Dannee > Dannee's Quotes

“ The Paradoxical Commandments

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.”
― Kent M. Keith, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council

“A black bird of guilt hovers over the death of a man, waiting to perch where it may find room in the minds that remain. It is an easy thing to be deceived by the happenings of the world into believing you are responsible for them. It is part of man's great conceit that he can believe himself responsible for the universe and its actions. It is a part of his conceit that he can believe himself guilty of the death of every other man, and take the guilt of the world on himself.

But there is no guilt to be taken. it is not necessary that the responsibility be assigned. It is not the concern of those who remain, but a thing between the world and the one who is dead. that which was, is not. It is a simple thing.”
― Don Berry, Trask

“The whites do not believe in such things," Charley said.
"Believe?" Tupshin was bewildered. "What is this talk of belief? Do they not believe in the sea, then? Or the mountains? There is a thing which is, it is not for believing or not believing.”
― Don Berry, Trask

“Now it occurred to him the changes of mental state that might be important were just such minor things as this abnormal irritability. Not so dramatic as visions and fevers, maybe. But important. An attitude of carelessness, or annoyance, clouded your judgment, and that was not a good thing in the woods.”
― Don Berry

“There was no good or bad connected with anything any more.......He regretted nothing; wanted nothing. He was simply existing, and the way things were was the way they had always been and always would be. He didn't care any more. He did what had to be done, and endured in a timeless present, without past or future.”
― Don Berry, Trask

“If he could just get rid of the harsh irritation of his conscious thinking, then he would be all right; then he would be at peace”
― Don Berry, Trask

“In time he found that all his perceptions were subject to the same easy control”
― Don Berry, Trask

“This tree wishes you no harm. God around it in peace. You are hurting yourself......The traveling was a little easier after that, knowing it was not necessary to destroy each tree that blocked him.”
― Don Berry, Trask

“All his life had been based on this hostile kind of strength; a strength that viewed the world as a thing to master, to overcome, to fight. As a problem that might be solved by destroying. It seemed faintly ridiculous to him now; and he found it difficult to remember that a life could be based on such fear. There could, he thought , be no impulse to destruction that was not rooted in some terrible fear, and he was no longer afraid.”
― Don Berry, Trask

“He saw a world he had not seen before; a world made not for mastery but for living. Once seen it was a very simple thing to understand. The wonder was that he had been so blind.”
― Don Berry, Trask

“Education doesn’t make you happy. Nor does freedom. We don’t become happy just because we’re free – if we are. Or because we’ve been educated – if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears, tells us where delights are lurking, convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever, that of the mind, and gives us the assurance – the confidence – to walk the path our mind, our educated mind, offers.”
― Iris Murdoch

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.”
― Leonard Cohen

“All reality, I decide, is a blender where hopes and dreams are mixed with fear and despair. Only”
― Holly Goldberg Sloan, Counting by 7s

“Anjin-san, forget the village. A thousand million things can happen before those six months occur. A tidal wave or earthquake, or you get your ship and sail away, or Yabu dies, or we all die, or who knows? Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you’re here and nothing you can do will change that. Today you’re alive and here and honored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it’s beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village.”
― James Clavell, Shōgun

“a parent’s responsibility could not be more simple: To bring a child safely into adulthood so that she could have a chance to experience a life of purpose and, God willing, contentment.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow