Diana C Ferreira > Diana C's Quotes

“If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”
― Albert Camus

“To define is to limit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly -- that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to oneself. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion -- these are the two things that govern us.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Stories

“Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion.”
― Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

“And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“it is much safer to be feared than loved because ...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.”
― Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

“Deve nutrir-se carinho por um sofrimento sobre o qual se soube construir a felicidade, repetiu muito seguro. Apenas isso. Nunca cultivar a dor, mas lembrá-la com respeito, por ter sido indutora de uma melhoria, por melhorar quem se é. Se assim for, não é necessário voltar atrás. A aprendizagem estará feita e o caminho livre para que a dor não se repita.”
― valter hugo mãe, O Filho de Mil Homens

“There was a time in our lives when we were so close that nothing seemed to obstruct our friendship and brotherhood, and only a small footbridge separated us. Just as you were about to step on it, I asked you "Do you want to cross the footbridge to me?" - Immediately you did not want to anymore; and when I asked you again you remained silent. Since then mountains and torrential rivers and whatever separates and alienates have been cast between us, and even if we wanted to get together, we couldn't. But when you now think of that little footbridge, words fail you and you sob and marvel.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept

“Ask yourself, 'Who are the secure ones, the comfortable, the eternally cheerful?' I'll tell you the answer: only those with dull vision-the common people and the children”
― Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept

“Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you'll always find despair.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept

“No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day.
Ten times a day must thou overcome thyself: that causeth wholesome weariness, and is poppy to the soul.
Ten times must thou reconcile again with thyself; for overcoming is bitterness, and badly sleep the unreconciled.
Ten truths must thou find during the day; otherwise wilt thou seek truth during the night, and thy soul will have been hungry.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche