Paul > Paul's Quotes

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they've been read...”
― Keri Hulme, The Bone People

“We are all broken, that's how the light gets in.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..”
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

“Nothing is very constant in Beirut. Certainly not dreams. But despair isn’t constant either. Beirut is a city to be loved and hated a thousand times a day. Every day. It is exhausting, but it is also beautiful.”
― Nasri Atallah

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I rose too high, loved too hard, dared too much. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.”
― Sir Walter Scott

“You cannot open a book without learning something.”
― Confucius

“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

“I liked the thought that the book I was now holding had been held by dozens of others.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Wait Till Next Year

“What life is, we know not. What life does, we know well.”
― Lord Perceval

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.”
― HENRY DAVID THOREAU

“Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe.”
― Douglas Adams

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

“Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.”
― George R. R. Martin

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination.”
― Frederick P. Brooks Jr., The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering

“I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.”
― Rumi

“What are you thinking?” He took my hand.
“I’m thinking I don’t want to fight anymore.”
His fingers tightened around mine. It seemed so foolish now, all the fighting.
All the death and loss and mourning.”
― Adrienne Young, Sky in the Deep

“The past is nothing but a shackle we need to get rid of. Such an excruciating burden. If only I could have no past - you know, if only I could be a nobody, start from point zero and just remain there forever. As light as a feather...”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
― Charles W. Eliot