Liser > Liser's Quotes

“I prefer to be left alone with my books.”
― Alison Weir, Innocent Traitor

“there is only one solitude, and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear, and almost everyone has hours when he would gladly exchange it for any kind of sociability, however trivial or cheap, for the tiniest outward agreement with the first person who comes along....”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“I have an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I don't get enough for this year, I shall cry all the next. ”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Many people suffer from the fear of finding oneself alone, and so they don't find themselves at all.”
― Rollo May, Man's Search for Himself

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Narcotics Anonymous

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
― Socrates

“Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.”
― Eve Ensler

“Good is towing the line, being behaved, being quiet, being passive, fitting in, being liked, and great is being messy, having a belly, speaking your mind, standing up for what you believe in, fighting for another paradigm, not letting people talk you out of what you know to be true.”
― Eve Ensler

“It's a totally ridiculous, completely unsexy word. If you use it during sex, trying to be politically correct-- "Darling, could you stroke my vagina?"-- you kill the act right there. I'm worried about vaginas, what we call them and don't call them.”
― Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues

“And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women - except, of course —those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape ‘kit ‘n’ stuff, But for everybody else, it’s a win-win. Unless you’re a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years - whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know - actually, I take it back. The whole thing’s a disaster.”
― Tina Fey

“Men who are in prison for rape think it's the dumbest thing that ever happened... it's isn't just a miscarriage of justice; they were put in jail for something very little different from what most men do most of the time and call it sex. The only difference is they got caught. That view is nonremorseful and not rehabilitative. It may also be true. It seems to me that we have here a convergence between the rapists's view of what he has done and the victim's perspective on what was done to her. That is, for both, their ordinary experiences of heterosexual intercourse and the act of rape have something in common. Now this gets us into immense trouble, because that's exactly how judges and juries see it who refuse to convict men accused of rape. A rape victim has to prove that it was not intercourse. She has to show that there was force and that she resisted, because if there was sex, consent is inferred. Finders of fact look for "more force than usual during the preliminaries". Rape is defined by distinction from intercourse - not nonviolence, intercourse. They ask, does this event look more like fucking or like rape? But what is their standard for sex, and is this question asked from the women's point of view? The level of force is not adjudicated at her point of violation; it is adjudicated at the standard for the normal level of force. Who sets this standard?”
― Catharine A. MacKinnon

“The behavior of a human being in sexual matters is often a prototype for the whole of his other modes of reaction in life.”
― Sigmund Freud, Sexuality and the Psychology of Love

“The madman is a dreamer awake”
― S. Freud

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
― Rumi

“Man cannot be enlightened through any organization, creed, dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through understanding the contents of his own mind, through observation, not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection.”
― Radhanath Swami, The Journey Home

“God, who is absolute, reveals himself to different people in different ways [..] I realized it would be very narrow to think there was only one way to God.”
― Radhanath Swami, The Journey Home

“Suffering is sent to remind us to turn our thoughts towards God, who will give us solace.”
― Radhanath Swami, The Journey Home

“Trust in someone means that we no longer have to protect ourselves. We believe we will not be hurt or harmed by the other, at least not deliberately. We trust his or her good intentions, though we know we might be hurt by the way circumstances play out between us. We might say that hurt happens; it’s a given of life. Harm is inflicted; it’s a choice some people make.”
― David Richo

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master...”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“Countless words
count less
than the silent balance
between yin and yang”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“True words aren't eloquent;
eloquent words aren't true.
Wise men don't need to prove their point;
men who need to prove their point aren't wise.

The Master has no possessions.
The more he does for others,
the happier he is.
The more he gives to others,
the wealthier he is.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Not-knowing is true knowledge.
Presuming to know is a disease.
First realize that you are sick;
then you can move toward health.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Sometimes life just hits you, right in the face. And it’s alright. Because I, for one, think it’s kinda cool to have a black eye every now and then. And I think it’s definitely okay to have scars, and it’s definitely okay to hurt, and be in pain and show it. And that’s why we have friends in this life. And it’s why we have music.”
― Hayley Williams

“For that is what conservatism is: a meditation on—and theoretical rendition of—the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.”
― Corey Robin, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin

“When the conservative looks upon a democratic movement from below, this (and the exercise of agency) is what he sees: a terrible disturbance in the private life of power.”
― Corey Robin, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin

“Someone once said that we get more difficult to love with each passing year because, over time, our histories grow so tangled that newcomers can no longer bushwhack their way into the thicketed and overgrown depths of our hearts.”
― Adrian Barnes, Nod

“She had this amazing capacity to turn sadness into anger and anger into action, which meant nothing ever kept her down for long.”
― Ransom Riggs, Library of Souls

“An opportunist disguised as a friend can be every bit as dangerous as an outright enemy.”
― Ransom Riggs, Library of Souls

“partnership between cats and humans is older than currency, older than man’s use of metals, and older even than written language.”
― Paul Koudounaris, A Cat's Tale: A Journey Through Feline History