Quotes by various writers
Izaak Walton Section:
“Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learned.”
“Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.”
“No man can lose what he never had.”
Synthesized Poems:
“ Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes.”
– Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“Love is a serious mental illness.”
-Plato
“Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.”
~Jean-Michel Basquiat, Haitian Musician
” I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”
-Vincent Van Goh
“If you cannot find a good companion to walk with, walk alone, like an elephant roaming the jungle. It is better to be alone than to be with those who will hinder your progress.”
-Buddha
“Control your emotions to be consumed by them.”
-Mahnoor Rajput, Indian Poet
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.”
-Carl Jung, Swiss
“It’s beautiful to be alone. To be alone does not mean to be lonely. It means the mind is not influenced and contaminated by society.”
– J. Krishnamurti Indian Poet
“Someone who overthinks is someone who overloves.”
-Puja Pal, Indian Poet
Jorge Luis Borges Section: Argentinian Poet
“If I could live again my life,
In the next – I’ll try,
– to make more mistakes,
I won’t try to be so perfect,
I’ll be more relaxed…
I’ll take fewer things seriously..
I’ll take more risks,
I’ll take more trips,
I’ll watch more sunsets,
I’ll climb more mountains,
I’ll swim more rivers,
I’ll go to more places I’ve never been
I’ll eat more ice… I’ll have more real problems and less imaginary ones If I could live again – I will travel light
If I could live again – I’ll try to work bare feet at the beginning of spring till the end of autumn,
I’ll watch more sunrises… If I have the life to live”
“So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.”
“You have wakened not out of sleep, but into a prior dream, and that dream lies within another, and so on, to infinity, which is the number of grains of sand. The path that you are to take is endless, and you will die before you have truly awakened.”
“I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart, I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.”
“A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”
“I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.”
“Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.”
“No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist.”
“Learning:
After some time, you learn the subtle difference between
holding a hand
and imprisoning a soul;
You learn that love does not equal sex,
and that company does not equal security,
and you start to learn….
That kisses are not contracts and gifts are not promises,
and you start to accept defeat with the head up high
and open eyes,
and you learn to build all roads on today,
because the terrain of tomorrow is too insecure for plans…
and the future has its own way of falling apart in half.
And you learn that if it’s too much
even the warmth of the sun can burn.
So you plant your own garden and embellish your own soul,
instead of waiting for someone to bring flowers to you.
And you learn that you can actually bear hardship,
that you are actually strong,
and you are actually worthy,
and you learn and learn…and so every day.
Over time you learn that being with someone
because they offer you a good future,
means that sooner or later you’ll want to return to your past.
Over time you comprehend that only who is capable
of loving you with your flaws, with no intention of changing you
can bring you all happiness.
Over time you learn that if you are with a person
only to accompany your own solitude,
irremediably you’ll end up wishing not to see them again.
Over time you learn that real friends are few
and whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later,
will find himself surrounded only with false friendships.
Over time you learn that words spoken in moments of anger
continue hurting throughout a lifetime.
Over time you learn that everyone can apologize,
but forgiveness is an attribute solely of great souls.
Over time you comprehend that if you have hurt a friend harshly
it is very likely that your friendship will never be the same.
Over time you realize that despite being happy with your friends,
you cry for those you let go.
Over time you realize that every experience lived,
with each person, is unrepeatable.
Over time you realize that whoever humiliates
or scorns another human being, sooner or later
will suffer the same humiliations or scorn in tenfold.
Over time you learn to build your roads on today,
because the path of tomorrow doesn’t exist.
Over time you comprehend that rushing things or forcing them to happen
causes the finale to be different form expected.
Over time you realize that in fact the best was not the future,
but the moment you were living just that instant.
Over time you will see that even when you are happy with those around you,
you’ll yearn for those who walked away.
Over time you will learn to forgive or ask for forgiveness,
say you love, say you miss, say you need,
say you want to be friends, since before
a grave, it will no longer make sense.
But unfortunately, only over time…”
“I never reread what I’ve written. I’m far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I’ve done.”
Khalil Gibran Section: Lebanese Poet
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
― The Prophet
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
“It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone… but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.”
Kim U-jin Section: Japanese-Korean Poet, 1920’s
“Life running, in the vast wilderness…
‘Where is it you’re heading?’
In this lonely world, filled with cruel suffering…What are you looking for?
In this world, filled with tears, will my death truly be the end of it all?
Those of you in search of happiness, only futility awaits.
Those smiling flowers and crying birds all share the same fate; a pitiful life absorbed in living.
You are the one, dancing on the blade. Your unforgettable name, deep in my heart.
Your name is engraved and I long for you.
Before your name can be forgotten, I long for you again.
Even at the moment of my death, I shall call out your name.
Even as I am living, my heart longs for you.
You set fire to my heart…
You ignited the inextinguishable flame of love, in my heart.”
“Watch, watch hoe love takes from you. The moment you underestimate love as nothing but a gentle strength, you have made a mistake.
Love is something to use to your advantage. To love, is to take unsparingly.”
Omar Khayyam Section: Persian Poet
“My friend, let’s not think of tomorrow, but let’s enjoy this fleeting moment of life.”
“When you are so full of sorrow that you can’t walk, can’t cry anymore, think about the green foliage that sparkles after the rain. When the daylight exhausts you, when you hope a final night will cover the world, think about the awakening of a young child.”
Rumi Section: Persian Poet
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
“The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.”
“Poetry can be dangerous, especially beautiful poetry, because it gives the illusion of having had the experience without actually going through it.”
Osho Section: Indian Poet
“And that is the whole secret of Zen: to become unconnected with time.”
“Let it all go, see what stays.”
“A certain darkness is needed to see the stars.”
Friedrich Nietzsche Section: German Philosopher
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
Dimash Kudaibergen Section: Kazakh Musician
“A man without dreams is like a forest without nightingales”
“We came to this life to be human, first. Not singers or teachers. We should cherish spiritual values and human qualities.”
Bruce Lee Section: Chinese-American Martial Artist
“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”
“Be happy, but never satisfied.”
“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”
“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”
“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only a light flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.”
“Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.”
“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”
“The possession of anything begins in the mind.”
“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”
“Defeat is not defeat unless accepted as a reality in your own mind.”
Gao Xiangjian Section: Chinese Painter
“You should know that there is little you can seek in this world, that there is no need for you to be so greedy, in the end all you can achieve are memories, hazy, intangible, dreamlike memories which are impossible to articulate. When you try to relate them, there are only sentences, the dregs left from the filter of linguistic structures.”
― Soul Mountain
Dead Poet Society 