Aaron > Aaron's Quotes

“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

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.”
― Richard P. Feynman

“The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion . . . open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
― Albert Einstein

“Only parts of us will ever touch only parts of others.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“Music is the universal language of mankind.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Never memorize something that you can look up.”
― Albert Einstein

“…he quit drinking coffee, and naturally, his brain stopped working.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Most authors would confess they hear an inner editor, an internal naysayer that hampers and nitpicks their attempts at first drafts. Mine has taken the form of Athena. Haughtily she peruses and dismisses every story idea I attempt: "too trite", "too formulaic", "too white". She's even harsher at the sentence level: "the rhythm's off", "that imagery doesn't work", "seriously, another em dash?”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“Monseigneur, you who turn everything to account have, nevertheless, one useless plot. It would be better to grow salads there than bouquets."
"Madame Magloire," retorted the Bishop, "you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the useful." He added after a pause, "More so, perhaps.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and alas! most night.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

“Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful.”
― Milan Kundera

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“the greatest service we can do to education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects, we destroy his standards, perhaps for life.”
― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life

“The First [Friend] is the alter ego, the man who first reveals to you that you are not alone in the world by turning out (beyond hope) to share all your most secret delights. There is nothing to be overcome in making him your friend; he and you join like raindrops on a window. But the Second Friend is the man who disagrees with you about everything. He is not so much the alter ego as the antiself. Of course he shares your interests; otherwise he would not become your friend at all. But he has approached them all at a different angle. He has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one. It is as if he spoke your language but mispronounced it. How can he be so nearly right and yet, invariably, just not right? He is as fascinating (and infuriating) as a woman. When you set out to correct his heresies, you will find that he forsooth to correct yours! And then you go at it, hammer and tongs, far into the night, night after night, or walking through fine country that neither gives a glance to, each learning the weight of the other's punches, and often more like mutually respectful enemies than friends. Actually (though it never seems so at the time) you modify one another's thought; out of this perpetual dogfight a community of mind and a deep affection emerge.”
― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life

“You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.”
― Milan Kundera

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“One thing I learned back in my graduate school days: When you’re stupid tired, accept that you’re stupid tired. Don’t try to solve things right then.”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

“It gives one a sudden start in going down a barren, stoney street, to see upon a narrow strip of grass, just within the iron fence, the radiant dandelion, shining in the grass, like a spark dropped from the sun.”
― Henry Ward Beecher

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”
― Niels Bohr

“Gratitude is what you feel. Thanksgiving is what you do.”
― Tim Keller

“Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow. ”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

“She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that’s important—you know ”
― Marilyn Monroe

“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

“Love is the kind of thing that's already happening by the time you notice it, that's how it works, and no matter how old you get, that doesn't change. Except that you can break it up into two entirely distinct types -- love where there's an end in sight and love where there isn't.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Goodbye Tsugumi

“Who are you in love with?" I said then.
For a minute Marco didn't say anything, he simply opened his mouth and breathed out a blue, vaporous ring.
"Perfect!" he laughed.
The ring widened and blurred, ghost-pale on the dark air.
Then he said, "I am in love with my cousin."
I felt no surprise.
"Why don't you marry her?"
"Impossible."
"Why?"
Marco shrugged. "She's my first cousin. She's going to be a nun."
"Is she beautiful?"
"There's no one to touch her."
"Does she know you love her?"
"Of course."
I paused. The obstacle seemed unreal to me.
"If you love her," I said, "you'll love somebody else someday.”
― Sylvia Plath

“最難風雨故人來 [...] it’s an incredible blessing to be able to see your loved ones during the most difficult times.”
― Emily X.R. Pan, The Astonishing Color of After

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“Because when we love, we carry it on the inside, and we can turn on its light even in our darkest moments. The deeper we love, the brighter it shines.”
― Leylah Attar, The Paper Swan