Annamaria Mechler > Annamaria's Quotes

“When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Volume 2

“Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“Master Richard carries so much on his young shoulders, the normal troubles associated with adolescence in addition to sharing Master Bruce's crusade. I only wonder if he knows how casually he is throwing away the years of his youth. And if in the end, he will feel it was worth it.”
― Chuck Dixon

“Barzûl!”
― Christopher Paolini, Eldest

“My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't end there.
At least that's what I would choose to believe.”
― Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

“Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison
When the door is so wide open?”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica

“But he did decide vegetatively, as a bean when once tossed aside must decide if it ought to germinate or had better let things be.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“With frightening suddenness he now began ripping the pages out of the book in handfuls and throwing them in the waste-paper basket.
Matilda froze in horror. The father kept going. There seemed little doubt that the man felt some kind of jealousy. How dare she, he seemed to be saying with each rip of a page, how dare she enjoy reading books when he couldn't? How dare she?”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“But when it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind. Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart.”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“Eleanor Vance was thirty-two years old when she came to Hill House. The only person in the world she genuinely hated, now that her mother was dead, was her sister. She disliked her brother-in-law and her five-year-old niece, and she had no friends.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

“unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”5 Whoever humbles himself like this child . . . What is childlike humility? It’s not the lack of intelligence, but the lack of guile. The lack of an agenda. It’s that precious, fleeting time before we have accumulated enough pride or position to care what other people might think. The same un-self-conscious honesty that enables a three-year-old to splash joyfully in a rain puddle, or tumble laughing in the grass with a puppy, or point out loudly that you have a booger hanging out of your nose, is what is required to enter heaven. It is the opposite of ignorance—it is intellectual honesty: to be willing to accept reality and to call things what they are even when it is hard.”
― Todd Burpo, Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back

“I'm Losing Faith in My Favorite Country

Throughout my life, the United States has been my favorite country, save and except for Canada, where I was born, raised, educated, and still live for six months each year. As a child growing up in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, I aggressively bought and saved baseball cards of American and National League players, spent hours watching snowy images of American baseball and football games on black and white television and longed for the day when I could travel to that great country. Every Saturday afternoon, me and the boys would pay twelve cents to go the show and watch U.S. made movies, and particularly, the Superman serial. Then I got my chance. My father, who worked for B.F. Goodrich, took my brother and me to watch the Cleveland Indians play baseball in the Mistake on the Lake in Cleveland. At last I had made it to the big time. I thought it was an amazing stadium and it was certainly not a mistake. Amazingly, the Americans thought we were Americans.

I loved the United States, and everything about the country: its people, its movies, its comic books, its sports, and a great deal more. The country was alive and growing. No, exploding. It was the golden age of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The American dream was alive and well, but demanded hard work, honesty, and frugality. Everyone understood that. Even the politicians.

Then everything changed.”
― Stephen Douglass

“Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?”
― T.S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950

“...whenever there is inspiration...and enthusiasm...there is a creative empowerment that goes far beyond what a mere person is capable of.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“In our play we reveal what kind of people we are”
― Ovid

“When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No... don't blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn't sound very exciting, does it? But it is!”
― Louis de Bernières, Corelli’s Mandolin

“Some crime against nature is about to be committed. I feel it in my veins. These men and boys are grocers and clerks, gardeners and fathers - fathers of small children. A country cannot bear to lose them.”
― Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong

“Man is many things, but he is not rational.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The resurrection is to be like a child, but with a difference. The difference is that we have freedom with wisdom instead of innocence.”
― Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

“It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

“Being a homicide detective can be the loneliest job in the world. The friends of the victim are upset and in despair, but sooner or later - after weeks or months - they go back to their everyday lives. For the closest family it takes longer, but for the most part, to some degree, they too get over the grieving and despair. Life has to go on; it does go on. But the unsolved murders keep gnawing away and in the end there's only one person left who thinks night and day about the victim: it's the office who is left with the investigation.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

“At first I could not meet his eyes. When I did it was like sitting close to a fire that suddenly blazes up.”
― Tracy Chevalier, Girl with a Pearl Earring

“That love is all there is, Is all we know of love.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I have great honor. So will you. But you will find that that is not the same as power.”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver

“The waves of changes propel advancement.”
― Zoltan Andrejkovics, The Invisible Game: The Mindset of a Winning Team

“Don’t do anything stupid."
"Don’t worry," I whispered over the line, "I’m an expert on stupid."
"You’re..."
"Like, I can spot stupidity, because I know it so well. The way an exterminator knows bugs really well, and can spot where they’ve been? I’m like that. A stupidinator."
"Never say that word again," Prof said.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Firefight

“When it came to growing viruses—as with many other things—the fact that HeLa was malignant just made it more useful.”
― Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“And how shall I think of you?' He considered a moment and then laughed. 'Think of me with my nose in a book!”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Best Way to deal with fear is to confront it .”
― Pittacus Lore, I Am Number Four