' the lake asked.

'Who better than you to know that?' the goddesses asked in wonder. 'After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!'

The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:

'I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.'

'What a lovely story,' the alchemist thought.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“You are a little soul carrying around a corpse”
― Epictetus

“أتمنى لكِ اليأس يا حبيبتي؛ لكي تصيرين مبدعة. اليائسون هم المبدعون، لا تنتظريني ولا تنتظري أحدًا. انتظري الفكرة، لا تنتظري المفكّر. انتظري القصيدة، ولا تنتظري الشاعر. انتظري الثورة، ولا تنتظري الثائر. المفكّر يخطئ، والشاعر يكذب، والثائر يتعب.”
― محمود درويش, يوميات الحزن العادي

“أجمل ما في الصدفة أنها خالية من الإنتظار”
― محمود درويش

“الخوف لا يمنع من الموت و لكنه يمنع من الحياة.”
― نجيب محفوظ, أولاد حارتنا

“Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”
― Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, A Life For A Life

“Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“حين ينتهي الحُب , أَدرك انه لم يكن حُباً
الحبّ لا بد أن يُعاش , لا أن يُتذَكر!”
― محمود درويش

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

“I have spread my dreams under your feet.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
― W.B. Yeats

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“I guess when you are young, you believe that you will meet many people with whom you'll connect with, but later in life you realize it only happens a few times.”
― Julie Delpy, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

“Beautiful things don't ask for attention.”
― James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty