Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel… the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself. To be nobody-but-yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

E.E. Cummings

 

If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next

20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.

Ray Bradbury

​

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

​

In America the act of writing by women and people of color is an inherent political statement.

Gary Copeland Lilley

​

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.

Mark Twain

 

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force - that thoughts rule the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

What is to give light

must endure burning

Viktor Frankl

 

We must not allow other people's limited perceptions to define us.

Virginia Satir

 

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

Theodore Roethke

 

Torments dream us as we answer with bliss

made of flames and fires and blind tsunamis,

making soul-science and meat spirit

as they fill the coldness and emptiness with glamour

Michael McClure

 

We are part of this universe; we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts, is that the universe is in us.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.

Philip K. Dick

 

The poet's business is not to save the soul of man but to make it worth saving.

James Elroy Flecker

 

Do what you will, but do no harm.

Wiccan Rede (paraphrase)

 

To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.

Robert Graves

 

It takes a carpenter to build a barn but any jackass can knock it down.

Sam Rayburn

​

The cross pollination of disciplines is fundamental to truly revolutionary advances in our culture.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.

H. P. Lovecraft

 

The trickster's function is to break taboos, create mischief, stir things up. In the end, the trickster gives people what they really want, some sort of freedom.

Tom Robbins

 

The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.

Gore Vidal

 

Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.

Janis Joplin

 

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.

Ray Bradbury

 

I don't care if my opinion falls on the right or the left. I'm more of what I call a passionate centrist. I just believe what I believe. I'm not trying to prove anything for the right or the left. Which gives me freedom to make jokes about either side, too.

Larry Wilmore

 

People who disagree on important issues don't agree on the facts.

Rachel Maddow

 

The important thing is to be in love with something.

Ray Bradbury

 

Journalism keeps you planted in the earth.

Ray Bradbury

 

What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?

Ursula K. Le Guin

 

If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.

H. G. Wells

 

What really matters is what you do with what you have.

H. G. Wells

 

Science is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.

Jules Verne

 

As the dead prey upon us,

they are the dead in ourselves,

Charles Olson

 

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

Arthur Conan Doyle

 

The imagination is a muscle. If it is not exercised, it atrophies.

Neil Gaiman

 

That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along.

Madeleine L'Engle

 

I'm not a writer because I want to make money. I'm a writer because I'm a very slow thinker, but I do care about thinking, and the only way I know how to think with any kind of finesse is by telling stories.

Gregory Maguire

 

Science is magic that works.

Kurt Vonnegut

 

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

Kurt Vonnegut

 

My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free.

Mary Shelley

 

When it comes to controlling human beings, there is no better instrument than lies. Because you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.

Michael Ende

 

I think people should be angry at things that are worthy of anger. Injustice is outrageous and deserves outrage.

Chris Hayes

 

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

J. R. R. Tolkien

 

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

C. S. Lewis

 

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.

Agatha Christie

 

Can you tell me the difference between a witch and a wizard? Sure, a wizard is what they call you when they want to hire you, and a witch is what they call you when they're getting ready to run you out of town.

Barbara Hambly

 

Fantasy is the only canvas large enough for me to paint on.

Terry Brooks

 

You never know . . . that's what makes life interesting.

James Clavell

 

Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life - Shogun.

James Clavell

 

Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.

Theodore Roethke

 

Small presses take chances. Chances are at the heart of all the literature we later know as great.

Kay Ryan

 

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.

Matsuo Basho

 

The moon is brighter since the barn burned.

Matsuo Basho

 

Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.

Khalil Gibran

 

We became the stone worn into oblivion by the kisses of pilgrims.

Charlie Mehrhoff

 

Every breath is a resurrection.

Gregory Orr

 

The best poetry has its roots in the subconscious to a great degree. Youth, naivety, reliance on instinct more than learning and method, a sense of freedom and play, even trust in randomness, is necessary to the making of a poem.

May Swenson

 

Although only breath, words which I command are immortal.

Sappho

 

There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.

Hermann Hesse

 

It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world.

