Circe Link > Circe's Quotes

“Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Forever is composed of nows.”
― Emily Dickinson

“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

“I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.”
― Groucho Marx, Groucho and Me

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
― Margaret Mead

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
― Anne Frank, Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex: A Collection of Her Short Stories, Fables, and Lesser-Known Writings

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”
― Albert Camus

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Albert Einstein

“You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”
― Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary

“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”
― Frank Zappa

“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”
― Mark Twain

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
― Plato

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“May you live every day of your life.”
― Jonathan Swift

“We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear.”
― Judy Blume

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
― Babe Ruth

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.”
― Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

“Anyway—because we are readers, we don't have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next—and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis—at any time of night or day.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage

“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”
― Benjamin Spock

“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Complete Prose Works Of Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Love says 'I am everything.' Wisdom says 'I am nothing.' Between the two, my life flows.”
― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That

“The temple bell stops
But the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers”
― Matsuo Bashō

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
― Tagore

“I just can't see the upside in this," I heard myself say by way of explanation.

Later he said that if John had been sitting in the office he would have found this funny, as he himself had found it. "Of course I knew what you meant to say, and John would have known too, you meant to say you couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel."

I agreed, but this was not in fact the case.

I had meant pretty much exactly what I said: I couldn't see the upside in this.

As I thought about the difference between the two sentences I realized that my impression of myself had been of someone who could look for, and find, the upside in any situation. I had believed in the logic of popular songs. I had looked for the silver lining. I had walked on through the storm. It occurs to me now that these were not even the songs of my generation. They were the songs, and the logic, of the generation or two that preceded my own. The score for my generation was Les Paul and Mary Ford, "How High the Moon," a different logic altogether. It also occurs to me, not an original thought but novel to me, that the logic of those earlier songs was based on self-pity. The singer of the song about looking for the silver lining believes that clouds have come her way. The singer of the song about walking on through the storm assumes that the storm could otherwise take her down.”
― Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

“You gotta find what you like and let it kill you.”
― Charles Bukowski