Olivia > Olivia 's Quotes

“For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“It is astounding, in truth, how much of academia’s perceived resource scarcity is artificially constructed.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Trying, he thought, to express some unutterable truth about themselves. Which was that translation was impossible. That the realm of pure meaning they captured and manifested would and could not ever be known. That the enterprise of this tower had been impossible from inception. For how could there ever be an Adamic language? The thought now made him laugh. There was no innate, perfectly comprehensible language. There was no candidate - not English, not French - that could bully and absorb enough to become one. Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No, a thousand worlds within one. And translation, a necessary endeavor however futile, to move between them.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“One thing in my defense, not that it matters: I know something Carter never knew, or Helene, or maybe you. I know what "nothing" means, and keep on playing.”
― Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays

“When apparent stability disintegrates,
As it must--
God is Change--
People tend to give in
To fear and depression,
To need and greed.
When no influence is strong enough
To unify people
They divide.
They struggle,
One against one,
Group against group,
For survival, position, power.
They remember old hates and generate new ones,
The create chaos and nurture it.
They kill and kill and kill,
Until they are exhausted and destroyed,
Until they are conquered by outside forces,
Or until one of them becomes
A leader
Most will follow,
Or a tyrant
Most fear.”
― Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

“There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“For if the modern mind is whimsical and discursive, the classical mind is narrow, unhesitating, relentless. It is not a quality of intelligence that one encounters frequently these days. But though I can digress with the best of them, I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Some things are too terrible to grasp at once. Other things - naked, sputtering, indelible in their horror - are too terrible to really grasp ever at all. It is only later, in solitude, in memory that the realization dawns: when the ashes are cold; when the mourners have departed; when one looks around and finds oneself - quite to one's surprise - in an entirely different world.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Doubt is our product,” said the memo, “since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the best means for establishing a controversy.”2”
― Pete Buttigieg, Trust: America's Best Chance

“Through pain I've learned to comfort suffering men”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“Let no one think of me that I am humble or weak or passive; let them understand I am of a different kind: dangerous to my enemies, loyal to my friends. To such a life glory belongs.”
― Euripides, Medea and Other Plays

“When one with honeyed words but evil mind
Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.”
― Euripides, Orestes

“Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century:
Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others;
Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected;
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it;
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences;
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind;
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Senectute, De Amicitia

“Facilis descensus Averno:
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradium superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.
(The gates of Hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this task and mighty labor lies.)”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“The half-life of love is forever.”
― Junot Díaz, This Is How You Lose Her

“I can feel the irrationality and anxiety draining my store of energy like a battery-operated racecar grinding away in the corner. This is the energy I will need to get through the next day. But I just lie in bed and watch it burn, and with it any hope for a productive tomorrow. There go the dishes, there goes the grocery store, there goes exercise, there goes bringing in the garbage cans. There goes basic human kindness.”
― Maria Semple, Where'd You Go, Bernadette

“We live a life of privilege. That doesn’t mean we can literally switch off these women, whose only fault was being born in the Congo during civil war. We need to bear witness.”
― Maria Semple, Where'd You Go, Bernadette

“I'm like everybody else: weak, full of mistakes, but basically good.”
― Junot Díaz, This Is How You Lose Her

“Ana Iris once asked me if I loved him and I told her about the lights in my old home in the capital, how they flickered and you never knew if they would go out or not. You put down your things and you waited and couldn't do anything really until the lights decided. This, I told her, is how I feel.”
― Junot Diaz, This Is How You Lose Her

“You don't want to let go, but don't want to be hurt, either. It's not a great place to be but what can I tell you?”
― Junot Diaz, This Is How You Lose Her

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
― Cicero

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time. Anyone who was given love will always live on in another's heart.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“I am not ashamed to confess I am ignorant of what I do not know.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Stronger than lover's love is lover's hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.”
― Euripides, Medea