Philosophical Reflection Quotes

“The craggy lines that made up the character in his face now seemed like scars of defeat, inflicted on him over time.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Name none of the fallen, for they stand in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

“You take many things from the world, but I wonder what you will give back in return?”
― Genzaburo Yoshino, How Do You Live?

“There is much that is strange, but nothing that surpasses man in strangeness”
― Sophocles

“Even the brightest magnesium flare can do little against such dark except blind the eyes of the one holding it. Thus one craves what by seeing one has in fact not seen.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“It is not what we know that scares us, it is what we do not”
― A.G. Phillips

“The world is full of people who are not bad, but weak, people who bring unnecessary misfortune upon themselves and others for no reason but weakness. A heroic spirit that's not devoted to human progress may be empty and meaningless, but goodness that is lacking in the spirit of heroism is often empty as well.”
― Genzaburo Yoshino, How Do You Live?

“Va’esse deireádh aep eigean, va’esse eigh faidh’ar.
(Something ends, something begins.)”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Sezon burz

“This is Nature - the balance of colossal forces... the mighty Cosmos in perfect equilibrium produces - this...sometimes it seems to me that man is come where he is not wanted...why should he run about here and there, talking about the stars, disturbing the blades of grass?
from Lord Jim”
― Joseph Conrad

“Man is made by his beliefs.
As he believes, so he is.”
― Bhagavad Gita

“In my quietest hours, I debate, deduce, and decide—who I am versus who I'm meant to be.”
― Aura Biru

“Herman Melville is not comforting. Emily Dickinson isn’t either. Maybe their work is too hungry for comfort, or just too vivid for comfort. But Henry James is – profoundly so. Because he is tender. The tenderness is there in the structure of the sentence. He knows the way the poor and the dead are forgotten by the living, and he cannot allow that to happen. So he keeps on writing for them, for the dead, as if they were children to be sheltered and loved, never abandoned.”
― Susan Howe

“Birth pushes, death pulls; only you can slow the time between.”
― Jack Sanger, Azimuth: The Second Journey

“I've been to hell and back. And let me tell you, it was wonderful.”
― Louise Bourgeois

“To know oneself is a journey that requires a beginning”
― Jack Sanger, Azimuth: The First Journey

“The point of my scholarship is to understand the Folk. To the extent that we mortals can."
"It has never struck you as a futile endeavor?"
"No more than any other branch of science." I gestured to the sky. "What can mortals learn of the stars, given that we cannot walk among them? Yet we try." I opened my notebook again. "Others have argued that it is the endeavor itself that is the point of scholarship. I am not so certain of that, for I can never stop yearning for new discoveries. Even the smallest are as precious jewels to me.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales

“Sometimes stories have to end so we can go back to real life.”
― Julie Leong, The Teller of Small Fortunes

“Człowiek projektujący rzeczy rozumnie musi nieraz mieć odwagę być śmiesznym.”
― Platon, The Republic

“More often than not, superstition wins the day as it lifts the burden of responsibility off human shoulders and places it squarely on the much stronger ones of magic.”
― Marisa Silver, Little Nothing

“Brane im je zavidio. Mora da je to lijepo, pomislio je, u životu željeti ono što se može kupiti novcem.”
― Jurica Pavičić, Crvena voda

“Šoping-centar bio je prepun ljudi. Glavinjali su okolo poput lakomih životinja, baš kao da je taj dan posljednji dan nakon kojeg se trgovine više nikad neće otvoriti. Obitelji su se vukle zajedno, poput čopora, tegleći za sobom vreće i kese pune cipela, odjeće, igračaka i hrane. U vrećama i kesama primjećivao je tu i tamo natruhe sadržaja: kutije cipela, vitke svijećnjake, staklenke majoneze, repove sušenog bakalara. Promatrao je lica ljudi u žurbi, nemilosrdna, mrzovoljna, fokusirana na taj odsutni, posljednji grabež. Gledao je uokolo, istinski osupnut, i pomislio da nikad - čak ni u ratu - nije vidio ljudsku vrstu da je pala niže.”
― Jurica Pavičić, Crvena voda

“Kako nije mislio da će u Hercegovačkoj ostati dugo, u stan nije ponio mnogo stvari. Kad se useljavao, sa sobom je donio tek nešto odjeće, brijaći aparat i dokumente. U Mistu je ostavio sav dotadašnji život: radioprijamnike, knjige, alat, obiteljsku starinu. Nakon nekoliko mjeseci s iznenađenjem je shvatio da mu ništa od toga ne treba i da mu ništa od toga ne fali. Nije za sobom ostavio ni jednu stvar koja mu je trebala, ni jednu stvar za koju se vezao ili mu je bila važna. Bilo je to iznenađujuće otkriće - ali otkriće koje ga je oslobodilo.”
― Jurica Pavičić, Crvena voda

“I seize the faults – to quit.
But never ever, I enlist
The intent of relinquishing
The adequacy of my life;
If it gets chosen:
I may cast it off,
Unless I rase it off:
It surely would never go
Out of my eternal clench.”
― Harshvardhan Rai, The Analecta

“You don't know how much sunshine you've been missing until you wash the windows.”
― Carol L. Covin

“Men do not resolve to become stone-hearted; our lives calcify our tenderest elements, whether we will it or not.”
― K.W. Jeter, Grim Expectations

“Those who wander, are not lost.”
― Shannon Messenger, Exile

“Hope is the slowest poison.”
― Duncan Ralston, Dead Men Walking: a Novelette

“The sum total of all realities - perceived, conceived, observed or unobservable - all of them, in all forms, is but One Indivisible Totality. This "One" stays so in eternity, as infinity. It runs everything yet does not become anything. It is timeless, limitless, endless and beginningless. All comes from and goes unto it. Call "it" the Universal or Cosmic Self; or God. There is nothing else. Go search by yourself.”
― Fakeer Ishavardas

“Mama Bird cannot help you.”
― Grace Poeta

“Look what time does to us. It destroys everything that was beautiful.”
― Barry R. Ziman, Girls, Crimes, and the Ruling Body