Alena > Alena's Quotes

“the world gives you so much pain and here you are making gold out of it
- there is nothing purer than that”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and honey

“I've read worse.'
Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet”
― Kennilworthy Whisp, Quidditch Through the Ages

“Take a risk. Take a fucking risk. If you keep playing it safe, you'll never know who you are -Josh”
― Stephanie Perkins, Isla and the Happily Ever After

“Умом Россию не понять,
Аршином общим не измерить:
У ней особенная стать —
В Россию можно только верить.”
― Фёдор Тютчев

“О, как убийственно мы любим, Как в буйной слепоте страстей Мы то всего вернее губим, Что сердцу нашему милей!”
― Fyodor Tyutchev, Поэзия

“Чему бы жизнь нас ни учила, Но сердце верит в чудеса: Есть нескудеющая сила, Есть и нетленная краса.”
― Fyodor Tyutchev, Поэзия

“Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.
"After all this time?"
"Always," said Snape.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Leef hard en goed en schoon en wild. Kijk goed, voel beter. Wees niet bang. Kies voor wat u blij maakt, wat het ook moge zijn. Durf proberen wat te lastig lijkt. Leg de lat hoog genoeg. Koester en laat u koesteren. Geef anderen wat ze verdienen, en uzelf minstens ook. Blijf hopen, willen, dromen, wensen.”
― Griet Op de Beeck, Vele hemels boven de zevende

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.”
― Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina

“Anything is better than lies and deceit!”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can't last.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.”
― André Malraux

“This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies. Of course this is not total freedom – we cannot avoid being shaped by the past. But some freedom is better than none.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

“We do not become satisfied by leading a peaceful and prosperous existence. Rather, we become satisfied when reality matches our expectations. The bad news is that as conditions improve, expectations balloon.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: Breve historia del mañana

“People are usually afraid of change because they fear the unknown. But the single greatest constant of history is that everything changes.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

“Each and every one of us has been born into a given historical reality, ruled by particular norms and values, and managed by a unique economic and political system. We take this reality for granted, thinking it is natural, inevitable and immutable. We forget that our world was created by an accidental chain of events, and that history shaped not only our technology, politics and society, but also our thoughts, fears and dreams. The cold hand of the past emerges from the grave of our ancestors, grips us by the neck and directs our gaze towards a single future. We have felt that grip from the moment we were born, so we assume that it is a natural and inescapable part of who we are. Therefore we seldom try to shake ourselves free, and envision alternative futures.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

“Yet in truth the lives of most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

“Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“That message is simple: When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“The tricky part of illness is that, as you go through it, your values are constantly changing. You try to figure out what matters to you, and then you keep figuring it out. It felt like someone had taken away my credit card and I was having to learn how to budget. You may decide you want to spend your time working as a neurosurgeon, but two months later, you may feel differently. Two months after that, you may want to learn to play the saxophone or devote yourself to the church. Death may be a one-time event, but living with terminal illness is a process.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“Unhealthy love is based on two people trying to escape their problems through their emotions for each other—in other words, they’re using each other as an escape. Healthy love is based on two people acknowledging and addressing their own problems with each other’s support.”
― Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

“Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“You can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.”
― Michelle Obama

“The ultimate fate of all intelligent beings has always been to become as grand as their thoughts.”
― Liu Cixin, Death's End