Rayda > Rayda's Quotes

“philosophy
I studied philosophy for four years. But I'd trade everything I learned for this passage... quoted in the Britannica:
'But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.'
Amen.”
― A.J. Jacobs, The Know-It-All

“Mountains are not stadiums where I statisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.... I go to them as humans go to worship. From their lofty summits I view my past, dream of the future and, with an unusual acuity, am allowed to experience the present moment.... my vision cleared, my strength renewed. In the mountains I celebrate creation. On each journey I am reborn”
― Anatoli Boukreev

“I know that everything is connected like a worldwide version of the six-degrees-of-separation game. I know that history is simultaneously a bloody mess and a collection of feats so inspiring and amazing they make you proud to share the same DNA structure with the rest of humanity. I know you’d better focus on the good stuff or you’re screwed. I know that the race does not go to the swift, nor the bread to the wise, so you should soak up what enjoyment you can. I know not to take cinnamon for granted. I know that morality lies in even the smallest decisions, like whether to pick up and throw away a napkin... I know firsthand the oceanic volume of information in the world. I know that I know very little of that ocean… I know I’ve contradicted myself hundreds of times over the last year, and that history has contradicted itself thousands of times… I know that you should always say yes to adventures or you’ll lead a very dull life. I know that knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing—but they do live in the same neighborhood. I know once again, firsthand, the joy of learning.”
― A.J. Jacobs

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.”
― J.K. Rowling

“In the end, my actions are driven by my own need for integrity, not a need to correct or change someone else”
― Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

“Since my learning will never be finished, neither will the need to hold me accountable”
― Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

“Niceness is not courageous. Niceness will not get racism on the table and will not keep it on the table when everyone wants it off”
― Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility / Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria / So You Want to Talk About Race

“Freedom is astonishing and breathtaking. Freedom is terrifying when those who insist on that freedom are those whose submission you have been socialized into believing is your bequeathed right”
― Mona Eltahawy, The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls

“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
― Albert Einstein

“One has to be just oneself. That's my basic message. The moment you accept yourself as you are, all burdens, all mountainous burdens, simply disappear. Then life is a sheer joy, a festival of lights”
― Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

“You can't rely on the attainment of goals or journeys, no matter how big or small, for your happiness, because the attainment of that goal will only bring you temporary gratification. If you want to be happy, then you must enjoy it all, at whatever point you're at, from the beginning to the end. Because ultimately happiness is the acceptance of the journey as it is now, not the promise of the other shore.”
― Mike Carter, One Man and His Bike: A 5,000 Mile, Life-Changing Journey Round the Coast of Britain

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

“No matter where you go or how many books you read, you still know nothing, you haven't seen anything. And that's life. We live our lives trying to find our way. It's like that Santoka Taneda poem, the one that goes, 'On and on, in and in, and still the blue-green mountains”
― Satoshi Yagisawa, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

“When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as
the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out where the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood. At best, he knows the triumph of high achievement; if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory or defeat.”
― Larry Semento, Tears in the Wind: Triumph and Tragedy on America’s Highest Peak

“I had never thought that I was good enough, fast enough, strong enough, thin enough, pretty enough, smart enough, or any other “enough.” Nothing I did had ever met my own unattainable expectations of what “enough” was. Is that why I threw myself into the hardest physical endeavor I could think of? Was I simply desperate to do something that would make me approve of myself?”
― Heather Anish Anderson, Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home

“Joy, collected over time, breeds resilience.”
― Pranay Sinha, In the Space Between Moments: Finding Joy and Meaning in Medicine

“There is no new drug, no new gadget that can give a physician the words to comfort a grieving spouse or a bereaved mother.”
― Pranay Sinha, In the Space Between Moments: Finding Joy and Meaning in Medicine

“I was alone. In the uniqueness of the experience, no one knew my reality. But what was more unique, was being gracefully on the receiving end of life’s work and passion. A tree branch being visited by birds with no agenda other than to share what comes natural.”
― Pranay Sinha, In the Space Between Moments: Finding Joy and Meaning in Medicine

“While my plans span decades, it takes only a few minutes to care for a suffering soul and make a difference. Even as residents we have those opportunities every day. Even as residents we are fortunate to lead lives of immense consequence.”
― Pranay Sinha, In the Space Between Moments: Finding Joy and Meaning in Medicine

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“In her dreams, other kinds of life could talk, and she understood them. And they told her what was really happening on this planet, the system of invisible suffering on unimaginable scales. Human appetite's final solution.”
― Richard Powers, Bewilderment

“In the face of the world's open brokenness, more empathy means more suffering”
― Richard Powers, Bewilderment

“We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depths of our answers”
― Richard Powers, Bewilderment