Bethany > Bethany's Quotes

“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”
― Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
― Wilfred Arlan Peterson

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Wildness is the preservation of the World.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walking

“When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.”
― HENRY DAVID THOREAU

“The universe is wider than our views of it.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden & Civil Disobedience

“To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!”
― Henry David Thoreau

“A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; -- not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”
― Bertrand Russell

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
― Bertrand Russell

“My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at because the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism

“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”
― Bertrand Russell

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
― Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays

“And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence”
― Bertrand Russell

“So far as I can remember there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.”
― Bertrand Russell

“I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. ”
― Bertrand Russell

“I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man's place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own.”
― Bertrand Russell

“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”
― Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays

“Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I do not know how to distinguish between waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Doubt everything. Find your own light.”
― Gautama Buddha, Sayings of Buddha

“Every man gives his life for what he believes. Every woman gives her life for what she believes. Sometimes people believe in little or nothing, and so they give their lives to little or nothing. One life is all we have, and we live it as we believe in living it…and then it’s gone.

But to surrender who you are and to live without belief is more terrible than dying – even more terrible than dying young.”
― Joan of Arc

“Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know—and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know—even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction—than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.”
― Isaac Asimov

“It's one of the great temptations, you see--wanting to prove the strength of your own faith by making others believe what you believe. It shows you're right.
But it doesn't prove anything of the sort. All it proves is that you're condescending and arrogant and good at doing what half-decent actors can do, or advertising agents, or pop stars, or politicians, or con men, or any of the professional persuaders. They sell illusions. And that's all they do. And they feel good when they succeed. That's what their lives depend on.
Which isn't true about religion. Or shouldn't be. Your belief shouldn't depend on what other people think about it. And it certainly should not depend on whether other people believe the same as you.”
― Aidan Chambers, Now I Know