Patrick Ashe > Patrick's Quotes

“If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it’s another nonconformist who doesn’t conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.”
― Bill Vaughan

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“There are and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven!”
― Ludwig van Beethoven

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves

“10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.”
― Susan Sontag

“He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
― William Butler Yeats, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

“We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love”
― W. B. Yeats

“Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“[...]you don’t have to be Sun freakin Tzu to know that real fighting isn’t about killing or even hurting the other guy, it’s about scaring him enough to call it a day.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”
― Andre Gide

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“Je ne peux rien affirmer de moi-même qui soit authentiquement moi-même.”
― Gabriel Marcel

“We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: "He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.”
― Chinua Achebe, The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”
― Cesar A. Cruz

“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”
― Leonard Cohen

“A crowd in its very concept is the untruth, by reason of the fact that it renders the individual completely impenitent and irresponsible, or at least weakens his sense of responsibility by reducing it to a fraction.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Each morning, despite the unknowns, they made their legs move.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“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 the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found it”
― Vaclav Havel

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions."

In 1984, Huxley added, "people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us".”
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

“They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Do you remember that little boy, Papa?
Yes. I remember him.
Do you think he’s all right that little boy?
Oh yes. I think he’s all right.
Do you think he was lost?
No. I don't think he was lost.
I’m scared that he was lost.
I think he’s all right.
But who will find him if he’s lost? Who will find that little boy?
Goodness will find the little boy. It always has. It will again.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.”
― W.H. Auden