Syl Sabastian > Syl's Quotes

“We have to take a stand against deception, take action against all lying, and together, as a society, using awareness, discernment, and understanding, empower ourselves to call bullshit against bullshit!”
― Elevia DeNobelia - Syl Sabastian

“For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I want to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.”
― Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan

“When we realise we can add to the World, change the World, contribute positively to the World, simply via being Aware, we undergo a profound moment of Personal Empowerment. - Biella Noble”
― Elevia DeNobelia, Syl Sabastian

“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.”
― Albert Einstein

“Once we know, we’re empowered.”
― Elevia DeNobelia, Syl Sabastian

“I GREW UP IN THE untouchable slum of Elwin Peta in Kakinada. All around me was abject poverty. When you are surrounded by so much misery, you don’t see it as anything extraordinary.”
― Sujatha Gidla, Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India

“If light is in your heart, you will find your way home.”
― Rumi

“We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing them becomes too high,”
― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

“Some car had hit it after all, because it hadn’t had the courage to honor its own correct instinct. And I began to cry because I had this thought about people, that they do this all the time, deny the wise voice inside them telling them the right thing to do because it is different. I remembered once seeing a tea party some little girls had set up outside, mismatched china, decorations of a plucked pansy blossom and a seashell and a shiny penny and a small circle of red berries and a fern, pressed wetly into the wooden table, the damp outline around it a beautiful bonus. They didn’t consult the Martha Stewart guide for entertainment and gulp a martini before their guests arrived. They pulled ideas from their hearts and minds about the things that gave them pleasure, and they laid out an offering with loving intent. It was a small Garden of Eden, the occupants making something out of what they saw was theirs. Out of what they truly saw.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Pull of the Moon

“She lives the poetry she cannot write.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I was putting up a display for Banned Books Week when a mother and her six-year-old daughter stopped to watch. GIRL: What’re you doing? ME: I’m making a display about books that people complained about. They wanted them removed from the library. GIRL: Why? ME: Because they didn’t like what the books were about and didn’t want anyone else to read them, either. GIRL: I don’t get it. ME: I don’t, either. Can you imagine what would happen if every person could choose one book to remove from the library forever? GIRL: [Quietly, with realization.] There wouldn’t be any books left on the shelves. ME: That’s right! It wouldn’t really look like a library anymore, would it? GIRL: We are learning about bullying at school. It sounds like even libraries get bullied sometimes. ME: You are very smart.”
― Gina Sheridan, I Work at a Public Library: A Collection of Crazy Stories from the Stacks

“Class, The Case of the Mysterious A woman approached the desk with the book she’d placed on hold. WOMAN: Yes, I’d like to check this out for the duration? ME: Pardon me? The duration of . . . ? WOMAN: My class? ME: Oh, okay. Well, you can check items out for up to eight weeks if no one is in line. WOMAN: They told me I could have it! ME: I’m sorry? Who told you, huh? WOMAN: It’s for my class. ME: — WOMAN: — ME: How long do you need it? WOMAN: I’m not sure when the class ends. ME: I don’t know what to say.”
― Gina Sheridan, I Work at a Public Library: A Collection of Crazy Stories from the Stacks

“One of the best things about being a librarian is working at the intersection of life and the written word. This man’s personal story didn’t contain volumes, but his was an epic journey. He helped me to see that every page matters and each character we encounter helps to shape who we are and how we choose to live.”
― Gina Sheridan, I Work at a Public Library: A Collection of Crazy Stories from the Stacks

“I was helping Avery, a six-year-old library regular, at the children’s reference desk when I overheard the next kid in line talking to his mother. KID: [Whispering, pointing at Avery.] Mom, why is that girl here alone? MOM: I’m sure her parents are nearby. Don’t worry about it. KID: [Shouting, as I turned to walk Avery to the stacks.] ARE YOU AN ORPHAN?”
― Gina Sheridan, I Work at a Public Library: A Collection of Crazy Stories from the Stacks

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”
― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.”
― Robert Frost

“You must remember how many years we weren’t even allowed to talk about AIDS here,” my mother reminds me. “It was all a dreadful secret. Herbert Ushewekunze, the minister of health, issued an edict, a ministerial fatwa, that there was to be absolutely no publicity at all. And later he died of it himself.”
― Peter Godwin, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa

“If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“Well-read people are less likely to be evil.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Slippery Slope

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“An old friend once told me that whenever she was feeling sorry for herself, her mother insisted she go do something nice for someone to take her mind off her own problems. And if she got caught it didn’t count; she had to do it anonymously.”
― Eldonna Edwards, Lost in Transplantation: Memoir of an Unconventional Organ Donor

“...Having felt the piercing gash of grief and lived through it, having loved to the brink of brokenness, and having learned the difference between friendship and frivolity, one eventually takes a conscious step through the invisible membrane that separates hubris from humility...”
― Eldonna Edwards, Lost in Transplantation: Memoir of an Unconventional Organ Donor

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“Trump loved to hear complain about the CIA and the haplessness of American spies, had been told by his friends that it had not been a good idea to take $45,000 from the Russians for a speech. “Well, it would only be a problem if we won,” he assured them, knowing that it would therefore not be a problem.”
― Michael Wolff, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House

“But the prospect of her husband’s actually becoming president was, for Melania, a horrifying one. She believed it would destroy her carefully sheltered life—one sheltered, not inconsiderably, from the extended Trump family—which was almost entirely focused on her young son.”
― Michael Wolff, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Well, even at $50 the regum doctor can’t work forever on the stamp. Some gum is almost always missed. It may not be as obvious as the pictures above but you will still see gum in the holes. This is where a good magnifying glass or microscope pays off.”
― Scott Murphy, The Philatelic Book of Secrets

“And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Pantone colors are described by their allocated number (typically referred to as, for example, "PMS 130"). PMS colors are almost always used in branding and have even found their way into government legislation and military standards. In January 2003, the Scottish Parliament debated a petition to refer to the blue in the Scottish flag as "Pantone 300".”
― Scott Murphy, The Philatelic Book of Secrets

“No, I’m talking about the aliens inside our own heads. The ones we made up, the ones we’ve been making up since we realized those glittering lights in the sky were suns like ours and probably had planets like ours spinning around them. You know, the aliens we imagine, the kind of aliens we’d like to attack us, human aliens. You’ve seen them a million times. They swoop down from the sky in their flying saucers to level New York and Tokyo and London, or they march across the countryside in huge machines that look like mechanical spiders, ray guns blasting away, and always, always, humanity sets aside its differences and bands together to defeat the alien horde. David slays Goliath, and everybody (except Goliath) goes home happy. What crap.”
― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave