TSal > TSal's Quotes

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
― Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

“The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right to not agree, not to listen, and not to finance one's own antagonists.”
― Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
― Margaret Thatcher

“If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.”
― Ayn Rand

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Crying is for plain women. Pretty women go shopping.”
― Oscar Wilde

“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.”
― Oscar Wilde

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”
― Ayn Rand

“Who is John Galt?”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’ The meaning of the ‘I’ is an independent, self-sufficient entity that does not exist for the sake of any other person. A person who exists only for the sake of his loved one is not an independent entity, but a spiritual parasite. The love of a parasite is worth nothing.”
― Ayn Rand

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”
― Margaret Thatcher

“Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.”
― Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher : The Greatest Speeches

“Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.”
― Margaret Thatcher

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
― Jane Austen, Jane Austen's Letters

“World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

“You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky

“I don't want to rule the universe. I just think it could be more sensibly organised.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

“Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky

“I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it?”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

“Don't wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.”
― Roger Zelazny, Prince of Chaos

“When I said I wanted to die in my sleep, I meant I wanted to be stepped on by an elephant while making love.”
― Roger Zelazny, The Great Book of Amber

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Narcotics Anonymous

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
― Mark Twain

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Reality continues to ruin my life.”
― Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

“I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“I could fight with the living but I could not fight the dead. If there was some woman in London that Maxim loved, someone he wrote to, visited, dined with, slept with, I could fight her. We would stand on common ground. I should not be afraid. Anger and jealousy were things that could be conquered. One day the woman would grow old or tired or different, and Maxim would not love her anymore. But Rebecca would never grow old. Rebecca would always be the same. And she and I could not fight. She was too strong for me.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Rebecca, always Rebecca. Wherever I walked in Manderley, wherever I sat, even in my thoughts and in my dreams, I met Rebecca. I knew her figure now, the long slim legs, the small and narrow feet. Her shoulders, broader than mine, the capable clever hands. Hands that could steer a boat, could hold a horse. Hands that arranged flowers, made the models of ships, and wrote “Max from Rebecca” on the flyleaf of a book. I knew her face too, small and oval, the clear white skin, the cloud of dark hair. I knew the scent she wore, I could guess her laughter and her smile. If I heard it, even among a thousand others, I should recognize her voice. Rebecca, always Rebecca. I should never be rid of Rebecca. Perhaps”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca