2026 Reading Challenge

Freya Abbas > Freya's Quotes

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  • #1
    Nezahualcóyotl
    “What shall I take with me?
    Will I let nothing behind me over the earth?
    How shall my heart act?
    Is it that we come in vain to live,
    to sprout over the earth?
    Let us leave at least flowers,
    let us leave at least songs.”
    ― Nezahualcóyotl
    tags: beauty, existence, songs
    8 likes

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  • #2
    Bruce Chatwin
    “If this were so; if the desert were 'home'; if our instincts were forged in the desert; to survive the rigours of the desert - then it is easier to understand why greener pastures pall on us; why possessions exhaust us, and why Pascal's imaginary man found his comfortable lodgings a prison.”
    ― Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines
    tags: home, nature-of-man, nomad, pascal, walkabout
    16 likes

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  • #3
    William Shakespeare
    “O, brave new world
    that has such people in't!”
    ― William Shakespeare, The Tempest
    169 likes

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  • #4
    William Shakespeare
    “Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.”
    ― William Shakespeare, The Tempest
    tags: storytelling
    123 likes

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  • #5
    Jonathan Franzen
    “Nice people don't necessarily fall in love with nice people.”
    ― Jonathan Franzen, Freedom
    tags: attraction, co-dependence, divorce, idealism, idealists, marriage, narcissism, sociopathology, the-rules-of-attraction, victims-of-narcissists
    733 likes

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  • #6
    William Shakespeare
    “To think but nobly of my grandmother: Good wombs have borne bad sons.”
    ― William Shakespeare, The Tempest
    tags: character, descent, heritage, mothers, sons, the-tempest
    92 likes

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  • #7
    William Shakespeare
    “You taught me language, and my profit on't / Is, I know how to curse”
    ― William Shakespeare, The Tempest
    75 likes

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  • #8
    William Shakespeare
    “I am your wife if you will marry me.
    If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow
    You may deny me, but I'll be your servant Whether you will or no.”
    ― William Shakespeare, The Tempest
    64 likes

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  • #9
    Bruce Chatwin
    “To lose a passport was the least of one’s worries. To lose a notebook was a catastrophe”
    ― Bruce Chatwin
    66 likes

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  • #10
    Bruce Chatwin
    “Walking is a virtue, tourism is a deadly sin.”
    ― Bruce Chatwin, What Am I Doing Here?
    tags: sin, tourism, walking
    57 likes

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  • #11
    Bruce Chatwin
    “The real home of man is not his house but the road. Life itself is a travel that has to be done by foot.”
    ― Bruce Chatwin
    tags: travel
    13 likes

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  • #12
    Bruce Chatwin
    “Sluggish and sedentary peoples, such as the Ancient Egyptians-- with their concept of an afterlife journey through the Field of Reeds-- project on to the next world the journeys they failed to make in this one.”
    ― Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines
    tags: afterlife, journey, travel
    17 likes

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  • #13
    Bruce Chatwin
    “A journey is a fragment of Hell.”
    ― Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines
    tags: hell, journey
    11 likes

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  • #14
    Bruce Chatwin
    “Sometimes, I overheard my aunts discussing these blighted destinies; and Aunt Ruth would hug me, as if to forestall my following in their footsteps. Yet, from the way she lingered over such words as 'Xanadu' or 'Samarkand' or the 'wine-dark sea,' I think she also felt the trouble of the 'wanderer in her soul.”
    ― Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines
    8 likes

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  • #15
    Bruce Chatwin
    “As a general rule of biology, migratory species are less 'aggressive' than sedentary ones.

    There is one obvious reason why this should be so. The migration itself, like the pilgrimage, is the hard journey: a 'leveller' on which the 'fit' survive and stragglers fall by the wayside.

