Jonathan > Jonathan's Quotes

“The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are.”
― Erasmus, Praise of Folly

“SONG OF DAWN

I saw the sun rise by accident.
It was a horrible sight.
Annoyed by its splendor, I sought refuge
in a moist pillow, and lay there, alone,
at the dawn of another day,
that brought me closer to another death,
pondering the vanity of my solitude,
the vanity of procrastination,
and the tiresome inevitability of waking up
again the same person.
It might still be possible to change,
but obstinately I remain the same,
hoping that others might take solace
in my consistency.
But perhaps they take no solace in it,
perhaps they too find it tedious.”
― John Tottenham, Antiepithalamia: & Other Poems of Regret & Resentment

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You should always waste time when you don't have any. Time is not the boss of you. Rule 408.”
― Steven Moffat

“I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven's name, why is it so important to think the same things all together. ”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“He would like to burrow under the earth like a bulb, like a root, to where it is still warm. To hibernate with his thoughts and feelings. To remain silent with a shrivelling mouth. He wishes that all the statements, insults, promises he has uttered would become invalid, forgotten by everyone and he himself forgotten too.

But no sooner is he secured in the silence, no sooner does he fancy that he has wrapped himself up like a chrysalis, than he is no longer right. A wet, cold wind blows his absence of expectations around the corner, over a flower-stall filled with evergreens and flowers for the dead. And suddenly he is holding in his hands the snowdrops that he didn't want to buy--he who wanted to go empty-handed! The bells of the snowdrops begin to ring wildly and soundlessly, and he goes to where his ruin awaits him. Filled with expectation as never before, with the expectation and the desire for salvation accumulated through all the years.”
― Ingeborg Bachmann, The Thirtieth Year: Stories

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul”
― John Muir

“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
― John Muir

“Why am I afraid to tell you who I am? I am afraid to tell you who I am, because, if I tell you who I am, you may not like who I am, and it's all that I have...”
― John Joseph Powell, Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? Insights into Personal Growth