Jess > Jess's Quotes

“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Man wonders but God decides
When to kill the Prince of Tides.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

“Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
― Victor Hugo

“If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“And so it goes...”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“If I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
― St. Augustine

“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“We know what we are, but not what we may be.”
― William Shakespeare

“Today will die tomorrow.”
― Algernon Charles Swinburne

“In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving. Nature does not often say 'See!' to her poor creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply 'Here!' to a body's cry of 'Where?' till the hide-and-seek has become an irksome outworn game.”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“Do you know that I have undergone three quarters of this labour entirely for the sake of the fourth quarter?”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“Man is not a circle with a single center; he is an ellipse with two focii. Facts are one, ideas are the other.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“It is this delightful habit of journalizing which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. Every body allows that the talent of writing is particularly female. Nature might have done something, but I am sure it must be essentially assisted by the practice of keeping a journal.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”
― Jane Austen

“Perhaps he was a fool, but he thought that if a work were truly great you would only have to read it once and you would be stolen from yourself, desperately moved, changed forever.”
― Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War

“I'm not afraid," Rafi said.
"Why not?"
"If I die tomorrow it will have been useless to have been afraid today.”
― Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War

“All you have the right to ask of life is to choose a battle in this war, make the best you can, and leave the field with honor.”
― Leon Uris, Mila 18

“So much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have some bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Why do you mention my father?' screamed he; 'Why do you mingle a recollection of him with the affairs of today?'
Because I am he who saved your father's life when he wished to destroy himself, as you do today-because I am the man who sent the purse to your young sister, and the Paraon to Old Morrel-because I am the Edmond Dantes who nursed you, a child, on my knees.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“To be homeward bound, no matter what tragic memories you have harbored, is unlike any voyage a man can ever make.”
― Leon Uris, Redemption

“Life hinges on many factors we cannot control. Two of the most important factors, we can control. We can manage our relationships-and what is life but a series of relationships?-and we can correct our mistakes, here on earth within our life span.”
― Leon Uris, Redemption

“All men have a measure of cowardice in them. I learned that love of one's mates can overcome your fears. I learned that every survivor of this horror must try to live a good life because he lives for many men.”
― Leon Uris, Redemption

“If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets.”
― Frank Herbert, The Dune Storybook

“It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front