Madeline > Madeline's Quotes

“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“In the end, he would say goodbye to them all, or they would say goodbye to him. Life would pass. They would all find their ends. But not now. Not yet. For now, they were alive. Together. And that was enough.”
― N.D. Wilson, The Dragon's Tooth

“Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”
― Lloyd Alexander

“Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.”
― Dr. Seuss

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”
― Terry Pratchett

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
― J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

“Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.

First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door.

Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.

Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.

Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.”
― Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.”
― Albert Einstein

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Fear not death for the sooner we die, the longer we shall be immortal.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Hide not your talents, they for use were made,
What's a sundial in the shade?”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Well done is better than well said.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”
― Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth: Ben Franklin on Money and Success

“If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“The person who deserves most pity is a lonesome one on a rainy day who doesn't know how to read.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen.
Keep in the sunlight.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis