Quotes

“The physical universe was a language with a perfectly ambiguous grammar. Every physical event was an utterance that could be parsed in two entirely different ways, one causal and the other teleological, both valid, neither one disqualifiable no matter how much context was available.”

“You see? There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.”

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else… Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”

“When someone seeks, then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”

“We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.”

“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I’m gazing at a distant star. It’s dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn’t even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.”

“I was always attracted not by some quantifiable, external beauty, but by something deep down, something absolute. Just as some people have a secret love for rainstorms, earthquakes, or blackouts, I liked that certain undefinable something directed my way by members of the opposite sex. For want of a better word, call it magnetism. Like it or not, it’s a kind of power that snares people and reels them in.”

“For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a ‘Reserved’ sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant. Despite the fact that I was sure I’d never see her again.”

“I will build you a house ‘At the bend in a river where the cottonwoods grow’”

“A cliché is dead matter. It causes gangrene in the prose around it, and sooner or later it eats your brain. You can’t fix a cliché by using it ironically. You can’t make it less gangrenous by appearing to ‘quote’ it or invert it or joke about it. A cliché isn’t just a familiar, overused saying. It’s the debris of someone else’s thinking, Any group of words that seem to cluster together ‘naturally’ And enlist in your sentence. The only thing to do with a cliché is send it to the sports page Or the speechwriters, where it will live forever.”

“In your head, you’ll probably find two models for writing. One is the familiar model taught in high school and college—a matter of outlines and drafts and transitions and topic sentences and argument. The other model is its antithesis—the way poets and novelists are often thought to write. Words used to describe this second model include ‘genius,’ ‘inspiration,’ ‘flow,’ and ‘natural,’ sometimes even ‘organic.’ Both models are useless. I should qualify that sentence. Both models are completely useless.”

“I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can’t help re-living such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced. I am going to dream about you the whole night, the whole week, the whole year.”

“A minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole man’s life?”

“Words, words, words. Words form castles on the solid ground and in the clouds, words become armors and prison walls, words make riptides and quicksands. One can never take words for granted; one cannot always trust words; and yet, where else can my mind live but in words?”

“You must have dreams of love, you must have desires. Perhaps you’re made in such a way that you are afraid of them. Don’t be. They are the best things you have. You can believe me. I lost a great deal when I was your age by violating those dreams of love.”

“But everything, even the most ordinary matters, resembled gentle persistent hammer blows on the same spot within me; all of them helped me to form myself, all of them helped to peel off layers of skin, to break eggshells, and after each blow I lifted my head a little higher, a little more freely, until my yellow bird pushed its beautiful raptor’s head out of the shattered shell of the terrestrial globe.”

“Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them.”

“I, who had been isolated for so long, learned about the companionship which is possible between people who have tasted complete loneliness. I never again hankered after the tables of the fortunate and the feasts of the blessed. Never again did envy or nostalgia overcome me when I witnessed the collective pleasures of others. And gradually I was initiated into the secret of those who wear the sign in their faces.”

“The only duty and destiny we acknowledged was that each one of us should become so completely himself, so utterly faithful to the active seed which Nature planted within him, that in living out its growth he could be surprised by nothing unknown to come.”

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

“But who can say what’s best? That’s why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.”

“I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.”

“What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

“You are beautiful, but you are empty… an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she’s the one I’ve watered.”

“If you come at 4, I’ll begin to be happy by 3.”

“鸡养大了变成鹅，鹅养大了变成羊，养大了又变成牛。我们啊，也就越来越有钱啦。”

“少年爱游荡，中年想掘藏，老年来做和尚”

“The one who is in love always wins. It doesn’t matter if you get your heart broken. You’re living. When you’re feeling, you’re alive. The sun doesn’t care whether the grass appreciates its rays, right? It just keeps on shining. That’s you.”

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

“人叫人教不会，事教人一次就会”

“Creativity is just intelligence having fun.”

“先天下之忧而忧，后天下之乐而乐”

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”

“Physics is like chess. You can learn the rules easily, but to truly understand it is much harder.”

“彭悍的人生不需要解释”

“人生没有彩排，每天都是现场直播”

“做人为善，吃亏是福”

“朝思暮想”

“日积月累”

“读万卷书，行万里路”

“三人行必有我师”

“平平淡淡才是真”

“Never put off till tomorrow what can be done today.”

“宁教我负天下人，休教天下人负我”

“既生瑜，何生亮”

“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have time.”

“What I cannot create, I do not understand.”

“Intelligence is not a privilege, it’s a gift, and you use it for the good of mankind.”

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulder of giants.”