Mradul > Mradul's Quotes

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
― Charles Bukowski

“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”
― sylvia plath

“I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“I must get my soul back from you; I am killing my flesh without it.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.”
― Chinua Achebe

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
― Gustav Flaubert

“The world is so strange that maybe it’s perfectly logical.”
― Beth Lisick

“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?”
― George Eliot

“Il n'y a de réalité que dans l'action.

(There is no reality except in action.)”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Youth is terrible: it is a stage trod by children in buskins and a variety of costumes mouthing speeches they've memorized and fanatically believe but only half understand. And history is terrible because it so often ends up a playground for the immature; a playground for the young Nero, a playground for the young Bonaparte, a playground for the easily roused mobs of children whose simulated passions and simplistic poses suddenly metamorphose into a catastrophically real reality.”
― Milan Kundera, The Joke

“Is there no way out of the mind?”
― Sylvia Plath

“The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination.”
― Richard Wright

“I wanted the whole world or nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski, Post Office

“The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.”
― V. S. Naipaul, In a Free State

“Ignorance killed the cat; curiosity was framed!”
― C. J. Cherryh

“The noble title of "dissident" must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that! I'm always gonna love you, no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son and you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain't gonna have a life.”
― Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa

“Elite students climb confidently until they reach a level of competition sufficiently intense to beat their dreams out of them. Higher education is the place where people who had big plans in high school get stuck in fierce rivalries with equally smart peers over conventional careers like management consulting and investment banking. For the privilege of being turned into conformists, students (or their families) pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in skyrocketing tuition that continues to outpace inflation. Why are we doing this to ourselves?”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“When we're afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression.”
― Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis

“The regime had understood that one person leaving her house while asking herself:
Are my trousers long enough?
Is my veil in place?
Can my make-up be seen?
Are they going to whip me?

No longer asks herself:
Where is my freedom of thought?
Where is my freedom of speech?
My life, is it liveable?
What's going on in the political prisons?”
― Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis

“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
― Diana Nyad, Find a Way

“Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“I’ve been living out loud the Henry David Thoreau saying: “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” The quest of the Cuba”
― Diana Nyad, Find a Way

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin

“Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.”
― William James

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain