Basmah Magzoub > Basmah's Quotes

“Finally, she mused that human existence is as brief as the life of autumn grass, so what was there to fear from taking chances with your life?”
― Mo Yan, Red Sorghum

“But a human being, she, she, cannot simply exist; she is a hurricane, every thought bending and crossing its coherence inside her, nothing will let her be, not for a moment. Every emotion, every thought, is invaded by another.”
― Nadine Gordimer, The Pickup

“As an adult I had mastered the art of looking without seeing and listening without hearing and eating without tasting and maybe even existing without living.”
― Dan Groat, An Enigmatic Escape: A Trilogy

“Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”
― Mark Twain

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”
― Hunter S. Thompson

“I want to live with deep intimacy every day of my life. I am guided, sometimes driven, by an ache to take the necessary risks that will let me live close to what is within and around me. And I am sometimes afraid that it will be too much, that I will not have, or be connected to, whatever it takes to be with it all, to bear the exquisite beauty and bone-wrenching sorrow of being fully alive.”
― Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Invitation

“He thought he’d lived through everything. Only now did he realise he’d merely existed.”
― Dianna Hardy, The Demon Bride

“When you stop existing and you start truly living, each moment of the day comes alive with the wonder and synchronicity.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“When you are just EXISTING, life happens to you… and you manage; when you are truly LIVING, you happen to life… and you lead.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“If safety is my goal, living life is not.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“It’s not dying I’m afraid of. It’s dying without ever having lived that I’m afraid of.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“It isn't by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world…by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.”
― Ken Kesey, Kesey's Garage Sale

“Existing is going through the motions of life with no zeal and feeling you have no control; living means embracing all that this large world has to offer and not being afraid to take chances. The beauty of living is knowing you can always start over and there's always a chance for something better.”
― J'son M. Lee

“Now it's the dark's turn to be afraid.”
― Joseph Delaney, Curse of the Bane

“What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of nature’s course.”
― Roman Payne, The Wanderess

“Opportunities will come and go, but if you do nothing about them, so will you.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Smiling at death seems like a pretty bold act. And so I smile like a damned fool.”
― Emm Cole, Keeping Merminia

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Part of being alive is having life change us. The people around us, the events we live through, all of them shape us. And that's what I think you're afraid of. Maybe not of dying. But of this you, the you you've become, ceasing to exist.”
― Amie Kaufman, Illuminae

“There isn't so much to be afraid of, out there. I can remember thinking it was funny to find that out, on the last night of my life; I'd spent the rest of it being afraid of everything.”
― Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down

“Will we ever stop being afraid of nights and death?

When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die.”
― Ray Bradbury

“Being afraid is when you let fear control your life, let it stop you from doing what you want. When you’re afraid, but you look your fear in the eye and live, that’s courageous.”
― Vi Keeland, Bossman

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, Strenuous Life

“Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive - the risk to be alive and express what we really are.
”
― Don Miguel Ruiz

“In life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve?

The essence of man is imperfection. Know that you're going to make mistakes. The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. Wake up and realize this: Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success.

Achievers are given multiple reasons to believe they are failures. But in spite of that, they persevere. The average for entrepreneurs is 3.8 failures before they finally make it in business.

When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic.

Procrastination is too high a price to pay for fear of failure. To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway. Forget motivation. Just do it. Act your way into feeling, not wait for positive emotions to carry you forward.

Recognize that you will spend much of your life making mistakes. If you can take action and keep making mistakes, you gain experience.

Life is playing a poor hand well. The greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside.

Why worry about things you can't control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?

Handicaps can only disable us if we let them. If you are continually experiencing trouble or facing obstacles, then you should check to make sure that you are not the problem.

Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living.

Embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward.

Everything in life brings risk. It's true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don't try anything new.

The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure — and actually fail — the greater your chances of success.

If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you're not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve.

The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get.

Determining what went wrong in a situation has value. But taking that analysis another step and figuring out how to use it to your benefit is the real difference maker when it comes to failing forward. Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action.

The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying?

Commitment makes you capable of failing forward until you reach your goals. Cutting corners is really a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline.

Successful people have learned to do what does not come naturally. Nothing worth achieving comes easily. The only way to fail forward and achieve your dreams is to cultivate tenacity and persistence.

Never say die. Never be satisfied. Be stubborn. Be persistent. Integrity is a must. Anything worth having is worth striving for with all your might.

If we look long enough for what we want in life we are almost sure to find it. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail.

The next time you find yourself envying what successful people have achieved, recognize that they have probably gone through many negative experiences that you cannot see on the surface.

Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.”
― John Maxwell, Failing Forward

“But he'd learned long ago that a life lived without risks pretty much wasn't worth living. Life rewarded courage, even when that first step was taken neck-deep in fear.”
― Tamera Alexander, Within My Heart

“The daily hummingbird assaults existence with improbability.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters

“Is your father writing a book?" said Alison.

"No. He's existing. Some people live, like the rest of us, like the people in your plays. He just exists.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Message to the Planet

“It’s time for a spring cleaning of your thoughts, it’s time to stop to just existing it’s time to start living.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience