Quotes

I stumble upon a lot of quotes (wow, I have eyes, I know), so I thought I might keep a log of some of the ones I consider best. Now without further adieu,

From foreverliketh.is:

You should own yourself. Share yourself; on your terms. You should say something, anything, as long as you, "the individual", are saying it; believing it to be important.

Here are a number of quotes from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil:

Is life not a thousand times too short — to bore ourselves?

'I do not like it.' - Why? - 'I am not up to it.'

'Not that you lied to me but that I no longer believe you - that is what has distressed me-.'

The consequences of our actions take us by the scruff of the neck, altogether in deferent to the fact that we have 'improved' in the meantime.

The will to overcome an emotion is ultimately only the will of another emotion or of several others.

The disappointed man speaks. - 'I listened for an echo and I heard only praise -.'

It is so dreadful to die of thirst in the sea. Do you have to salt your truth so much that it can no longer even - quench thirst?

Blessed are the forgetful; for they get over their stupidities, too.

Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.

And some from Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

To redeem what is past, and to transform every "It was" into "Thus would I have it!"—that only do I call redemption!

'Was that—life?' will I say unto death. 'Well! Once more!'

If life had no sense, and had I to choose nonsense, this would be the desirablest nonsense for me also.

I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.

Didst thou ever see how captured criminals sleep? They sleep quietly, they enjoy their new security.

The God who beheld everything, and also man: that God had to die! Man cannot endure that such a witness should live,

From Jean Giraudoux:

Only the mediocre are always at their best.

From Voltaire:

I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way.

The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.

It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.

From Steve Jobs:

When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.

From Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

If he's honest, he'll steal; if he's human, he'll murder; if he's faithful, he'll deceive.

I do not rebel against my God, I simply do not accept his world.

I want to suffer and be purified by suffering!

And from his Crime and Punishment:

Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!

Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn? […] for every man must have somewhere to turn...

Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!

And his, fittingly named, Demons:

People who can speak well, speak briefly.

A complete atheist stands on the next-to-last upper step to the most complete faith, while the indifferent one has no faith, apart from a bad fear.

If God thought it necessary to offer rewards for love, your God must be immoral.

It requires to be a great man in order to resist common sense.

Every minute, every instant of life ought to be a blessing to man... they ought to be, they certainly ought to be! It's the duty of man to make it so; that's the law of his nature, which exists even if it is hidden

Osamu Dazai's The Setting Sun

In the present world, the most beautiful thing is a victim.

I would far prefer to be told simply to go and die. It's straightforward. But people almost never just say "Die!", those paltry, prudent hypocrites!

I wonder how it would be if I let go and yielded myself to depravity.

This is a quote very often attributed to Camus, and it is based off something he said in A Happy Death, but it was really come up by Barry Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. Still, I like it more than the original, so here it is:

Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?

I know that's not the full quote either, but I think the question enough.

From Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus:

[W]hat is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying

Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.

To two men living the same number of years, the world always provides the same sum of experiences. It is up to us to be conscious of them.

"Everything is permitted," exclaims Ivan Karamazov. That, to, smacks of the absurd. But on condition that it not be taken in the vulgar sense. I don't know whether or not it has been sufficiently pointed out that it is not an outburst of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgment of a fact. The certainty of a God giving a meaning to life far surpasses in attractiveness the ability to behave badly with impunity. The choice would not be hard to make. But there is no choice, and that is where the bitterness comes in. The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. "Everything is permitted" does not mean that nothing is forbidden. The absurd merely confers an equivalence on the consequences of those actions. It does not recommend crime, for this would be childish, but it restores to remorse its futility. Likewise, if all experiences are indifferent, that of duty is as legitimate as any other. One can be virtuous through a whim.

"What matters," said Nietzsche, "is not eternal life but eternal vivacity." All drama is, in fact, in this choice. […] Choosing between heaven and a ridiculous fidelity, preferring oneself to eternity or losing oneself in God is the age-old tragedy in which each must play his part.

To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being. […] If he does not exist, everything depends on us […so] to kill God is to become god oneself;

Now for a number of biblical quotes,

Revelation 3:16

Because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth

Revelation 4:11

[T]hou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Matthew 6:25

Is life not more than meat, and the body more than raiment?

Matthew 5:44

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which that despitefully use you, and persecute you;

Matthew 18:6

If anyone causes one of these little ones […] to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.