Hani Golestaneh > Hani's Quotes

“For it is a fact that a man can be profoundly out of step with his times. A
man may have been born in a city famous for its idiosyncratic culture and yet,
the very habits, fashions, and ideas that exalt that city in the eyes of the world
may make no sense to him at all. As he proceeds through life, he looks about in
a state of confusion, understanding neither the inclinations nor the aspirations
of his peers.
For such a fellow, forget any chance of romance or professional success;
those are the provenance of men in step with their times. Instead, for this fellow
the options will be to bray like a mule or find what solace he can from
overlooked volumes discovered in overlooked bookshops. And when his
roommate stumbles home at two in the morning, he has little choice but to
listen in silent mystification as he is recounted the latest dramas from the city’s
salons.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in human evolution. We became too self aware; nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, a secretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody’s nobody. I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.”
― Rustin Cohle

“Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

“The conviction that we know others better than they know us—and that we may have insights about them they lack (but not vice versa)—leads us to talk when we would do well to listen and to be less patient than we ought to be when others express the conviction that they are the ones who are being misunderstood or judged unfairly.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know

“At the onset of the Culture of Personality, we were urged to develop an extroverted personality for frankly selfish reasons”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“هـیـچ مـلـتـی نـمـی‌تـوانـد تـنـهـا بـه خـاطـر گـذشـتـه خـود زنـدگـی کـنـد و بـدون گـذشـتـه خـود نـیـز نـمـی‌تـوانـد پـایـدار بـمـانـد. مـلـتـی کـه بـه گـذشـتـه خـود وابـسـتـه و دلـبـسـتـه نـبـاشـد، الـزامـاً از صـحـنـه روزگـار نـاپـدیـد خـواهـد شـد.”
― Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Answer to History