Tom > Tom's Quotes

“I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am ”
― Cooley, Inscriptions

“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Progress isn't achieved by preachers or guardians of morality, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and sceptics”
― Stephen Fry

“A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills

“In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned shall find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exists.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Irony got dangerous when it became a habit. Wallace quoted Lewis Hyde…”Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy the cage.” Then he continued: This is because irony, entertaining as it is, serves an almost exclusively negative function. It’s critical and destructive, a ground clearing…. Irony’s singularly unuseful when it comes to constructing anything to replace the hypocrisies it debunks. That was it exactly—Irony was defeatist, timid, the telltale of a generation too afraid to say what it meant, and so in danger of forgetting it had anything to say.”
― Lewis Hyde

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
― Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

“Never depend on the admiration of others. There is no strength in it. Personal merit cannot be derived from an external source. It is not to be found in your personal associations, nor can it be found in the regard of other people. It is a fact of life that other people, even people who love you, will not necessarily agree with your ideas, understand you, or share your enthusiasms. Grow up! Who cares what other people think about you!”
― Epictetus, The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus