Favorite Quotes

>“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections-sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent-that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.”
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold


>“'Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.'”


>“The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they became with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier to see something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow. When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle's eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn.”
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr.


>“Some believe that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I found it is the small things. Everyday deeds by ordinary people that keeps the darkness at bay.”
― Gandalf, Lord of the Rings


>“There's more to life than being a passenger.”
— Amelia Earhart


>“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”
― Granny Weatherwax, Discworld


Shinji: I hate myself. But, maybe, maybe I could love myself. Maybe, my life can have a greater value. That's right!. I am no more or less than myself. I am me! I want to be myself! I want to continue existing in this world! My life is worth living here!
Everyone: [applauding] Congratulations!
Shinji: Thank you all!
Neon Genesis Evangelion


>“And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.”
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut


>“Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”
― 1 Corinthians 13:13


>“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own - for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.”
Twilight Zone, Rod Serling


>“One good solid hope is worth a cartload of certainties.”
— The Doctor, Doctor Who


>“I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
— Ecclesiastes 1:16-18


>“We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized they were inside us.”
― Gil Grissom, CSI


>“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower


>“Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.”
Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut


>“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
— Jimi Hendrix


Utena: Listen, if you ever have a problem, come to me first. I want us to be friends like that. And someday, together...
Anthy: Someday together...?
[Both: Someday, Together, We'll Shine]
Revolutionary Girl Utena


>“Everything will be all right in the end. If it isn't all right, it's not the end.”


>“The people of the world, all of them, whether it is the different race or the different language or the different lifestyle, tend to only think about what we cannot share. But our brains are all the same. We are the same people. With everyone’s strength, we can all share the same feelings. That much is obvious. But it won’t come easily.”
— Naoko Takeuchi


>“There’s no such thing as a painless lesson. They just don’t exist. Sacrifices are necessary. You can’t gain anything without losing something first although if you can endure that pain and walk away from it, you’ll find that you now have a heart strong enough to overcome any obstacle. Yeah, a heart made fullmetal.”
― Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist


>“Everyone longs to be loved. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.”
― Mr. Rogers


Calvin: Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world's problems?
[Dad sits speechless for 2 panels, unable to come up with a good answer]
Calvin: [Walking away] I think grown-ups just act like they know what they're doing.
Calvin and Hobbes


>“We are all lonely stars, seeking to find one another.”
― Usagi Tsukino, Sailor Moon


>“It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.
And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?"
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut


>“Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”
— Amelia Earhart


>“I suppose that, in the end, it's what we leave behind that defines us.”
― Gil Grissom, CSI


>“However long the night, the dawn will break.”


>“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
— John F. Kennedy


>“And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
— Isaiah 2:4


>“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Albert Einstein


>“Yet, even amidst the hatred and carnage, life is still worth living. It is possible for wonderful encounters and beautiful things to exist.”
― Hayao Miyazaki


>“Commander Vimes didn’t like the phrase ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’, believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’.”
Snuff, Terry Pratchett


>“Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.”
— Kurt Vonnegut


>“I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
— Anne Frank


>“Don’t squander this opportunity! God may have closed a door, but what that stupid motherfucker hasn’t realized is that he left a window open for you to wriggle right through!”


>“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly NOW. Love mercy NOW. Walk humbly NOW. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
— Pirkei Avos 2:16, Talmud


>“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”


>“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.”
― Vincent Van Gogh


>“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
― Martin Luther King Jr. (paraphrasing abolitionist Theodore Parker)


Tom: Well, maybe it's like Casey says. A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody. Then...
Ma: Then what, Tom?
Tom: Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be everywhere - wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad - I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.
Ma: I don't understand it, Tom.
Tom: Me neither, Ma, but just somethin' I been thinkin' about.
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)


>“When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.”
― Mr. Rogers


>“Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.”
― Walt Whitman


>“Let men label you as they may, if you alone of all the nation decide one way, and that way be the right way by your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country, hold up your head for you have nothing to be ashamed of. It doesn’t matter what the press says. It doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. It doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. Republics are founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe in. no matter the odds or consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move. Your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world: "No, you move."”
― Mark Twain


>“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.”
― Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek


>“The means of production being the collective work of humanity, the product should be the collective property of the race. Individual appropriation is neither just nor serviceable. All belongs to all. All things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth.
[…]
All is for all! If the man and the woman bear their fair share of work, they have a right to their fair share of all that is produced by all, and that share is enough to secure them well-being. No more of such vague formulas as "The Right to work," or "To each the whole result of his labour." What we proclaim is The Right to Well-Being: Well-Being for All!
― Peter Kropotkin


>“Anywhere can be paradise as long as you have the will to live. After all, you are alive, so you will always have the chance to be happy. As long as the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth exist, everything will be all right.”
― Yui Ikari, Neon Genesis Evangelion


>“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
― Desmond Tutu


>“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”
― Mary "Mother" Jones


>“If you’re fascist and antifascists come for you, you have a choice. You can give it up. You can go renounce what you said. You could just go on with the rest of your life and stop turning up at fascist rallies. Antifascists probably aren’t going to buy you a pint and be your best friend but they’ll move on. But if you’re a person of color, if you’re trans, or a person with a disability or gay or Jewish, and fascists come for you, there is nothing you can do to make them happy except stop existing. If you’re a political enemy of antifa, you can become a friend. If you’re a political enemy of fascism, either they lose or you die.”
The Philosophy of Antifa, Abigail Thorn


>“"The unborn" are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.
Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”
― Pastor Dr. Dave Barnhart


>“For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”
― Audre Lorde


>“If sacred places are spared the ravages of war... then make all places sacred. And if the holy people are to be kept harmless from war... then make all people holy.”
― Silver Surfer, Silver Surfer: Requiem


>“[He] still wasn’t strong. Never, in his entire life, from birth to death, had he been strong.
But it was a fact that, for as long as the strong and the weak had existed among men, so had equalizing devices.
[He] could lean on a cane. He could also beat someone to death with one.”
Long Night in the Valley, Five Rivers


>“Do thine eyes not bleed at the sight of injustice? Do thine hands not tremble at the burden borne by thy brother? Doth thine heart not cry out unto breaking at the pain of thy sister? Who then are you, to preach peace and restraint?”


>“We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth, there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world, here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.”
― Buenaventura Durruti


>“A limping man can ride a horse,
a handless man can herd,
a deaf man can fight and win.
It’s better even to be blind
than fuel for the funeral pyre;
what can a dead man do?”
― Poetic Edda


>“if you promise to stay alive just a little bit longer I promise that we are going to make this world a place worth living in by any means necessary. I ain’t giving up. I swear.”
― anonymous graffiti


>“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
Anti-Semite and Jew, Jean-Paul Sartre


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