On Quotations

On Quotations:
A Totally Unnecessary Episode of Verboseness

God wove a web of loveliness,
Of stars and clouds and birds,
But made not anything at all
So beautiful as words.
- Anna Branch, Her Words

I missed writing these random blog entries, so I just blah-ed all my frustration out. Haha. If I attributed things to the wrong people, forgive me. I wasn't really consulting the books.

Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

Well that makes sense. Really, it does. So can I stop going to school if I have an open mind already? Somebody say yes. Please. Hahaha.

Courage is the art of being the only one who knows that you're scared to death.

That's one way of seeing it. But yeah. True.

Thy optimist and thy pessimist, the difference is droll;
The optimist sees the donut, the pessimist the hole.

It's like:

Two men look out through prison bars;
One sees the mud, the other the stars.

Probably the most common way to distinguish between optimists and pessimists is how they look at a glass of water: whether it's half empty or half full. Then there's always the Rorschach Test.

Nothing is beautiful from every point of view.

Yeah. Some people are photogenic, some are "layo-genic." But really, this is so true.

Like:

Do not envy the appearance of happiness on another man for you know not of his secret grief.

It's all about not judging at the first glance. And I quote the cliche. Nothing is ever as it seems.

You are braver than you believe,
Stronger than you seem,
And smarter than you think.

Christopher Robin said this to Winnie the Pooh when they were up in that nice tree after singing "Forever and forever, is a very long time, Pooh...”
“Forever and ever isn't long at all when I'm with you." Okay. TMI.

Secrets? Your friend has a friend so don't tell her.

This is in it's original context, so I can say that, hello, sexism?

Silence is not the absence of sound... It is the presence of what sound cannot express.

Nice. Deep. Will say that the next time I don’t know the answer to a question in class.

Don't fret about something you can't change. Fret about something you can change, then stop fretting and do something about it.

A quote from the novel "My Louisiana Sky." I remember reading this and going, "Oooh. If only it were that easy."

"Come to the edge."
"We can't. We're afraid."
"Come to the edge."
"We can't we will fall!"
"Come to the edge."
And they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.

From Guillaume Apollinaire, a French poet. I think it's nice. Something I'd write on a card for a teacher.

Half the truth is often a great lie.

Yeah. And a lie is the truth in masquerade.

Some people drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Ditto.

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved, except by those who dared to believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.

Again, deep. Like one of those quotes that make you feel all "I can do this!" Haha.

God can't heal your broken heart unless you give him all the pieces.

I wouldn't know, but I suppose it's true.

There are moments in your life when fate controls your every move.
That, my friend, is the biggest lie of all.

Ah, a quote from The Alchemist. I love that book. Paulo Coelho rocks.

The reason why birds can fly and we can't is that birds have perfect faith;
for to have perfect faith is to have wings.

Aww. I think J.M. Barrie said this. Made me change the way I looked at birds. Heehee.

PRAY, n.
to ask that the rules of the universe be annulled in a behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

ACADEME, n.
An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.
ACADEMY, n.
[from ACADEME] A modern school where football is taught.

DIE, n.
The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word, because there is a prohibitory proverb, "Never say die." At long intervals, however, some one says: "The die is cast," which is not true, for it is cut.

These are from The Devil's Dictionary, written by a really cool man named Ambrose Bierce during the nineteenth century. There are so many quotes that made me laugh AND think. To those who love cynicism and satire, read! There is a website that provides online text.

To be yourself in a world that does its best night and day to make you everybody else is to fight the greatest battle any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

E.E. Cummings, quoted by Lucas Scott in One Tree Hill. There were a lot of really cool quotes in that series, which is currently on its fifth season.

The best thing we can do is to make wherever we're lost in look as much like home as we can.

Christopher Fry. Illuminating.

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.

Pablo Picasso. He kind of praised himself there didn't he? He deserves it anyway. Haha.

In the twentieth century our highest praise is to call the Bible the "world's greatest best seller." And it has come to be more and more difficult to say whether we think it is a bestseller because it is great, or vice versa.

Totally forgot who said this. Interesting question for debate.

The bible is literature, not dogma.

George Santayana! I can't forget that one.

If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism;
If you steal from many, it's research.

Aha. Research it is then.

Science without religion is lame;
Religion without science is blind.

Whoot. Ditto. You go Albert Einstein. I remember he also said, Gravity won’t make her fall for you. He has a sense of humor then. Haha.

If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

Niccolo Machiavelli. Many things he wrote when quoted out of context seem rather odd. But his book The Prince was good, albeit a bit boring. It was a lot like my Politics textbook by Andrew Heywood. Yeah, it did read like a textbook. *Yawn. I like this quote though.

And last but not the least, for now. One of my favorites...
Wise words from Galileo Galilei:

Although my soul may set in darkness,
It will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly,
To be fearful of the night.