Esra > Esra's Quotes

“Only if we manage to see the universe as a single entity, in which every part reflects the whole and whose great beauty lies precisely in its variety, will we be able to understand exactly who and where we are.

Letters agains the war: Letter from Orsigna, 2001.”
― Tiziano Terzani

“You are still young, free.. Do yourself a favor. Before it's too late, without thinking too much about it first, pack a pillow and a blanket and see as much of the world as you can. You will not regret it. One day it will be too late.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

“I love mankind ... it's people I can't stand!!”
― Charles M. Schulz

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
― W. Somerset Maugham

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
― Maya Angelou

“Per i prossimo dieci anni la tua vita sarà orribile, avrai grandi problemi e niente ti andrà bene", dice l'indovino. "E poi?", chiede ansioso il cliente. "Poi? Poi ci farai l'abitudine!”
― Tiziano Terzani, A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East

“Kierkegaard: «Ci sono due modi di farsi ingannare: uno è credere in qualcosa che non è vero; l’altro è non credere in qualcosa che è vero». Poi”
― Tiziano Terzani, Un altro giro di giostra

“I migliori compagni di viaggio sono i libri: parlano quando si ha bisogno, tacciono quando si vuole silenzio. Fanno compagnia senza essere invadenti. Danno moltissimo senza chiedere nulla.”
― Tiziano Terzani

“Two thousand years of monotheistic brainwashing have caused most Westerners to see polytheism as ignorant and childish idolatry. This is an unjust stereotype.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”
― Bill Watterson

“She remembered one of her boyfriends asking, offhandedly, how many books she read in a year. "A few hundred," she said.
"How do you have the time?" he asked, gobsmacked.
She narrowed her eyes and considered the array of potential answers in front of her. Because I don't spend hours flipping through cable complaining there's nothing on? Because my entire Sunday is not eaten up with pre-game, in-game, and post-game talking heads? Because I do not spend every night drinking overpriced beer and engaging in dick-swinging contests with the other financirati? Because when I am waiting in line, at the gym, on the train, eating lunch, I am not complaining about the wait/staring into space/admiring myself in reflective surfaces? I am reading!
"I don't know," she said, shrugging.”
― Eleanor Brown, The Weird Sisters

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

“The North American situation, while different from the Brazilian one, reflects a similar complexity and ambiguity in the relationship between race and ethnicity. Whereas Brazilians have a great number of terms used to designate people of varying pigmentation, the ‘one-drop principle’ prevalent in the USA entails that people are either black or white, and that ‘a single drop of black blood’ (sic) contaminates an otherwise pale person and makes him or her black. Conversely, ethnic identity in the USA is, as mentioned above, not necessarily correlated with ‘race’. At the same time, African- American identities are associated”
― Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives

“The term ‘race’ has deliberately been placed within inverted commas in order to stress that it is not a scientific term. Whereas it was for some time fashionable to divide humanity into four main races, and racial labels are still used to classify people in some countries (such as the USA), modern genetics tends not to speak of races. There are two principal reasons for this. First, there has always been so much interbreeding between human populations that it would be meaningless to talk of fixed boundaries between races. Second, the distribution of hereditary physical traits does not follow clear boundaries (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994). In other”
― Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”
― Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler

“The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Life after Death

“There is within each one of us a potential for goodness beyond our imagining; for giving which seeks no reward; for listening without judgment; for loving unconditionally.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“When I die I'm going to dance first in all the galaxies...I'm gonna play and dance and sing.”
― Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It's true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it's more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They're opposites. If we're in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we're in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.”
― Elisabeth Kubler Ros

“If we could raise one generation with unconditional love, there would be no Hitlers. We need to teach the next generation of children from Day One that they are responsible for their lives.

Mankind’s greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.”
― Dr Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

“The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Simple people with less education, sophistication, social ties, and professional obligations seem in general to have somewhat less difficulty in facing this final crisis than people of affluence who lose a great deal more in terms of material luxuries, comfort, and number of interpersonal relationships. It appears that people who have gone through a life of suffering, hard work, and labor, who have raised their children and been gratified in their work, have shown greater ease in accepting death with peace and dignity compared to those who have been ambitiously controlling their environment, accumulating material goods, and a great number of social relationships but few meaningful interpersonal relationships which would have been available at the end of life.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families

“Birbirimizi anlayamayacağımız korkusuyla, sözcükleri gereğinden çok fazla kullanıyoruz.Konuşmamanın , iletişim kurmayı reddetme anlamına çekilmesinden , kabalık olarak görülmesinden korkuyoruz.Ayrıca çok fazla konuşuyoruz.Sessizlik bizi ürkütüyor.Sessizliği denetleyemiyoruz.Oysa sessizlikte, sezinlediğimiz ama tanımadığımız dürtülerin, özgürlüğün ve gelişigüzelliğin son noktası saklıdır.”
― Gündüz Vassaf

“Living is no laughing matter:
You must take it seriously.
So much so and to such a degree
that, for example, your hands tied
behind your back,
your back to the wall
or else in a laboratory
in your white coat and safety glasses,
you can die for people –
even for people whose faces you’ve
never seen,
even though you know living
is the most real, most beautiful
thing.
I mean, you must take living so
seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you’ll
plant olive trees –
and not for your children, either,
but because, although you fear death you
don’t believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

- "On Living”
― Nazim Hikmet

“THE GREAT HUMANITY

The great humanity is the deck-passenger on the ship
third class on the train
on foot on the causeway
the great humanity.