    The journey thus pre-empts the need for hierarchies and shows of dominance. The 'dictators' of the animal kingdom are those who live in an ambience of plenty. The anarchists, as always, are the 'gentlemen of the road'.”
    ― Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines
    49 likes

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  • #16
    Bruce Chatwin
    “Richard Lee calculated that a Bushman child will be carried a distance of 4,900 miles before he begins to walk on his own. Since, during this rhythmic phase, he will be forever naming the contents of his territory, it is impossible he will not become a poet.”
    ― Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines
    7 likes

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  • #17
    Bruce Chatwin
    “Proust, more perspicaciously than any other writer, reminds us that the 'walks' of childhood form the raw material of our intelligence.”
    ― Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines
    tags: childhood, exploring, intelligence, walks
    11 likes

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  • #18
    Bruce Chatwin
    “Man's real home is not a house, but the Road, and that life itself is a journey to be walked on foot.”
    ― Bruce Chatwin, What Am I Doing Here?
    28 likes

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  • #19
    Nezahualcóyotl
    “¿Con qué he de irme?
    ¿Nada dejaré en pos de mí sobre la tierra?
    ¿Cómo ha de actuar mi corazón?
    ¿Acaso en vano venimos a vivir,
    a brotar sobre la tierra?
    Dejemos al menos flores
    dejemos al menos cantos”
    ― Nezahualcóyotl
    18 likes

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  • #20
    Nezahualcóyotl
    “So said Tochihuitzin,
    so said Coyolchiuhqui:

    We come out of the dream suddenly,
    we only come to dream,
    it isn't true, it isn't true
    that we come to live on the earth.
    Like grass in spring
    is our being.

    Our heart makes them grow,
    flowers sprout from our flesh.
    Some open their corollas,
    then they become dry.

    So said Tochihuitzin.”
    ― Nezahualcóyotl
    tags: dreams, existence, life
    2 likes

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  • #21
    Albert Einstein
    “For an idea that does not first seem insane, there is no hope.”
    ― Albert Einstein
    tags: ideas
    92 likes

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  • #22
    John Keats
    “I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”
    ― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne
    tags: butterflies, days, fanny-brawne, fifty-common-years, letter, love, summer, three
    2286 likes

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  • #23
    Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette
    “When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties.”
    ― Marquis De Lafayette
    tags: american-revolution, government, liberty, rights, sacred
    18 likes

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  • #24
    Thomas Hardy
    “Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"
    "Yes."
    "All like ours?"
    "I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted."
    "Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?"
    "A blighted one.”
    ― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles
    tags: stars
    505 likes

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  • #25
    Thomas Hardy
    “Why didn’t you tell me there was danger? Why didn’t you warn me? Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the chance of discovering in that way; and you did not help me!”
    ― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles
    517 likes

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  • #26
    Edward W. Said
    “You cannot continue to victimize someone else just because you yourself were a victim once—there has to be a limit”
    ― Edward Said
    tags: colonialism, imperialism, israile, palestine, postcolonialism, victim
    753 likes

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  • #27
    Edward W. Said
    “Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate."

    (Los Angeles Times, July 20, 2003)”
    ― Edward W. Said
    tags: imperialism
    422 likes

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  • #28
    Edward W. Said
    “Humanism is the only - I would go so far as saying the final- resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history.”
    ― Edward W. Said
    tags: history, human, humanism, resistance
    142 likes

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  • #29
    Noam Chomsky
    “We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.”
    ― Noam Chomsky
    2817 likes

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  • #30
    Noam Chomsky
    “If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”
    ― Noam Chomsky
    tags: belief, believe, despise, expression, freedom, freedom-of-expression
    2163 likes



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Tags From Freya’s Quotes

beauty
existence
songs
home
nature-of-man
nomad
pascal
walkabout
storytelling
attraction
co-dependence
divorce
idealism
idealists
marriage
narcissism
sociopathology
the-rules-of-attraction
victims-of-narcissists
character
descent
heritage
mothers
sons
the-tempest
sin
tourism
walking
travel
afterlife
journey
hell
childhood
exploring
intelligence
walks
dreams
life
ideas
butterflies
days
fanny-brawne
fifty-common-years
letter
love
summer
three
american-revolution
government
liberty
rights
sacred
stars
colonialism
imperialism
israile
palestine
postcolonialism
victim
history
human
humanism
resistance
belief
believe
despise
expression
freedom
freedom-of-expression