Amanda > Amanda's Quotes

“Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.”
― Aesop

“You have a hierarchy of values; pleasure is at the bottom of the ladder, and you speak with a little thrill of self-satisfaction, of duty, charity, and truthfulness. You think pleasure is only of the senses; the wretched slaves who manufactured your morality despised a satisfaction which they had small means of enjoying. You would not be so frightened if I had spoken of happiness instead of pleasure: it sounds less shocking, and your mind wonders from the sty of Epicurus to his garden. But I will speak of pleasure, for I see that men aim at that, and I do not know that they aim at happiness. It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in giving alms he is charitable; if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
― Rumi

“When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.
Praise God for those two insomnias!
And the difference between them.”
― Rumi

“Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.”
― Rumi

“My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.”
― Rumi

“Sit, be still, and listen,
because you're drunk
and we're at
the edge of the roof.”
― Rumi

“But listen to me. For one moment
quit being sad. Hear blessings
dropping their blossoms
around you.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.”
― Rumi

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
― Rumi

“And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?”
― Rumi

“Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames”
― Rumi

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don't go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don't go back to sleep!”
― Rumi

“Remember. The way you make love is the way God will be with you.”
― Rumi Jalalud-Din

“Respond to every call
that excites your spirit.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
― Rumi

“Study me as much as you like, you will not know me, for I differ in a hundred ways from what you see me to be. Put yourself behind my eyes and see me as I see myself, for I have chosen to dwell in a place you cannot see.”
― Rumi

“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be. ”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“The moon stays bright when it doesn't avoid the night.”
― Rumi

“You think because you understand 'one' you must also understand 'two', because one and one make two. But you must also understand 'and'.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“You are a volume in the divine book
A mirror to the power that created the universe
Whatever you want, ask it of yourself
Whatever you’re looking for can only be found
Inside of you”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi, The Rubais of Rumi: Insane with Love

“You were born with potential.
You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness.
You were born with wings.
You are not meant for crawling, so don't.
You have wings.
Learn to use them and fly.”
― Rumi

“These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”
― Rumi

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.”
― Neil Gaiman

“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard.”
― Neil Gaiman

“[D]on't ever apologise to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologise to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read...”
― Neil Gaiman