Pasan Mendis > Pasan's Quotes

“I have lost my dewdrop", cries the flower to the morning sky that lost all its stars”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

“Let him only see the thorns who has eyes to see the rose.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

“The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

“The little cup that is made to hold so much can hold so much and no more.”
― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

“IN death the many becomes one;in life the one becomes many.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

“THE woodcutter's axe begged for it's handle from the tree. The tree gave it.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

“සිද්ධාර්ථ!
එබැවින් අද
නියත විවරණය මට දුන මැනව.

මේ ලියන මේසය ළඟ
මේ පුටුව මත හිඳ
මේ ලිපිගොනු අතර මැද-
හාන පෝරුගාන වී වපුරන වෙල්යායක-
සටන් පාඨ
වැඩ වර්ජන
කම්හල් දැති රෝද අතර-
ගෑනු පිරිමි එක රොත්තට හිරවීගෙන
උදේ සවස වැඩට යනෙන කෝච්චියක
දෙනෝදාහක් සෙනග අතර-
බුදු වීමට;
තනියම නොව
දෙනෝදාහක් සෙනග එක්ක
අපි ඔක්කොම එකට බුදු වීමට.”
― මහගම සේකර, ප්‍රබුද්ධ

“I suddenly felt that it made no difference to me whether the world existed or whether nothing existed anywhere at all.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“The part of life we really live is small.
For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.”
― Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

“In the state I was in, if someone had come and told me I could go home quietly, that they would leave me my life whole, it would have left me cold: several hours or several years of waiting is all the same when you have lost the illusion of being eternal.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, The Wall

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“My favourite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence.

[Sources and Acknowledgements: Chapter 19]”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 3001: The Final Odyssey

“Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.”
― Voltaire

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“[Dean] “My dear fellow, who will let you?”

[Roark] “That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Youth is wasted on the young.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”
― Plato, The Symposium

“...and when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment...”
― Plato, The Symposium

“Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.”
― Plato, The Symposium

“Love is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.”
― Plato, The Symposium

“According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty.”
― Plato, The Symposium

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

“Hearts are made to be broken.”
― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

“The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one’s heart—hearts are made to be broken—but that it turns one’s heart to stone.”
― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

“Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved”
― Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

“Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince