Darcie > Darcie's Quotes

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“You want to know how super-intelligent cyborgs might treat ordinary flesh-and-blood humans? Better start by investigating how humans treat their less intelligent animal cousins. It’s not a perfect analogy, of course, but it is the best archetype we can actually observe rather than just imagine.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

“The lesson: good leadership means leading the way, not hectoring other people to do things your way. Bullying, bickering and competing for dominance are, even in a low-risk situation, excellent ways to destroy morale and diminish productivity.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“At present, more than 90 per cent of the large animals of the world (i.e. those weighing more than a few kilograms) are either humans or domesticated animals.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

“Children are a perpetual, self-renewing underclass, helpless to escape from the decisions of adults until they become adults themselves.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

“Do you hate people?”

“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Barfly

“The greatest scientific discovery was the discovery of ignorance. Once humans realised how little they knew about the world, they suddenly had a very good reason to seek new knowledge, which opened up the scientific road to progress.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

“When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.”
― Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

“In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility.”
― Mary Shelley, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“To respond to the question of the meaning of life by simply reproducing yourself is to shift the question to the next generation. To not respond at all, or to not even try, isn’t that the worst kind of cowardice?”
― Corinne Maier, No Kids: 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
― Bill Gates

“Une personne qui n’a pas fait la moitié de son ouvrage de la journée à dix heures risque de laisser inachevée l’autre moitié.”
― Emily Brontë, Les Hauts de Hurle-vent

“There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Without suffering, you cannot grow. Without suffering, you cannot get the peace and joy you deserve.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“Buddhist teachings are meant to awaken our true self, not merely to add to our storehouse of knowledge.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“Repeating a phrase like “Life is suffering” might help you notice when you are about to become attached to something, but it cannot help you understand the true nature of suffering or reveal the path shown to us by the Buddha.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“We have to learn the art of stopping — stopping our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions that rule us.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“How can we stop this state of agitation? How can we stop our fear, despair, anger, and craving? We can stop by practicing mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, and deep looking in order to understand. When we are mindful, touching deeply the present moment, the fruits are always understanding, acceptance, love, and the desire to relieve suffering and bring joy.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“Mindfulness is the energy that allows us to recognize our habit energy and prevent it from dominating us.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“The first function of meditation — shamatha — is to stop.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“If we sit there and allow the negative thinking connected to past experiences to come up, we are eating the toxic matter of consciousness. Many of us sit and think, and the more we think, the more angry, upset, and in despair we become.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“The Buddha also taught on many occasions that most of our perceptions are erroneous, and that most of our suffering comes from wrong perceptions.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“Darling, I know you are there. Your presence is precious to me.” If you do not express this while you are together, when she passes away or has an accident, you will only cry, because before the accident happened, you did not know how to be truly happy together.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“Do not lose yourself in the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. Do not get caught in your anger, worries, or fears. Come back to the present moment, and touch life deeply. This is mindfulness.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“That’s why you need to grab whatever chance you have for happiness where you find it, and not worry too much about other people. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a lifetime, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“The problem with good things that happen is that very often they disguise themselves as awful things.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner