Raf > Raf's Quotes

“Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.”
― Albert Camus

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”
― Bertrand Russell

“No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“And so, onwards... along a path of wisdom, with a hearty tread, a hearty confidence.. however you may be, be your own source of experience. Throw off your discontent about your nature. Forgive yourself your own self. You have it in your power to merge everything you have lived through- false starts, errors, delusions, passions, your loves and your hopes- into your goal, with nothing left over.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

“The reason we’re all so miserable may be because we’re working so hard to avoid being miserable.”
― Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

“I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape. Instead, the world may become something worth paying attention to.”
― Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

“I find myself saying briefly and prosaically that it is much more important to be oneself than anything else. Do not dream of influencing other people, I would say, if I knew how to make it sound exalted.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

“These individuals, according to Jung, are not ill because they lack the ability to live like everyone else, they are ill “because [they have] not yet found a new form for [their] finest aspirations.” (Carl Jung) Instead of following the well-worn path of conformity such people:

“…are born and destined rather to be bearers of new cultural ideals. They are neurotic as long as they bow down before authority and refuse the freedom to which they are destined.”

Carl Jung, Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis”
― Academy of Ideas

“In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walking

“When one has not had a good father, one must create one.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The complaint of the depressive individual, “Nothing is possible,” can only occur in a society that thinks, “Nothing is impossible.”
― Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society

“When you have fear, insecurity, or weakness inside of you, and you attempt to keep it from being stimulated, there will inevitably be events and changes in life that challenge your efforts. Because you resist these changes, you feel that you are struggling with life. You feel like this person is not behaving the way they should, and this event is not unfolding the way you want. You see situations that happened in the past as disturbing, and you see things down the road as potential problems. Your definitions of desirable and undesirable, as well as good and bad, all come about because you have defined how things need to be in order for you to be okay.”
― Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

“The Need to Win

When an archer is shooting for nothing He has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle
He is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold
He goes blind
Or sees two targets –
He is out of his mind.

His skill has not changed, But the prize
Divides him. He cares,
He thinks more of winning
Than of shooting –
And the need to win
Drains him of power.”
― Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu

“If your Nerve, deny you—
Go above your Nerve—
He can lean against the Grave,
If he fear to swerve—

That's a steady posture—
Never any bend
Held of those Brass arms—
Best Giant made—

If your Soul seesaw—
Lift the Flesh door—
The Poltroon wants Oxygen—
Nothing more—”
― Emily Dickinson

“The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings," said Paul, "not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions, and systems.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”
― Jean de La Fontaine, Fables

“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms

“I've lived the life of a man without teeth, he thought about it. A life of a man without teeth. I've never bitten, I've been waiting, keeping myself for later - and now I've just ascertained that I don't have teeth anymore.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, The Age of Reason

“This is a moment of suffering. Suffering is part of life. May I be kind to myself in this moment. May I give myself the compassion I need.”
― Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself