Mehran > Mehran's Quotes

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to football (soccer).”
― Albert Camus

“Some people think football [soccer] is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.”
― Bill Shankly

“Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“Mike nodded. A sombre nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody had met him in 1812 and said, "So, you're back from Moscow, eh?”
― P.G. Wodehouse , Mike and Psmith

“Back to the books. The world’s largest bell was built in 1733 in Moscow, and weighed in at more than four hundred thousand pounds. It never rang—it was broken by fire before it could be struck. What a sad little story. All that work, all that planning, all those expectations—then nothing. Now it just sits there in Russia, a big metallic symbol of failure. I have a moment of silence for the silent bell.”
― A.J. Jacobs, The Know-It-All

“Yet there is one experience which most sincere ex-Communists share, whether or not they go only part way to the end of the question it poses. The daughter of a former German diplomat in Moscow was trying to explain to me why her father, who, as an enlightened modern man, had been extremely pro-Communist, had become an implacable anti-Communist. It was hard for her because, as an enlightened modern girl, she shared the Communist vision without being a Communist. But she loved her father and the irrationality of his defection embarrassed her. 'He was immensely pro-Soviet,' she said,' and then -- you will laugh at me -- but you must not laugh at my father -- and then -- one night -- in Moscow -- he heard screams. That's all. Simply one night he heard screams.'

A child of Reason and the 20th century, she knew that there is a logic of the mind. She did not know that the soul has a logic that may be more compelling than the mind's. She did not know at all that she had swept away the logic of the mind, the logic of history, the logic of politics, the myth of the 20th century, with five annihilating words: one night he heard screams.”
― Whittaker Chambers, Witness

“It was like a Russian party, Arkady thought. People got drunk, recklessly confessed their love, spilled their festering dislike, had hysterics, marched out, were dragged back in and revived with brandy. It wasn't a French salon.”
― Martin Cruz Smith

“He who does not regret the break-up of the Soviet Union has no heart; he who wants to revive it in its previous form has no head.”
― Vladimir Putin

“Stephen Covey, in his book The 8th Habit, decribes a poll of 23,000 employees drawn from a number of companies and industries. He reports the poll's findings:

* Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why
* Only one in five was enthusiastic about their team's and their organization's goals
* Only one in five said they had a clear "line of sight" between their tasks and their team's and organization's goals
* Only 15 percent felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals
* Only 20 percent fully trusted the organization they work for



Then, Covey superimposes a very human metaphor over the statistics. He says, "If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care. Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent.”
― Chip Heath & Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
― Ray Bradbury

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“A bookstore is one of the only pieces of physical evidence we have that people are still thinking.”
― Jerry Seinfeld

“What I don't understand is how women can pour hot wax on their bodies, let it dry, then rip out every single hair by its root and still be scared of spiders.”
― Jerry Seinfeld

“The one without dreams is the one without wings.”
― Mohammad Ali

“The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“manuscripts don't burn" - "(рукописи не горят)”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.”
― Matt Groening, The Big Book of Hell

“هنوز از اتاق همینگوی بوی باروت میاد
هنوز هم ادکلن مرلین مونرو نیمه تمام مانده
و پیرزنان به وقت گذشتن از کف آخرین اتاق مایاکوفسکی دامن خود را جمع می کنند
یکی می آید به زور
یکی می رود به انتخاب”
― حسین پناهی

“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
― Mark Twain

“You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”
― Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary

“All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.”
― John Steinbeck

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
― Marthe Troly-Curtin, Phrynette Married

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”
― John Lennon

“When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people.”
― John Steinbeck