Inta > Inta's Quotes

“The truth of a myth...is not in its words but its patterns.”
― David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

“So little is actually worthy of belief or disbelief. Better to strive to coexist than seek to disapprove . . .”
― David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

“The rain's innumerable hooves spatter on the streets and roofs.”
― David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

“The mind has a mind of its own. It shows us pictures. Pictures of the past and the might-one-day-be. This mind's mind exerts its own will, too, and has its own voice.”
― David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

“Act, implores the Ghost of Future Regret. I shan't give you another chance.”
― David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

“It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts— not to hurt others.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“Confound you handsome young fellows! You think of having it all your own way in the world. You don't understand women. They don't admire you half so much as you admire yourselves.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“One can begin so many things with a new person! - even begin to be a better man.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“Our deeds still travel with us from afar/And what we have been makes us what we are.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self—never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honey-moon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic - the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which make the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common.”
― George Elliot, Middlemarch

“What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life--to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“Because, dear, trouble comes to us all in this life: we set our hearts on things which it isn't God's will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing; the people we love are taken from us, and we can joy in nothing because they are not with us; sickness comes, and we faint under the burden of our feeble bodies; we go astray and do wrong, and bring ourselves into trouble with our fellow men. There is no man or woman born into this world to whom some of these trials do not fall, and so I feel that some of them must happen to you; and I desire for you, that while you are young you should seek for the strength from your Heavenly Father, that you may have a support which will not fail you in the evil day.”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“We are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our grief in silence, and act as if we were not suffering.”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? The boy's flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music.”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?", here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!”
― Frank Kaiser

“The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing - and then marry him.”
― Cher

“Aim high, but do not aim so high that you totally miss the target. What really matters is that he will love you, that he will respect you, that he will honor you, that he will be absolutely true to you, that he will give you the freedom of expression and let you fly in the development of your own talents. He is not going to be perfect, but if he is kind and thoughtful, if he knows how to work and earn a living, if he is honest and full of faith, the chances are you will not go wrong, that you will be immensely happy.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
― Anna Quindlen

“I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine tonight.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
― Emma Lazarus

“Day followed day, each one a little different from the one before...but the little house stayed just the same.”
― Virginia Lee Burton, The Little House