Alan > Alan's Quotes

“The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.”
― Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come -- ”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“Vladimir: Did I ever leave you?
Estragon: You let me go.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“Estragon: What about hanging ourselves?
Vladimir: Hmm. It'd give us an erection.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.”
― Michel de Montaigne

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“Mothers are all slightly insane.”
― J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Never limit your view of life by any past experience.”
― Ernest Holmes

“True imagination is not fanciful daydreaming; it is fire from heaven. ”
― Ernest Holmes

“Prepare your mind to recieve the best that life has to offer.”
― Ernest Holmes

“Life is not just something to be endured. It is to be lived in joy, in a fullness without limit (p.82)”
― Ernest Holmes, Discover a Richer Life

“New Beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”
― Lao Tzu

“So the worthless rose up against the honoured, those of no reputation against such as were renowned, the foolish against the wise, the young against those advanced in years.”
― The Church Fathers, The Complete Ante-Nicene & Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Collection