Another Set Of Random Quotes

“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.” ~Henry David Thoreau


“‘What’ and ‘if’ are two words as non-threatening as words can be, but put them together side by side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life.” ~Letters to Juliet


“You can’t choose what stays and what fades away.” ~Florence + the Machine


“I love how I hear this song in my head when I think of her. I love how she makes me feel, like anything’s possible, or like life is worth it.” ~500 days of summer


“Have you ever noticed that when your mind is awakened or drawn to someone new, that person’s name suddenly pops up everywhere you go? My friend Sophie calls it coincidence, and Mr. Simpless, my parson friend, calls it Grace. He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and “fruitfulness” is drawn in.” ~Mary Ann Shaffer


“Writing down your thoughts is both necessary and harmful. It leads to eccentricity, narcissism, preserves what should be let go. On the other hand, these notes intensify the inner life, which, left unexpressed, slips through your fingers. If only I could find a better kind of journal, humbler, one that would preserve the same thoughts, the same flesh of life, which is worth saving.” ~Anna Kamienska


“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.” ~Arundhati Roy


“An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.” ~Mary Oliver

About Society

"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

"The percent likelihood of a society becoming physically violent if it is physically affectionate towards its infants and tolerant of premarital sexual behavior is 2 percent. The probability of this relationship occurring by chance is 125,000 to one. I am not aware of any other developmental variable that has such a high degree of predictive validity."
- James W. Prescott, 1975

"All for one; one for all."
- Alexander Dumas (1824-1895)

"You laugh at me because I am different, but I laugh at you because you are all the same."
- Unknown

"Vote early and vote often."
- Al Capone (1899-1947)

"If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me."
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"Men have become the tools of their tools."
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"When they took the Fourth Amendment, I was silent because I don’t deal drugs. When they took the Sixth Amendment, I kept quiet because I know I’m innocent. When they took the Second Amendment, I said nothing because I don’t own a gun. Now they’ve come for the First Amendment, and I can’t say anything at all."
- Tim Freeman

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are acutally rearranging their prejudices."
- William James (1842-1910)

In a boat at sea one of the men began to bore a hole in the bottom of the boat. On being remonstrating with, he answered, "I am only boring under my own seat." "Yes," said his companions, "but when the sea rushes in we shall all be drowned with you."
- Talmud

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)

"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity."
- Irving Kristol (1920-)

"I think it would be a good idea."
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), when asked what he thought of Western civilization