Nellie Bly

 

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Benjamin Franklin

 

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

 

To attain happiness in another world we need only to believe something, while to secure it in this world we must do something.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

 

Audiences are always better pleased with a smart retort, some joke or epigram, than with any amount of reasoning.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

 

What are you trying to say, are you trying to tell me you have feelings too?

Yes! Who do you think I am!

Ha Ha Ha

Stop acting as if you were sad, there’s no need to act as though you’re angry either.

Because, Cloud, you are.

Final Fantasy 7 (PS1 game)

 

In science, if you don't do it, somebody else will. Whereas in art, if Beethoven didn't compose the 'Ninth Symphony,' no one else before or after is going to compose the 'Ninth Symphony' that he composed; no one else is going to paint 'Starry Night' by van Gogh.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Reason is immortal, all else mortal.

Pythagoras

 

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

George Bernard Shaw

 

Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking.

Wallace Stevens

 

A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.

Frederick Douglass

 

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.

Buddha

 

It is better to travel well than to arrive.

Buddha

 

Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

Douglas Adams

 

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

Douglas Adams

 

God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.

Joseph Campbell

 

If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.

H. P. Lovecraft

 

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust

 

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

Stephen Hawking

 

The missing link in cosmology is the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Stephen Hawking

 

Most gravity has no known origin. Is it some exotic particle? Nobody knows. Is dark energy responsible for expansion of the universe? Nobody knows.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

One of the things that fascinates me most is when people are so charmed by the universe that it becomes part of their artistic output.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Every great dream begins with a dreamer.

Harriet Tubman

 

If people cannot write well, they cannot think well,

and if they cannot think well,

others will do their thinking for them.

George Orwell

 

Writing is not a matter of time,

but a matter or of space.

If you don't keep space

in your head for writing,

you won't write

even if you have the time.

Katerina Stoykova Klemer

 

There is no sin except stupidity.

Oscar Wilde

 

You are five times more likely to be killed by your abuser if your abuser can get their hands on a gun. That`s not a small problem.

Melissa Harris-Perry

 

We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain looking inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet.

Stephen Hawking

 

You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.

Scott Adams

 

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

P. J. O'Rourke

 

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Robert A. Heinlein

 

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

Albert Einstein

 

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein

 

If we don’t risk it all, we may as well not write at all.

Anne Stuart

 

Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where a backbone ought to be.

Clementine Paddleford

 

It’s a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I’d be a drag queen.

Dolly Parton

 

Find out who you are and do it on purpose!

Dolly Parton

 

It takes a lot of time and money to look this cheap.

Dolly Parton

 

Home is where I hang my hair.

Dolly Parton

 

When I talk to a man, I can always tell what he’s thinking by where he’s looking. If he’s looking at my eyes, he’s looking for intelligence. If he’s looking at my mouth, he’s looking for wisdom. If he’s looking anywhere else except my chest, he’s looking for another man.

Dolly Parton

 

They think I’m simpleminded because I seem to be happy. Why shouldn’t I be happy? I have everything I ever wanted and more. Maybe I am simpleminded. Maybe that’s the key: simple.

Dolly Parton

 

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes, because I know I’m not dumb … and I also know that I’m not blonde.

Dolly Parton

 

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

George Carlin

 

Those who dance are considered insane by those who can’t hear the music.

George Carlin

 

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Eleanor Roosevelt

 

What is the shape of my life? What is the sound of rain?

Zen koan

 

Failure is not fatal, success is not permanent, all that matters is the will to continue.

Winston Churchill

 

There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song.

Pablo Neruda

 

Eventually the future shows up everywhere.

