Brian > Brian's Quotes

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#1

“I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
― Steve Jobs

tags: change, life

431 likes

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#2

“Almost everything...all external expectations...all pride...all fear of embarrassment or failure...these things just fall away in the face of death....leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose. You are already naked...there is no reason not to follow your heart.”
― Steve Jobs

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#3

“I also felt guilty about the three pens I'd stolen, but only for a second. And since there was no convenient way to give them back, I stole a bottle of ink before I left.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

394 likes

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#4

“Does anyone object to me leaving?”
― Patrick Rothfuss

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#5

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

tags: bene-gesserit, fear, litany-against-fear, motivational, scifi

16752 likes

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#6

“I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

tags: family, friends, parties, social

12469 likes

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#7

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

tags: frost, glitter, gold, lost, poetry, roots, strength, strong, wander, wither

58028 likes

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#8

“If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Wide Window

tags: humor-cats-allergies

4305 likes

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#9

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
― Corrie Ten Boom, Clippings from My Notebook

tags: strength, worry

4871 likes

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#10

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

tags: animals, books, dogs, friends, humor

37983 likes

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#11

“You are an educated man. You know there are no such things as demons." Bast smiled a terrible smile. "There is only my kind." Bast leaned closer still, Chronicler smelled flowers on his breath. "You are not wise enough to fear me as I should be feared. You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

tags: fae

185 likes

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#12

“A trap is only a trap if you don't know about it. If you know about it, it's a challenge.”
― China Miéville, King Rat

tags: challenge, trap

2342 likes

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#13

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

tags: inspirational, talent

8184 likes

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#14

“If you can't be seven feet tall, be seven feet smart.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Labyrinth

1606 likes

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#15

“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

tags: love, mercy

3738 likes

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#16

“My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.”
― Alan Moore

tags: life

6800 likes

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#17

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
― Mark Twain

tags: clothing

3694 likes

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#18

“Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.”
― Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

tags: improbability, life

1678 likes

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#19

“I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.”
― Jack London, The Turtles of Tasman

1727 likes

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#20

“Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out. You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go.”
― Randall Munroe, xkcd: volume 0

tags: inspirational, life, xkcd

345 likes

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#21

“But I’ve never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive.”
― Randall Munroe, What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

212 likes

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#22

“Adventure is just bad planning.”
― Roald Amundsen

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#23

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

tags: adventuring, death, time

21626 likes

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#24

“Pyp had stabbed a turnip with his knife. "The night is dark and full of turnips," he announced in a solemn voice. "Let us all pray for venison, my children, with some onions and a bit of tasty gravy.”
― George R.R. Martin

tags: 144, melisandre, mock, night-s-watch, parody, pyp, r-hllor, the-wall

29 likes

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#25

“A city's only ever three hot meals away from anarchy.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Terminal World

tags: politics, sf, social-commentary

140 likes

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#26

“Never compare your insides to everyone else's outsides.”
― Anne Lamott

114 likes

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#27

“E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

tags: inspirational, life, writing

696 likes

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#28

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

tags: humor, proverb

12934 likes

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Tags From Brian’s Quotes

change
life
bene-gesserit
fear
litany-against-fear
motivational
scifi
family
friends
parties
social
frost
glitter
gold
lost
poetry
roots
strength
strong
wander
wither
humor-cats-allergies
worry
animals
books
dogs
humor
fae
challenge
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inspirational
talent
love
mercy
clothing
improbability
xkcd
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death
time
144
melisandre
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night-s-watch
parody
pyp
r-hllor
the-wall
politics
sf
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