John > John's Quotes

“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”
― Victor Borge

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“Sing, O muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Here, therefore, huge and mighty warrior though you be, here shall you die.”
― Homer, Iliad

“Fear, O Achilles, the wrath of heaven; think on your own father and have compassion upon me, who am the more pitiable”
― Homer, The Iliad

“The day that robs a child of his parents severs him from his own kind; his head is bowed, his cheeks are wet with tears, and he will go about destitute among the friends of his father, plucking one by the cloak and another by the shirt. Some one or other of these may so far pity him as to hold the cup for a moment towards him and let him moisten his lips, but he must not drink enough to wet the roof of his mouth; then one whose parents are alive will drive him from the table with blows and angry words.”
― Homer

“I wish that strife would vanish away from among gods and mortals, and gall, which makes a man grow angry for all his great mind, that gall of anger that swarms like smoke inside of a man's heart and becomes a thing sweeter to him by far than the dripping of honey.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“My life is more to me than all the wealth of Ilius”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Why, pray, must the Argives needs fight the Trojans? What made the son of Atreus gather the host and bring them? Was it not for the sake of Helen? Are the sons of Atreus the only men in the world who love their wives? Any man of common right feeling will love and cherish her who is his own, as I this woman, with my whole heart”
― Homer, The Iliad

“No one can hurry me down to Hades before my time, but if a man's hour is come, be he brave or be he coward, there is no escape for him when he has once been born.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“You are falling into your old error, Jeeves, of thinking that Gussie is a parrot. Fight against this. I shall add the oz.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves

“Come, Friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so?
Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you.
And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am?
The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life--
A deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you,
Death and the strong force of fate are waiting.
There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon
When a man will take my life in battle too--
flinging a spear perhaps
Or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“A few dud universes can really clutter up your basement.”
― Neal Stephenson, In the Beginning...Was the Command Line

“I use emacs, which might be thought of as a thermonuclear word processor.”
― Neal Stephenson, In the Beginning...Was the Command Line

“Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.”
― Huston Smith, Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief

“How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what?... All will end in death, all!”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“It seems as though mankind has forgotten the laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of injuries—and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing one another.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“What a lovely thing a rose is!"

He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.

"There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Naval Treaty - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story