Lam Dang > Lam's Quotes

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”
― André Gide

“Great people do things before they're ready. They do things before they know they can do it. Doing what you're afraid of, getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks like that- that's what life is. You might be really good. You might find out something about yourself that's really special and if you're not good, who cares? You tried something. Now you know something about yourself”
― Amy Poehler

“There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren't as good as others.”
― Raymond Chandler

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
― James Baldwin

“You know that look that women get when they want to have sex? Me neither.”
― Steve Martin

“There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“If you don't become the ocean, you'll be seasick every day.”
― Leonard Cohen

“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”
― Henri Bergson

“The real damage is done by those millions who want to 'survive.' The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”
― Sophie Scholl

“Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.”
― Thomas Carlyle

“Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are”
― Thomas Carlyle

“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“The consolation of imaginary things is not imaginary consolation.”
― Roger Scruton

“It is not enough to be nice; you have to be good. We are attracted by nice people; but only on the assumption that their niceness is a sign of goodness.”
― Roger Scruton

“By living in a spirit of forgiveness we not only uphold the core value of citizenship but also find the path to social membership that we need. Happiness does not come from the pursuit of pleasure, nor is it guaranteed by freedom, it comes from sacrifice. That is the message of the Christian religion and it is the message that is conveyed by all the memorable works of our culture. It is the message that has been lost in the noise of repudiation, but which it seems to me can be heard once again if we devote our energies to retrieving it. And in the christian tradition the primary act of sacrifice is forgiveness. The one who forgives sacrifices vengeance and renounces thereby a part of himself for the sake of another.”
― Roger Scruton

“beauty is an ultimate value—something that we pursue for its own sake, and for the pursuit of which no further reason need be given. Beauty should therefore be compared to truth and goodness, one member of a trio of ultimate values which justify our rational inclinations.”
― Roger Scruton, Beauty: A Very Short Introduction

“Music is a wonderful example of something that’s in this world but not of this world. Great works of music speak to us from another realm even though they speak to us in ordinary physical sounds.”
― Roger Scruton, The Soul of the World

“If you have no wounds, how can you know if you're alive?”
― Edward Albee, The Play About the Baby

“Martha: ... I cry allllll the time; but deep inside, so no one can see me. I cry all the time. And Georgie cries all the time, too. We both cry all the time, and then what we do, we cry, and we take our tears, and we put 'em in the ice box, in the goddamn ice trays until they're all frozen and then... we put them... in our... drinks.”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language.”
― Martin Buber

“The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.”
― Martin Buber

“Solitude is the place of purification.”
― Martin Buber

“If they give you lined paper, write the other way.”
― William Carlos Williams

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”
― Albert Camus

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
― Albert Camus

“But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.”
― Albert Camus

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”
― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

“Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth... Love is as love does. Love is an act of will -- namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.”
― M. Scott Peck