Nia > Nia's Quotes

“It is better to believe in men too rashly, and regret, than believe too meanly. Men could be more than they are, if they would try for it. He has shown them that.”
― Mary Renault, The Persian Boy

“People, Reacher was certain about. Dogs were different. People had freedom of choice. If a man or a woman ran snarling toward him, they did so because they chose to. They were asking for whatever they got. His response was their problem. But dogs were different. No free will. Easily misled. It raised an ethical problem. Shooting a dog because it had been induced to do something unwise was not the sort of thing Reacher wanted to do.”
― Lee Child, Die Trying

“If you can control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.”
― Carter Godwin Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
― Frederick Douglass

“There's more to clothing than just adornment. It does more than merely change how the world perceives us. It changes how we perceive ourselves.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Naamah's Kiss

“I tell them that the only peace you find up on a mountain is the peace you bring with you.”
― Eliot Pattison, The Lord of Death

“Why did people ask "What is it about?" as if a novel had to be about only one thing.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
― Horace Mann

“Warriors want a worthy opponent. There is no redress in fighting the pathetic.”
― Donna Lynn Hope

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.”
― Roald Dahl

“The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.”
― William James

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“I need about one hundred fifty drafts of a poem to get it right, and fifty more to make it sound spontaneous.”
― James Dickey

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“She breathed deeply of the scent of decaying fiction, disintegrating history, and forgotten verse, and she observed for the first time that a room full of books smelled like dessert: a sweet snack made of figs, vanilla, glue, and cleverness.”
― Joe Hill, NOS4A2

“Between killing and dying there's a third way: live”
― Christa Wolf, Kassandra

“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin

“The increasing tendency towards seeing people in terms of one dominant ‘identity’ (‘this is your duty as an American’, ‘you must commit these acts as a Muslim’, or ‘as a Chinese you should give priority to this national engagement’) is not only an imposition of an external and arbitrary priority, but also the denial of an important liberty of a person who can decide on their respective loyalties to different groups (to all of which he or she belongs).”
― Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice

“the identity of an individual is essentially a function of her choices, rather than the discovery of an immutable attribute”
― Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity

“While I am interested both in economics and in philosophy, the union of my interests in the two fields far exceeds their intersection”
― Amartya Sen

“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. ”
― William James

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“Make your mistakes, take your chances, look silly, but keep on going. Don’t freeze up.”
― Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

“Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
― Antonio Gramsci, Antonio Gramsci: Prison Letters

“Pessimism of the spirit; optimism of the will.”
― Antonio Gramsci