Steven > Steven's Quotes

“To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause? That is hell. And once in hell it is very easy to curse being itself and no wonder. But it's not justifiable and that's why the king of the damned is a poor judge of being.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

“The egregious Mr. Pontifex in The Way of All Flesh is outraged to discover that his son does not love him; it is "unnatural" for a boy not to love his own father. It never occurs to him to ask whether, since the first day the boy can remember, he has ever done or said anything that could excite love.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“A good friend will always stab you in the front.”
― Oscar Wilde

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“Of all arguments against love, none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as "Careful! This might lead you to suffering."

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities. I doubt whether there is anything in me that pleases Him less. And who could conceivably begin to love God on such a prudential ground-- because the security (so to speak) is better? Who could even include it among the grounds for loving?”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“If you hold a rose up before a man and he shuts his eyes tight and just holds out his hands and says "Here, I am ready to be persuaded; convince me by touch that your rose is red;" then you are helpless.”
― Phillips Brooks, The Candle of the Lord

“Until you can say "I am my master," you cannot say "I am your servant." In other words, we might profess a service ethic, but under pressure or stress we might be controlled by a particular passion or appetite. We lose our temper. We become jealous, envious, lustful, or slothful. Then we feel guilty. We make promises and break them, make resolutions and break them. We gradually lose faith in our own capacity to keep any promises. Despite our ethic to be the "servant of the people," we become the slave of whatever masters us.”
― Stephen R. Covey, Principle-Centered Leadership

“A superior mind can come up with a lot of foolish questions.”
― John R. Erickson

“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.”
― H.G. Wells, The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman

“We become convinced that everyone around us is concerned with the minutiae of our lives. In a number of decades, you will be gone. Your home will be sold to a new family, your job will be taken by someone else, your kids will be adults, your work will be done....Nobody is thinking about you in the way they are thinking about you, they are only thinking of themselves.”
― Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery

“Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm Of Life

“Hence this maxim: that the individual is the best as well as the only judge of his particular interest, and that society has the right to direct his actions only when it feels itself injured by his deed or when it needs to demand his cooperation.”
― Alexis De Toqueville, Democracy In America