Nola Tillman > Nola's Quotes

“If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life

“We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity...a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant...A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.”
― Chaim Potok, The Chosen

“Eight hours work, eight hours sleep, and eight hours recreation - Brigham Young”
― Susa Young Gates, The Life Story Of Brigham Young

“Books are better than television, the internet, or the computer for educating and maintaining freedom.
Books matter because they state ideas and then attempt to thoroughly prove them. They have an advantage precisely because they slow down the process, allowing the reader to internalize, respond, react and transform. The ideas in books matter because time is taken to establish truth, and because the reader must take the time to consider each idea and either accept it or, if he rejects it, to think through sound reasons for doing so. A nation of people who write and read is a nation with the attention span to earn an education and free society if they choose.”
― Oliver DeMille

“A man may possess a profound knowledge of history and mathematics; he may be an authority in psychology, biology, or astronomy; he may know all the discovered truths pertaining to geology and natural science; but if he has not with this knowledge that nobility of soul which prompts him to deal justly with his fellow men, to practice virtue and holiness in his personal life, he is not truly an educated man.

Character is the aim of true education; and science, history, and literature are but means used to accomplish the desired end. Character is not the result of chance work but of continuous right thinking and right acting.”
― David O. McKay, Gospel Ideals: Selections from the Discourses of David O. McKay

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“Think of the most fussy science teacher you ever had. The one who docked your grade if the sixth decimal place in your answer was rounded incorrectly; who tucked in his periodic table T-shirt, corrected every student who said "weight" when he or she meant "mass", and made everyone, including himself, wear goggles even while mixing sugar water. Now try to imagine someone whom your teacher would hate for being anal-retentive. That is the kind of person who works for a bureau of standards and measurement.”
― Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

“I couldn't possibly have sex with someone with such a slender grasp on grammar!”
― Russell Brand

“In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”
― William Faulkner

“The Waverley sisters hadn't been close as children, but they were as thick as thieves now, the way adult siblings often are, the moment they realize that family is actually a choice.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.
- Wizard”
― Noel Langley, The Wizard of Oz Screenplay

“So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“It was quite likely the best advice I’ve ever received. I can’t help but wonder what my life would have been like if I’d actually followed it.”
― Tom Robbins, Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.”
― Norman Vincent Peale

“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
― Mark Twain

“Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on.”
― Frederic Bastiat, The Law

“As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose--that it may violate property instead of protecting it--then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.”
― Frederic Bastiat, The Law

“Actually, all education is self-education. A teacher is only a guide, to point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you education. What you receive is like the outlines in a child’s coloring book. You must fill in the colors yourself.”
― Louis L'Amour

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“The planetary perspective provides a kind of out of body experience for us—hovering in orbit and watching ourselves sleepwalk through a slow disaster of our own making. Now, can this experience help us to shake ourselves awake? For virtually all of its history Earth has evolved without us, and we have always seen ourselves as autonomous actors on a passive planetary backdrop. But now we are beginning to see that our futures—those of humanity and of planet Earth—are tightly conjoined. If human civilization is to persist and thrive we will need a completely different view of our planet, and of ourselves, in which we acknowledge both our deep dependence and our increasing influence.”
― David Grinspoon, Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future

“I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
― Charles W. Eliot

“Life is problems. Living is solving problems.”
― Raymond E. Feist, Silverthorn

“Morning followed night, as it always does, but Ben awoke questioning the assumption that it necessarily must.”
― Terry Brooks, Magic Kingdom for Sale--Sold