Corinne > Corinne's Quotes

“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
― Howard Zinn

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“External conflicts we can avoid, resolve, or manage. But, when it comes to internal conflicts, there is only one viable option: resolve. Whatever internal conflict, major or minor, we don't resolve will grate within us nonstop. Fortunately, we can resolve all our internal conflicts with one simple strategy: Act the way it feels right, no matter how inconvenient the consequences are.”
― Indrajit Garai, The Seeker of Well-Being

“Unknown situations offer us opportunities for fresh learning. When we judge these situations solely by our conscious logic, fear grips us; we turn these opportunities down. We close ourselves from new experiences. We stagnate.

On the contrary, when we embrace these opportunities, we force our intuition to work in the face of risks. And then, when we observe our perceptions, actions, and reactions in these situations, we see our evolution. We break out of our limits.”
― Indrajit Garai

“Emergencies send sparks to the darkest corner of us. They wake up our hormones and neurotransmitters, they remove the rust from our body and mind, and they show us we can still handle crisis with poise.

Emergencies push us to our limits. At those limits, the best inside us comes out. The eyes of our mind open, exceptional vision occurs to us, and we have a chance to become extraordinary.”
― Indrajit Garai, The Seeker of Well-Being

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
― Gustav Flaubert

“All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Gabriel García Márquez: a Life

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein

“The world is a place of marvels”
― Jack Vance, The Green Pearl

“- I had a good classical education, and a positive distaste for business of any kind; that was the capital with which I faced the world [...] I reflected, then, on my want of prospects, and I determined to embark in literature.
- Really; that was strange. You seem to be in pretty comfortable circumstances, though.”
― Arthur Machen

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Vedanta Philosophy: Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda on Raja Yoga Also Pantanjali's Yoga Aphorisms, with Commentaries, and Glossary of Sanskrit Terms

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

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
― Leo Tolstoy , Anna Karenina

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”
― Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and think critically. Intelligence plus character; that is the goal of a true education.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
― James Baldwin

“He who does not weep does not see.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the Living Infinite. ”
― Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”
― Stephen R. Covey

“But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“Without movement there is no Life...We should use our energy to the fullest.”
― Ai Qing

“The truth is life is full of joy and full of great sorrow, but you can't have one without the other.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“As we pass one step, and as we recognize it as being behind us, the next one already rises up before us. By the time we learn everything, we slowly come to understand it. And while you come to understand everything gradually, you don't remain idle at any moment: you are already attending to your new business; you live, you act, you move, you fulfill the new requirements of every new step of development. If, on the other hand, there were no schedule, no gradual enlightenment, if all the knowledge descended on you at once right there in one spot, then it's possible neither your brains nor your heart could bear it.”
― Imre Kertész, Fatelessness

“We tend to suppress our anger against each other which ultimately leads to big quarrels some day. If two people have been naturally expressing their differences of opinion or having small arguments on regular basis, they will never have resentment or enmity of a lifetime.”
― Deep Trivedi, The Pulse of Wisdom

“Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains.”
― Carl Gustav Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections