Charles van Buren > Charles 's Quotes

“To gain all we must risk all”
― Paul Von Lettow-vorbeck, My Reminiscences of East Africa: The Campaign for German East Africa in World War I

“Live each day as if thy last” is a wise word from a hymn written in 1674 by Thomas Ken. The older we get, the more needful its wisdom becomes, and if we have not already taken it to heart, we should do so now.”
― J.I. Packer, Finishing Our Course with Joy: Guidance from God for Engaging with Our Aging

“anything which we are taught by allegory or emblem affects and pleases us more, and is more highly esteemed by us, than it would be if most clearly stated in plain terms.”
― Augustine of Hippo, The Complete Works of Saint Augustine: The Confessions, On Grace and Free Will, The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, Expositions on the Book Of Psalms, ...

“We were defeated by the greed, the selfishness and the base, animal nature of men. It was the eternal conflict between spirit and matter, between soul and body. They would not renounce their bodies, which was all we asked of them.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“By the essence and nature of existence, contradictions cannot exist. If you find it inconceivable that an invention of genius should be abandoned among ruins, and that a philosopher should wish to work as a cook in a diner—check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity.”
― Voltaire

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Justice is, after all, in the hands of men and men are fallible.”
― Agatha Christie, Ordeal by Innocence

“She added on an explanatory note: 'He has eyes like a pig and his name is Joseph.'

'How shocking! One scarcely knows whether to feel pity or disgust.'

Miss Trent knew no such uncertainty. 'He is a hateful wretch!' she declared.”
― Georgette Heyer, Pistols For Two

“Pilar said soberly: "The world is very cruel to women. They must do what they can for themselves - while they are young. When they are old and ugly no one will help them.”
― Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot's Christmas

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
― Dante Alighieri

“Our task as humans is to widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Albert Einstein

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing”
― John Antal, 7 Leadership Lessons of D-Day: Lessons from the Longest Day—June 6, 1944

“Drinking the same wines all the time is really boring.”
― Jason Wilson, Godforsaken Grapes: A Slightly Tipsy Journey through the World of Strange, Obscure, and Underappreciated Wine

“Large quantities of fine graphite were also used to build the chain-reaction piles at the Los Alamos atomic weapons programme and within 48 hours of the capture of the island's capital, and while the opposing forces were still fighting, arrangements were made to ship 8,000 tons of graphite from Madagascar to the USA and UK.
Little can the Japanese have realized that their failure to capture Madagascar before the Allies could intervene in 1942 would lead to the cataclysmic events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 which brought the Second World War to such a violent and dramatic conclusion.”
― John Grehan, Churchill's Secret Invasion: Britains First Large Scale Combined Offensive 1942

“Foul, misbegotten mound of walking donkey dung!”
― Werner A. Lind, Lifeblood

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version

“Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians.”
― Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
― Gerald R. Ford

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended with my real face”
― Franz Kafka

“Two Catholics who have never met can nevertheless go together on crusade or pool funds to build a hospital because they both believe that God was incarnated in human flesh and allowed Himself to be crucified to redeem our sins. States are rooted in common national myths. Two Serbs who have never met might risk their lives to save one another because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation, the Serbian homeland and the Serbian flag. Judicial systems are rooted in common legal myths. Two lawyers who have never met can nevertheless combine efforts to defend a complete stranger because they both believe in the existence of laws, justice, human rights – and the money paid out in fees. Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“I flip through the book, one of his top three, without question, to the last horrifying chapter: ‘A Stronger Loving World'. To the only panel he's circled. Oscar-who never defaced a book in his life-circled one panel three times in the same emphatic pen he used to write his last letters home. The panel where Adrian Veidt and Dr. Manhattan are having their last convo. After the mutant brain has destroyed New York City; after Dr. Manhattan has murdered Rorschach; after Veidt's plan has succeeded in ‘saving the world'.

Veidt says: ‘I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end'. And Manhattan, before fading from our Universe, replies: ‘In the end? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends'.”
― Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“No one should need to be big enough to destroy others and all of us must have to be powerful and resourceful enough to protect ourselves.”
― Zaman Ali, ZAMANISM Wealth of the People

“Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I will do what others can't.”
― Jerry Rice

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

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

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”
― Niels Bohr