Olivia > Olivia's Quotes

“We were together. I forget the rest.”
― Walt Whitman

“I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open—always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a mistake—after a wrong guess.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman's Camden Conversations

“I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average”
― Charles Bukowski

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections

“Watch out for intellect,
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down,
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.”
― Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems

“Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.”
― Victor Hugo

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“This life’s hard, but it’s harder if you’re stupid.”
― George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle

“What's the good of living if you don't try a few things?”
― Charles M. Schulz

“If wishes were fishes, this whole place would really stink.”
― Karina Halle, And With Madness Comes the Light

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
― Dylan Thomas, In Country Sleep, and Other Poems

“Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“Though I obviously have no proof of this, the one aspect of life that seems clear to me is that good people do whatever they believe is the right thing to do. Being virtuous is hard, not easy. The idea of doing good things simply because you're good seems like a zero-sum game; I'm not even sure those actions would still qualify as 'good,' since they'd merely be a function of normal behavior. Regardless of what kind of god you believe in--a loving god, a vengeful god, a capricious god, a snooty beret-wearing French god, or whatever--one has to assume that you can't be penalized for doing the things you believe to be truly righteous and just. Certainly, this creates some pretty glaring problems: Hitler may have thought he was serving God. Stalin may have thought he was serving God (or something vaguely similar). I'm certain Osama bin Laden was positive he was serving God. It's not hard to fathom that all of those maniacs were certain that what they were doing was right. Meanwhile, I constantly do things that I know are wrong; they're not on the same scale as incinerating Jews or blowing up skyscrapers, but my motivations might be worse. I have looked directly into the eyes of a woman I loved and told her lies for no reason, except that those lies would allow me to continue having sex with another woman I cared about less. This act did not kill 20 million Russian peasants, but it might be more 'diabolical' in a literal sense. If I died and found out I was going to hell and Stalin was in heaven, I would note the irony, but I couldn't complain. I don't make the fucking rules.”
― Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we've ever met.”
― Marguerite Duras

“Life is a beautiful magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish.”
― Charles Chaplin

“I had no illusions about you,' he said. 'I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and commonplace. But I loved you. I knew that you were second-rate. But I loved you. It's comic when I think how hard I tried to be amused by the things that amused you and how anxious I was to hide from you that I wasn't ignorant and vulgar and scandal-mongering and stupid. I knew how frightened you were of intelligence and I did everything I could to make you think me as big a fool as the rest of the men you knew. I knew that you'd only married me for convenience. I loved you so much, I didn't care. Most people, as far as I can see, when they're in love with someone and the love isn't returned feel that they have a grievance. They grow angry and bitter. I wasn't like that. I never expected you to love me, I didn't see any reason that you should. I never thought myself very lovable. I was thankful to be allowed to love you and I was enraptured when now and then I thought you were pleased with me or when I noticed in your eyes a gleam of good-humored affection. I tried not to bore you with my love; I knew I couldn't afford to do that and I was always on the lookout for the first sign that you were impatient with my affection. What most husbands expect as a right I was prepared to receive as a favor.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil

“And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.”
― George Gordon Byron

“The minute you become conscious that you are doing good, that's the minute you have to stop because from then on it's wrong.”
― Paula Fox

“Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him--he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and alas! most night.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

“And remember, the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God.”
― Herbert Kretzmer

“Morality is truth in full bloom.”
― Victor Hugo

“People change and forget to tell each other.”
― Lillian Hellman

“It's a sad day when you find out that it's not accident or time or fortune, but just yourself that kept things from you.”
― Lillian Hellman

“I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak.”
― Lillian Hellman

“There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.”
― Adrienne Rich

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Selected Poems

“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”
― Walt Whitman