Alan > Alan's Quotes

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#1

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”
― Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

tags: birds, freedom, friends, friendship, letting-go

4660 likes

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#2

“Until we have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is.”
― Marianne Williamson

417 likes

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#3

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”
― D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Poems of D.H. Lawrence

tags: dh-lawrence, self-pity

1111 likes

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#4

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

tags: books, mind

16632 likes

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#5

“Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

tags: death, life

2593 likes

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#6

“What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms . . . or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

2523 likes

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#7

“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

tags: alice-in-wonderland, breakfast, carroll

5424 likes

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#8

“You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named "Bush", "Dick", and "Colin." Need I say more?”
― Chris Rock

9406 likes

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#9

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts On Common Things

tags: hope, imagination, inspirational

9222 likes

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#10

“How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people - girls, women - went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highest reaches of their skill.”
― Kristin Cashore, Graceling

tags: katsa, power, strong, unfair, weak

1287 likes

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#11

“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is "timing"
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.”
― Fulton J. Sheen

tags: patience, power, timing, waiting

1298 likes

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#12

“Knowledge is power. Power to do evil...or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.”
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

tags: evil, good, knowledge, power

1430 likes

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#13

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

tags: aristocracy, capitalism, corruption, government, history, oppression, power, rationalization, society

1796 likes

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#14

“It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But a half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

tags: power, protest, truth-telling

243 likes

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#15

“What happens to people living in a society where everyone in power is lying, stealing, cheating and killing, and in our hearts we all know this, but the consequences of facing all these lies are so monstrous, we keep on hoping that maybe the corporate government administration and media are on the level with us this time.
Americans remind me of survivors of domestic abuse.
This is always the hope that this is the very, very, very last time one's ribs get re-broken again. ”
― Inga Muscio, Cunt: A Declaration of Independence

117 likes

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#16

“Consider the black widow spider. It's a timid little beastie, useful and, for my taste, the prettiest of the arachnids, with its shiny, patent-leather finish and its red hourglass trademark. But the poor thing has the fatal misfortune of possessing enormously too much power for its size. So everybody kills it on sight.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

tags: power

217 likes

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#17

“I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim—so modestly and so humbly—to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

tags: arrogance, atheism, belief, fantasy, god, humility, inspirational, modesty, power, religion, respect

138 likes

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#18

“The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.”
― Adolf Hitler

tags: power

131 likes

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#19

“Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than action; innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) 'thou shalt not' predominates unduly over 'thou shalt.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

tags: abstinence, characteristics, commandments, innocence, morality, nobleness, paganism, precepts, reaction

118 likes

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#20

“Truth and trust are the means by which civilization holds off barbarism.”
― Mercedes Lackey, Alta

tags: power

55 likes

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#21

“I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother.”
― Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters

tags: ernest-hemingway, feminism, hate, love, marriage, married-life, matrimony, men, mothers, psychology, relationships, sons, women

2346 likes

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#22

“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

tags: doom, mortality

2275 likes

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Tags From Alan’s Quotes

birds
freedom
friends
friendship
letting-go
dh-lawrence
self-pity
books
mind
death
life
alice-in-wonderland
breakfast
carroll
hope
imagination
inspirational
katsa
power
strong
unfair
weak
patience
timing
waiting
evil
good
knowledge
aristocracy
capitalism
corruption
government
history
oppression
rationalization
society
protest
truth-telling
arrogance
atheism
belief
fantasy
god
humility
modesty
religion
respect
abstinence
characteristics
commandments
innocence
morality
nobleness
paganism
precepts
reaction
ernest-hemingway
feminism
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love
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men
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psychology
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