Alejandro > Alejandro's Quotes

“How often do I lull my seething blood to rest, for you have never seen anything so unsteady, so uncertain, as this heart.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“I could lead the best, the happiest life if I wasn't a fool.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“For only to the extent that we empathize do we have the right to speak about a matter.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“Must it be, that what makes for a man's happiness becomes the source for his misery?”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“When we have lost ourselves, we have lost everything.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“Nothing is more dangerous than solitude.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“I often feel that way, I would like to open one of my veins, to bring me eternal freedom.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“Sometimes I don't understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“I am proud of my heart alone, it is the sole source of everything, all our strength, happiness and misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own”
― Goethe Wolfgang, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“God knows, I often lie down to sleep with the desire, even sometimes the hope, not to wake up again.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“The source of all misery lies concealed within me, as the source of all happiness did formerly.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“Everything is possible again.” It was the perfect thing to write, because that was exactly how it felt. We could retell our stories and make them better, more representative or aspirational. Or we could choose to tell different stories. The world itself had another chance.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”
― Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

“Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn’t motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn’t enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when?”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“We can’t plead ignorance, only indifference. Those alive today are the generations that came to know better. We have the burden and the opportunity of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into the popular consciousness. We are the ones of whom it will be fairly asked, What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“His mind was bright but his soul was empty.”
― Jennae Cecelia, Bright Minds Empty Souls

“How could a pain this deep have no blood to show for it? I felt ripped by the seams, and hung out to dry. How did this pain have no scar from the hurt? No visible evidence to show I was broken. With cracks so deep they were called canyons.”
― Jennae Cecelia, Bright Minds Empty Souls

“Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?' Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. 'This long.' He snapped his fingers. 'A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man.'

'Old?' asked Clevinger with surprise. 'What are you talking about?'

'Old.'

'I'm not old.'

'You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow down?' Dunbar was almost angry when he finished.

'Well, maybe it is true,' Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. 'Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?'

'I do,' Dunbar told him.

'Why?' Clevinger asked.

'What else is there?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“But I had learned to hide what I felt. No, that's not true. There was no learning involved. I had been born knowing how to hide what I felt.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“..they were always asking me lots of questions. Questions I didn't want to answer. They wanted to get to know me. Yeah, well, I wasn't interested in being known. I wanted to buy a t-shirt that read: I AM UNKNOWNABLE.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.”
― Anatole France

“Biology enables, Culture forbids.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“I am thoughtful—full of thoughts, all the time, inescapably, exhaustingly. But I am also mindless—acting in accordance with default settings I neither understand nor examine.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed

“If you get a chance to sit for a spell with someone you love don’t get up to quickly, stay a while, linger, indulge, savor. Order the cake.”
― John Stamos, If You Would Have Told Me