John Pearman > John's Quotes

“He forgets the books he has read, has no memory for dates and misplaces the momentous events in his life. Like a river, all flows over him, leaving nothing behind: no deep conviction, no solid opinion, nothing fixed, nothing stable.”
― Stefan Zweig, Montaigne

“He desires only to preserve a few memories, assemble a few thoughts, to dream more than live and patiently await death, calmly preparing for it.”
― Stefan Zweig, Montaigne

“The true essence of freedom is that it can never restrict the freedom of another.”
― Stefan Zweig, Montaigne

“It is true: Montaigne achieved little else in his life aside from posing the question: “How should I live?”
― Stefan Zweig, Montaigne

“Montaigne is the sworn enemy of all responsibility. He strives to dodge decisions. Solitary sage in a time of mass fanaticism, he seeks seclusion and flight.”
― Stefan Zweig, Montaigne

“For him books are not like men, who impose themselves and burden him with their chatter, and of whom it is hard to be rid. When you don’t call for them they stay put; you can just pick up this one or that, according to your whim: “Books are my kingdom. And here I seek to reign as absolute lord.” Books offer him their opinion and he responds with his own. They express their thoughts and arouse in him further thoughts. They do not disturb him when he is silent; they only speak when he questions them. Here is his realm. They await his delectation.”
― Stefan Zweig, Montaigne

“The most just death is that which is most willed. Our lives depend on the will of others, but death on ourselves alone. There is nothing to which we should apply ourselves more than this. Reputation has no place here and it is folly to think of it. Life is servitude if we lack the freedom to die.”
― Stefan Zweig, Montaigne

“It is my opinion that you should lend yourself to others and give yourself only to yourself.”
― Stefan Zweig, Montaigne

“Books are, I find, the best provisions a man can take with him on life’s journey.”
― Stefan Zweig, Montaigne

“To free oneself of ambitions and all forms of avarice: “Thirst for glory is the most futile of all, the most valueless and bogus currency known to man.”
― Stefan Zweig, Montaigne

“Do I clap along with them?
No. By applauding I would be saying: Hell, Reilhan, it wasn't that important, it was just good fun. I would be saying: You only beat a part of me, and the rest, what does it care, it applauds you.
But Reilhan has beaten all of me.
He who applauds his victor denies that, and belittles him.
Being a good loser is a despicable evasion, an insult to the sporting spirit. All good losers should be barred from practicing a sport.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“signs. Oh, to have been a rider then. Because after the finish all the suffering turns to memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is Nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. ‘Good for you.’ Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“There are times when I am convinced I am unfit for any human relationship.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”
― William James

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter."

(Letter 16, 1657)”
― Blaise Pascal, The Provincial Letters

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“For this," he said, "is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body, that physicians separate the soul from the body.”
― Plato, The Complete Works of Plato

“If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, "I'm a free man in here" - he tapped his forehead - "and you're all right.”
― George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

“The stars are a free show; it don’t cost anything to use your eyes”
― George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

“Because we’re human, and humans are mean, independent monkeys that reached their greatness by killing every other species of hominid that looked at us funny.”
― James S.A. Corey, Persepolis Rising

“if you hear hoofbeats in the distance, your first guess is that they’re horses, not zebras. And you’re hearing hoofbeats and jumping straight to unicorns.”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“Never let the future disturb you - you will meet it with the same weapons of reason and mind that, today, guard you against the present...”
― Marcus Aurelius, The thoughts of Marcus Aurelius

“Even if you’re going to live three thousand more years, or ten times that, remember: you cannot lose another life than the one you’re living now, or live another one than the one you’re losing. The longest amounts to the same as the shortest. The present is the same for everyone; its loss is the same for everyone; and it should be clear that a brief instant is all that is lost. For you can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have?”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.”
― Epictetus, The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.”
― Epictetus

“In fact, if you are faced with the prospect of running across an open field in which lightning bolts are going to be a problem, you are much better off if their timing and location are determined by something, since then they may be predictable by you, and hence avoidable. Determinism is the friend, not the foe, of those who dislike inevitability.”
― Daniel C. Dennett, Freedom Evolves

“There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view I hold dear.”
― Daniel Dennett