The great humanity goes to work at eight
marries at twenty
dies at forty
the great humanity.

Bread is enough for all except the great humanity
rice the same
sugar the same
cloth the same
books the same
are enough for all except the great humanity.

The great humanity has no shade on his soil
no lamp on his road
no glass on his window
but the great humanity has hope
you can't live without hope.”
― Nazim Hikmet

“To live! like a tree alone and free,
To live! like a forest in brotherhood/sisterhood...”
― Nâzım Hikmet

“Akrep gibisin kardeşim,
korkak bir karanlık içindesin akrep gibi.
Serçe gibisin kardeşim,
serçenin telaşı içindesin.
Midye gibisin kardeşim,
midye gibi kapalı, rahat.
Ve sönmüş bir yanardağ ağzı gibi korkunçsun, kardeşim.
Bir değil,
beş değil,
yüz milyonlarlasın maalesef.
Koyun gibisin kardeşim,
gocuklu celep kaldırınca sopasını
sürüye katılıverirsin hemen
ve âdeta mağrur, koşarsın salhaneye.
Dünyanın en tuhaf mahlukusun yani,
hani şu derya içre olup
deryayı bilmiyen balıktan da tuhaf.
Ve bu dünyada, bu zulüm
senin sayende.
Ve açsak, yorgunsak, alkan içindeysek eğer
ve hâlâ şarabımızı vermek için üzüm gibi eziliyorsak
kabahat senin,
— demeğe de dilim varmıyor ama —
kabahatın çoğu senin, canım kardeşim!”
― Nazım Hikmet RAN

“OTOBİYOGRAFİ

1902'de doğdum
doğduğum şehre dönmedim bir daha
geriye dönmeyi sevmem
üç yaşımda Halep'te paşa torunluğu ettim
on dokuzumda Moskova'da komünist Üniversite öğrenciliği
kırk dokuzumda yine Moskova'da Tseka-Parti konukluğu
ve on dördümden beri şairlik ederim

kimi insan otların kimi insan balıkların çeşidini bilir
ben ayrılıkların
kimi insan ezbere sayar yıldızların adını
ben hasretlerin

hapislerde de yattım büyük otellerde de
açlık çektim açlık gırevi de içinde ve tatmadığım yemek yok gibidir

otuzumda asılmamı istediler
kırk sekizimde Barış madalyasının bana verilmesini
verdiler de
otuz altımda yarım yılda geçtim dört metre kare betonu
elli dokuzumda on sekiz saatta uçtum Pırağ'dan Havana'ya
Lenin'i görmedim nöbet tuttum tabutunun başında 924'de
961'de ziyaret ettiğim anıtkabri kitaplarıdır

partimden koparmağa yeltendiler beni
sökmedi
yıkılan putların altında da ezilmedim

951'de bir denizde genç bir arkadaşla yürüdüm üstüne ölümün
52'de çatlak bir yürekle dört ay sırtüstü bekledim ölümü

sevdiğim kadınları deli gibi kıskandım
şu kadarcık haset etmedim Şarlo'ya bile
aldattım kadınlarımı
konuşmadım arkasından dostlarımın

içtim ama akşamcı olmadım
hep alnımın teriyle çıkardım ekmek paramı ne mutlu bana

başkasının hesabına utandım yalan söyledim
yalan söyledim başkasını üzmemek için
ama durup dururken de yalan söyledim
bindim tirene uçağa otomobile
çoğunluk binemiyor
operaya gittim
çoğunluk gidemiyor adını bile duymamış operanın
çoğunluğun gittiği kimi yerlere de ben gitmedim 21'den beri
camiye kiliseye tapınağa havraya büyücüye
ama kahve falıma baktırdığım oldu

yazılarım otuz kırk dilde basılır
Türkiye'mde Türkçemle yasak

kansere yakalanmadım daha
yakalanmam da şart değil
başbakan filân olacağım yok
meraklısı da değilim bu işin
bir de harbe girmedim
sığınaklara da inmedim gece yarıları
yollara da düşmedim pike yapan uçakların altında
ama sevdalandım altmışıma yakın
sözün kısası yoldaşlar
bugün Berlin'de kederden gebermekte olsam da
insanca yaşadım diyebilirim
ve daha ne kadar yaşarım
başımdan neler geçer daha
kim bilir.”
― Nazım Hikmet

“BÜYÜK İNSANLIK

Büyük insanlık gemide güverte yolcusu
trende üçüncü mevki
şosede yayan
büyük insanlık.

Büyük insanlık sekizinde işe gider
yirmisinde evlenir
kırkında ölür
büyük insanlık.

Ekmek büyük insanlıktan başka herkese yeter
pirinç de öyle
şeker de öyle
kumaş da öyle
kitap da öyle
büyük insanlıktan başka herkese yeter.

Büyük insanlığın toprağında gölge yok
sokağında fener
penceresinde cam
ama umudu var büyük insanlığın
umutsuz yaşanmıyor.”
― Nâzım Hikmet, Yeni Şiirler (1951-1959): Şiirler 6