"It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory."

Fitzgerald, F. Scott on memory
Discussion · Share quote · 6 quote fans >>

"Well, he would, wouldn't he?"

Rice-Davies, Mandy on innuendo
Discussion · Share quote

"I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door -- or I'll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present."

Tagore, Rabindranath on adversity
Discussion · Share quote · 27 quote fans >>

"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."

Carver, George Washington on failure
Discussion · Share quote · 9 quote fans >>

"Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money."

Renard, Jules on literature
Discussion · Share quote · 3 quote fans >>

"Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate."

Humphrey, Hubert H. on debate
Discussion · Share quote · 5 quote fans >>

"First thing every morning before you arise say out loud, I believe, three times."

Peale, Norman Vincent on belief
Discussion · Share quote · 6 quote fans >>

"'Tis better to understand, than to be understood."

Francis of Assisi, St. on understanding
Discussion · Share quote · 8 quote fans >>

"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve."

Fromm, Erich on existence
Discussion · Share quote · 7 quote fans >>

"Book is the new cool for the txt generation"

Wagner, Erica on book, cool, sms
Discussion · Share quote

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."

Wilde, Oscar on dream
Discussion · Share quote · 59 quote fans >>

"If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins."

Franklin, Benjamin on conflict
Discussion · Share quote · 9 quote fans >>

"Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand -- and melting like a snowflake."

Ray, Marie Beyon on action
Discussion · Share quote · 9 quote fans >>

"The glory of friendship is not in the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is in the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on friends and friendship
Discussion · Share quote · 36 quote fans >>

"The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up."

Lawrence, D. H. on humankind
Discussion · Share quote

"Love Sonnet XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue."

Neruda, Pablo on want
Discussion · Share quote · 11 quote fans >>

"I do not love you

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

that this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."

Neruda, Pablo on love
Discussion · Share quote · 38 quote fans >>

"The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control."

Nash, Ogden on happiness
Discussion · Share quote · 4 quote fans >>

"Clenched Soul

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.
Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues."

Neruda, Pablo on love
Discussion · Share quote · 15 quote fans >>

"I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don't worry. It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born."

Kerouac, Jack on eternity
Discussion · Share quote · 3 quote fans >>

"An orange on the table, your dress on the rug, and you in my bed, sweet present of the present, cool of night, warmth of my life."

Prevert, Jacques on love
Discussion · Share quote · 5 quote fans >>

"Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalized."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on happiness
Discussion · Share quote · 4 quote fans >>

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured and far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak."

Thoreau, Henry David on purpose
Discussion · Share quote · 59 quote fans >>

"Because of their courage, their lack of fear, they (creative people) are willing to make silly mistakes. The truly creative person is one who can think crazy; such a person knows full well that many of his great ideas will prove to be worthless. The creative person is flexible -- he is able to change as the situation changes, to break habits, to face indecision and changes in conditions without undue stress. He is not threatened by the unexpected as rigid, inflexible people are."

Goble, Frank on creativity
Discussion · Share quote · 5 quote fans >>

"Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human."

Robbins, Anthony on life
Discussion · Share quote · 7 quote fans >>

"The present era grabs everything that was ever written in order to transform it into films, TV programs; or cartoons. What is essential in a novel is precisely what can only be expressed in a novel, and so every adaptation contains nothing but the non-essential. If a person is still crazy enough to write novels nowadays and wants to protect them, he has to write them in such a way that they cannot be adapted, in other words, in such a way that they cannot be retold."

Kundera, Milan on literature
Discussion · Share quote

"This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul."

Whitman, Walt on life
Discussion · Share quote · 5 quote fans >>

"What ever our wandering our happiness will always be found within a narrow compass, and in the middle of the objects more immediately within our reach."

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G. on happiness
Discussion · Share quote · 3 quote fans >>

"A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don't slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices."

Neruda, Pablo on books - reading
Discussion · Share quote · 3 quote fans >>

"You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind."

Gandhi, Mahatma on control
Discussion · Share quote · 18 quote fans >>

"But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!""

Kerouac, Jack on passion
Discussion · Share quote · 59 quote fans >>

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Twain, Mark on action
Discussion · Share quote · 231 quote fans >>

"I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests. "

Neruda, Pablo on childhood
Discussion · Share quote