Dorianne Laux

 

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind

Dr. Seuss

 

Dark and light, bad and good, are not different but one and the same

Heraclitus

 

The way up and the way down are one and the same

Heraclitus

 

Big results require big ambitions

Heraclitus

 

The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting

Milan Kuudera

 

We are not human beings having occasional spiritual experiences but spiritual beings having occasional human experiences

Tielhard De Chardin

 

Knowing the truth, we should try to live up to it

Jain saying

 

My intuition never fails me, but I fail when I fail to listen

Sufi saying

 

Non-cooperation with evil is a moral duty

Mahatma Gandhi

 

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

Mahatma Gandhi

 

Religion is a defense against having a religious experience

Carl Jung

 

If you need something said, ask a man, but if you need something done, ask a woman

Margerat Thatcher

 

To dance is to meditate, because the universe dances

Michael Ventura

 

Good is better than evil because it’s nicer

Mammy Yoakum

 

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

T.S. Eliot

 

falcons of the inner eye / dive and die / glimpsing in their dying fall / all life’s / memory / of existence

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

 

Belief in punishment is punishment, belief in sin is sin.

Ursula Le Guin

 

They became what they beheld

William Blake

 

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.

William Blake

 

The fox condemns the trap, not himself.

William Blake

 

Study nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Worship nothing except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing except in the certainty that you are your enemy’s begetter and it’s only hope of healing.

Clive Barker

 

If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.

Charles Darwin

 

Imagination is activity, not content.

Laura Simms

 

Often the story we are living is obstructed by the stories we tell ourselves.

Laura Simms

 

A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has order, a flowing from point to point. If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. That is why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.

Frank Herbert (from Dune)

 

A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.

Frank Herbert (from Dune)

 

Be prepared to appreciate what you meet.

Frank Herbert (from Dune)

 

The more life there is within a system, the more niches there are for life.

Frank Herbert (from Dune)

 

Life improves the capacity of the environment to sustain life.

Frank Herbert (from Dune)

 

Too few individuals, and a people revert to a mob.

Frank Herbert (from Dune)

 

The real universe is always one step beyond logic.

Frank Herbert (from Dune)

 

Life is not a problem to be solved, it is a reality to be experienced.

Frank Herbert (from Dune)

 

When a group of people are sailing in a boat, none of them has a right to bore a hole under his own seat.

Israel Meir ha-Kohen

 

Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.

Hillel

 

Trees and plants and flowers have language, feeling, and prayer of their own.

Baal Shem Tov

 

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind.

The Dhammapada

 

One who fears limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.

Henry Ford

 

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Oliver Goldsmith

 

The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.

Washington Allston

 

Every man has three characters – that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.

Alphonse Karr

 

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

William Shedd

 

Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.

Kahlil Gibran

 

People have the right to choose their actions freely, but they are responsible for the consequences that result from those actions.

Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (GBA game)

 

There is no right or wrong, just paths that lead to different futures.

Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (GBA game)

 

Some people “know what they know” and go no further, these people are merely stepping stones on our path to enlightenment.

Shadowmadness (PS1 game)

 

Beware of life, it always ends in death.

Shadowmadness (PS1 game)

 

Your heart speaks to you and you try to understand one another. As long as you feel, that’s what matters.

Sword of Mana (GBA game)

 

Some things you can do by yourself, and others you can’t. You need to judge yourself rationally.

Sword of Mana (GBA game)

 

Love brings much happiness, much more so than pining for someone brings pain.

Albert Einstein

 

Live as though the world were as it should be to show it what it can be.

Angel (TV show title character)

 

Sometimes you hear a xylophone deep in the forest and you know that things are just not right.

James Tate

 

I too that am a nation sustain the damage where smokers of continual ravage obscure the flame.

Robert Duncan

 

Lilac blossoms of courage in daily act.

Robert Duncan

 

Foraging for a vision.

John Burgess

 

Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.

Jeremy Bentham

 

Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart.

Jeremy Bentham

 

Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.

Jeremy Bentham

 

Every law is an infraction of liberty.

Jeremy Bentham

 

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

We Gladly Feast on Those Who Would Subdue Us

The Addams Family Credo

 

Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.

T. S. Eliot

 

Only through time time is conquered.

T. S. Eliot

 

The light is still. At the still point of the turning world.

T. S. Eliot

 

Yo Way Yo

Yo Way Yo, Home Va-Ray

Yo Ay-Rah, Jerhume Brunnen-G

Yo Way Yo, Home Va-Ray

Yo Ay-Rah, Jerhume Brunnen-G

Yo Ay-Rah, Jerhume Brunnen-G

Lexx (TV show)