Barbara > Barbara's Quotes

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant… My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

“What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Either - Or

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, The Journals of Kierkegaard

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
― Aristotle

“Her face looked ugly in the attempt to avoid tears; it was an ugliness which bound him to her more than any beauty could have done. It isn't being happy together, he thought as though it were a fresh discovery, that makes one love--it's being unhappy together.”
― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

“We forget very easily what gives us pain.”
― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

“One can't love humanity. One can only love people.”
― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

“Pity is cruel. Pity destroys.”
― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

“A man kept his character even when he was insane.”
― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

“Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool,
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Poetry: the best words in the best order.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Readers may be divided into four classes: I. Sponges, who absorb all they read, and return it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtied. II. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing, and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. III. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. IV. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare and Some of the Old Poets and Dramatists: With Other Literary Remains of S. T. Coleridge. Volume 1

“There are no innocents. There are, however, different degrees of responsibility.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played with Fire

“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
― George Orwell, Why I Write

“What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.”
― Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History

“All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been; it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.”
― Thomas Carlyle

“A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.”
― Thomas Carlyle

“The tragedy of life is not so much what
men suffer, but rather what they miss.”
― Thomas Carlyle

“The past is always tense, the future perfect.”
― Zadie Smith

“The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.”
― Zadie Smith, On Beauty

“It's a funny thing about the modern world. You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, "Yeah, he fucked off and left me. He didn't love me. He just couldn't deal with love. He was too fucked up to know how to love me." Now, how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll---then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.”
― Zadie Smith, White Teeth

“[Dean] “My dear fellow, who will let you?”

[Roark] “That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.”
― Ayn Rand

“Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.”
― Bertolt Brecht

“The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars.”
― Bertolt Brecht

“Art is not a mirror held up to reality
but a hammer with which to shape it.”
― Bertolt Brecht

“He who laughs last has not yet heard the bad news. ”
― Bertolt Brecht

“Denn die einen sind im Dunkeln
Und die anderen sind im Licht.
Und man sieht nur die im Lichte
Die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht.”
― Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera