Monica White > Monica's Quotes

“Modesty is invisibility...Never forget it. To be seen—to be seen—is to be...penetrated. What you must be girls, is impenetrable.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“I love luxury. And luxury lies not in richness and ornateness but in the absence of vulgarity. Vulgarity is the ugliest word in our language. I stay in the game to fight it.”
― Coco Chanel

“Immodest and attractive is easy. Modest and repulsive is easy too. But modest and attractive is an art form.”
― Douglas Wilson, 5 Paths to the Love of Your Life: Defining Your Dating Style

“It seems to be the fashion nowadays for a girl to behave as much like a man as possible. Well, I won't! I'll make the best of being a girl and be as nice a specimen as I can: sweet and modest, a dear, dainty thing with clothes smelling all sweet and violety, a soft voice, and pretty, womanly ways. Since I'm a girl, I prefer to be a real one!”
― Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

“Emancipation of women has made them lose their mystery.”
― Grace Kelly

“I am proud to be a female and I know that we are strong. I do not need women parading themselves around in vagina suits and screaming vulgar terms to represent me. Let's keep it classy ladies.”
― Victoria Boccella

“One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Your clothes should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to show you're a lady”
― Marilyn Monroe

“We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“It was what we Japanese called the onion life, peeling away a layer at a time and crying all the while.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“For a flicker of a moment I imagined a world completely different from the one I'd always known, a world in which I was treated with fairness, even kindness-- a world in which fathers didn't sell their daughters. ”
― Arthur Golden

“When someone who's starved of love is shown something that looks like sincere affection, is it any wonder that she jumps at it and clings to it?”
― Sayo Masuda, Autobiography of a Geisha

“Being in love isn't the only way of loving. I realized with all my being that if you loved somebody- it didn't matter who it was- and dedicated yourself to bringing joy to your loved one, you, too, would be redeemed.”
― Sayo Masuda

“And yet if I drew my thoughts back from him, what life would I have? I would be like a dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give.”
― Arthur Golden

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves

“When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.”
― Kahlil Gibran, Le Prophète

“Everyone keeps telling me that time heals all wounds, but no one can tell me what I’m supposed to do right now. Right now I can’t sleep. It’s right now that I can’t eat. Right now I still hear his voice and sense his presence even though I know he’s not here. Right now all I seem to do is cry. I know all about time and wounds healing, but even if I had all the time in the world, I still don’t know what to do with all this hurt right now.”
― Nina Guilbeau, Too Many Sisters

“Every broken heart has screamed at one time or another: Why can't you see who I truly am?”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Divorce shreds the muscles of our hearts so that they will hardly beat without a struggle.”
― E. Lockhart, We Were Liars

“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!”
― Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father's Advice to His Son

“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
― Lao Tzu

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“I want to care, but I don’t.
I look at you and all I feel is tired.”
― Elizabeth Scott, Miracle

“Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. Some people are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin, and fail to worry about insulting them. But should you offend their honor and their pride, they will overwhelm you with a violence that seems sudden and extreme given their slowness to anger. If you want to turn people down, it is best to do so politely and respectfully, even if you feel their request is impudent or their offer ridiculous.”
― Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power

“We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

“We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.”
― Leonora Carrington

“When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.”
― Wisława Szymborska, Poems New And Collected