Ruth > Ruth's Quotes

“What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.”
― Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness

“Let everything that's been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy, but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves. Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.”
― Andrei Tarkovsky

“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.”
― George Addair

“Because nonbeing longs for being, on occasion it creates a stronger sense of being than being itself.”
― Kenya Hara, White

“Colors do not exist separately and independently within nature; they are constantly shifting in response to subtle gradations of light. It is language that, magnificently, gives them clear shape.”
― Kenya Hara, White

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“Man must master his circumstances or otherwise be mastered by them”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“There are so many different kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“You look at where you're going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you've been and a pattern seems to emerge.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“Woman has nothing but her affections,--and this makes her at once more loving and less loved.”
― Florence Nightingale, Cassandra: Florence Nightingale's Angry Outcry Against the Forced Idleness of Victorian Women

“ The Paradoxical Commandments

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.”
― Kent M. Keith, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council

“You think that because you understand “one” that you must therefore understand “two” because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand “and.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer