Pam > Pam's Quotes

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

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

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”
― Robert Frost

“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”
― C.S. Lewis

“This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question.”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”
― Plutarch

“A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”
― George Washington

“Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside she is covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary--and terrible elegant. ”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“Civilization is the mastery of violence, the triumph, constantly challenged, over the aggressive nature of the primate. For primates we have been and primates we shall remain, however often we learn to find joy in a camellia on moss. This is the very purpose of education.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

“Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.”
― W.T. Purkiser

“My dear young cousin, if there's one thing I've learned over the eons, it's that you can't give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it.”
― Rick Riordan

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
― Albert Camus

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.”
― Franz Kafka

“Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.”
― Richard P. Feynman

“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Usually we walk around constantly believing ourselves. "I'm okay" we say. "I'm alright". But sometimes the truth arrives on you and you can't get it off. That's when you realize that sometimes it isn't even an answer--it's a question. Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know. Often finding meaning is not about doing things differently; it is about seeing familiar things in new ways. ”
― Rachel Naomi Remen, My Grandfather's Blessings : Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging

“Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer.”
― Dan Brown, Digital Fortress

“When I was about eight, I decided that the most wonderful thing, next to a human being, was a book.”
― Margaret Walker

“I went to collect the few personal belongings which...I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.”
― Colette

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“If a few students come reluctantly to their studies, then let them go. If all students come reluctantly to their studies, then let your scribe be dismissed and find another. For once students have been taught that learning is tedious, difficult, and useless, they will never learn another lesson.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Assassin

“The scriptures present a God who delights in genocide, rape, slavery, and the execution of nonconformists, and for millennia those writings were used to rationalize the massacre of infidels, the ownership of women, the beating of children, dominion over animals, and the persecution of heretics and homosexuals. Humanitarian reforms such as the elimination of cruel punishment, the dissemination of empathy-inducing novels, and the abolition of slavery were met with fierce opposition in their time by ecclesiastical authorities and their apologists. The elevation of parochial values to the realm of the sacred is a license to dismiss other people’s interests, and an imperative to reject the possibility of compromise.”
― Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

“Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of changing.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer