Basma > Basma's Quotes

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.”
― George Gordon Byron

“Most people don’t know how to appreciate the silence. They can’t help talking.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Lucky One

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”
― John Locke

“إن مشاهدة الفسق و المعصية على الدوام تزيل عن قلبك كراهية المعصية، و يهون عليك أمرها، و لذلك هان على القلوب معصية الغيبة لإلفهم لها، و لو رأوا خاتما من ذهب أو ملبوسا من حرير على فقيه لاشتد إنكارهم عليه، و الغيبة أشد من ذلك! ـ”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, بداية الهداية

“The sadistic narcissist perceives himself as Godlike, ruthless and devoid of scruples, capricious and unfathomable, emotion-less and non-sexual, omniscient, omnipotent and omni-present, a plague, a devastation, an inescapable verdict.”
― Sam Vaknin

“الكراهية تكلف أكثر من الحب.. لأنها إحساس غير طبيعي.. إحساس عكسي مثل حركة الأجسام ضد جاذبية الأرض.. تحتاج إلى قوة إضافية وتستهلك وقوداً أكثر”
― مصطفى محمود, في الحب والحياة

“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

“It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.”
― L.R. Knost, Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages

“For a child, it is in the simplicity of play that the complexity of life is sorted like puzzle pieces joined together to make sense of the world.”
― L.R. Knost, Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages

“Instead of raising children who turn out okay despite their childhood, let's raise children who turn out extraordinary because of their childhood.”
― L.R. Knost, Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages

“ما أتفه الدنيا إذا كانت القلوب تنقلب فى غمضة عين !!”
― نجيب محفوظ, خان الخليلي

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master...”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“Childhood is a naturally unhappy period of our existence, Lillian. It was Walt Disney who invented the notion that it has to be happy, simply to make money.”
― Isabel Allende, The Japanese Lover

“We are all born happy. Life gets us dirty along the way, but we can clean it up. Happiness is not exuberant or noisy, like pleasure or joy; it’s silent, tranquil, and gentle; it’s a feeling of satisfaction inside that begins with self-love. You need to love yourself as I do, as all those who know you do, especially Alma’s grandson.”
― Isabel Allende, The Japanese Lover

“Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy ready-made things in the shops. But since there are no shops where you can buy friends, men no longer have any friends.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“ اكتب يا هيبا ، فمن يكتب لن يموت أبداً”
― يوسف زيدان, عزازيل

“I'm sick to death of this particular self. I want another.”
― Virginia Woolf, Orlando

“One third, more or less, of all the sorrow that the person I think I am must endure is unavoidable. It is the sorrow inherent in the human condition, the price we must pay for being sentient and self-conscious organisms, aspirants to liberation, but subject to the laws of nature and under orders to keep on marching, through irreversible time, through a world wholly indifferent to our well-being, toward decrepitude and the certainty of death. The remaining two thirds of all sorrow is homemade and, so far as the universe is concerned, unnecessary.”
― Aldous Huxley, Island

“The longing for Paradise is man's longing not to be man.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“blessed be
she
who is
both
furious
and
magnificent”
― Taylor Rhodes, calloused: a field journal

“If two people stare at each other for more than a few seconds, it means they are about to either make love or fight. Something similar might be said about human societies. If two nearby societies are in contact for any length of time, they will either trade or fight. The first is non-zero-sum social integration, and the second ultimately brings it.”
― Robert Wright