Jacob > Jacob's Quotes

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C. S. Lewis

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.”
― Ernest Benn

“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
― C.G. Jung

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.”
― robert heinlein

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren's Profession

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming.”
― Matthew Arnold

“If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree. ”
― Michael Crichton

“Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
― Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please—this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more!
So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Sense is never common.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“He asked, 'Croesus, who told you to attack my land and meet me as an enemy instead of a friend?'

The King replied, 'It was caused by your good fate and my bad fate. It was the fault of the Greek gods, who with their arrogance, encouraged me to march onto your lands. Nobody is mad enough to choose war whilst there is peace. During times of peace, the sons bury their fathers, but in war it is the fathers who send their sons to the grave.”
― Herodotus, The Histories

“Neither pleasure nor pain should enter as motives when one must do what must be done.”
― Julius Evola, Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it’s good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much . . . because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'.”
― Groucho Marx

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”
― Groucho Marx

“I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal.”
― Groucho Marx