Pearl

“الحياة الإنسانية لا تحدث إلا مرة واحدة، ولن يكون في وسعنا أبدا أن نتحقق أي قرار هو الجيد وأي قرار هو السيئ، لأننا في كل الحالات لا يُمكننا إلا أن نقرر مرة واحدة. لأنه لم تعط لنا حياة ثانية أو ثالثة أو رابعة حتى نستطيع أن نقارن بين قرارات مختلفة.”
― ميلان كونديرا, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“I brought them up here to illustrate the point of conformity: the difficulty in maintaining your own beliefs in the face of others. Now, those of you -- I see the look in your eyes like, "I would've walked differently." Well, ask yourselves why you were clapping. Now, we all have a great need for acceptance. But you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even though the herd may go, "That's baaaaad." Robert Frost said, "Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
― Tom Schulman, Dead Poets Society

“أدركتُ حلاوة السكوت ولم يدرك المتكلمون مرارة الكلام, لذا سكتّ و الناس يتكلمون”
― ميخائيل نعيمه, مذكرات الأرقش

“With me, the present is forever and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone it is dead. But you can’t start over with each new second. You have to judge by what is dead. It’s like quicksand…hopeless from the start. A story, a picture, can renew sensation a little, but not enough, not enough. Nothing is real except the present, and already, I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moment, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand. And I don’t want to die.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath