"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"Cogito ergo sum.
(I think, therefore I am.)"
— René Descartes

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
— Mark Twain

"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."
— –Albert Einstein

"It is wisdom to recognize necessity when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it."
— Robert Frost

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
— Aristotle (Metaphysics)

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
— Isaac Asimov

"The road goes ever ever on,
over rock and under tree.
by caves where never sun has shown,
by streams that never find the sea."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit)

"You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!"
— J.R.R. Tolkien

"Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."
— Kahlil Gibrán (The Prophet)

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully."
— Kahlil Gibrán (The Prophet)

"They say: 'If a man knew himself,
he would know all mankind.'
I say: 'If a man loved mankind,
he would know something of himself.'"
— Kahlil Gibrán (Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran)

"Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible."
— Albert Einstein

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."
— Mark Twain

"Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."
— Mark Twain

"For Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and Passion, unattended,
is a flame that burns to its own destruction."
— Kahlil Gibrán (The Prophet)

"He who is
more mindful of one, loses the love and the faith of both."
— Kahlil Gibrán (The Prophet)

"Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands
before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour."
— Kahlil Gibrán (The Prophet)

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by frost."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance."
— Thomas Henry Huxley

"“When you see a good move, look for a better one”"
— Emanuel Lasker

"Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. "
— Bill Gates

"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named "Bush", "Dick", and "Colin." Need I say more?"
— Chris Rock

"Denial is much more then an Egyptian River."
— Mark Twain

"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past."
— George Orwell (1984)

"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
— George Orwell

"The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."
— George Orwell

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
— George Orwell (Animal Farm)

"Big Brother is Watching You."
— George Orwell (1984)

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
— George Orwell

"You are a slow learner, Winston."
"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane."
— George Orwell (1984)

"In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer..."
— George Orwell

"He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It was a tricky ending, involving a couple of knights.
'White to play and mate in two moves.' Winston looked up at the portrait of Big Brother. White always mates,
he thought with a sort of cloudy mysticism. Always, without exception, it is so arranged. In no chess problem
since the beginning of the world has black ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal, unvarying triumph of
Good over Evil? The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power. White always mates."
— George Orwell (1984)

"Youth can not know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

"It is our choices, Harry, that show us who we truly are, far more than our abilities."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)

"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should be treated with caution."
— J.K. Rowling

"You should've heard the crowd, though, when he was finished. You would've puked. They went mad. They were exactly the same morons that laugh like hyenas in the movies at stuff that isn't funny. I swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I'd hate it. I wouldn't even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things."
— Salinger, J. D.

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

"Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have knows."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again)

"Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth."
— Mark Twain

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think 'How lucky are the dead.'"
— Dorothy Parker (The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker)

"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
— Dorothy Parker

"Little by little, one travels far"
— J.R.R. Tolkien

"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)