Teshalegn Mekonnen > Teshalegn's Quotes

“It takes billions of years to create a human being. And it takes only a few seconds to die.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Maya

“Stay low, stay quiet, keep it simple, don't expect too much, enjoy what you have.”
― Dean Koontz

“Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.”
― Socrates

“My recipe for dealing with anger and frustration: set the kitchen timer for twenty minutes, cry, rant, and rave, and at the sound of the bell, simmer down and go about business as usual.”
― Phyllis Diller

“But a desperate heart will seduce the mind.”
― Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
― Lewis Carroll

“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

“Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.”
― Christopher Markus

“When what you hear and what you see don't match, trust your eyes.”
― Dale Renton

“Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.”
― Voltaire

“Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don’t go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades – how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you. But it’s life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember – if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that’s where you want to be.
Disappointment’ s cousin is Frustration, the second storm. Have you ever been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India. From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don’t know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five years to get close to a release. Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved – movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result – at least I was learning how to write scripts, having a side plan – I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life – friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously.”
― Chetan Bhagat

“Don't bite off more than you can chew because nobody looks attractive spitting it back out.”
― Carroll Bryant

“No matter how many plans you make or how much in control you are, life is always winging it.”
― Carroll Bryant

“How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself and in no instance bypass the discriminations of reason? You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for in order to refer your self-improvement to him? You are no longer a boy, but a full-grown man. If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you are making no progress, but you will live and die as someone quite ordinary.
From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable, or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now: you are at the Olympic Games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event. That is how Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet a Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be a Socrates.”
― Epictetus (From Manual 51)

“The moment you stop trying to become a better person, is the moment you start to become worse than what you already are.”
― Carroll Bryant

“Life is a constant process of dying.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“Nanny's philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.”
― Terry Pratchett, Maskerade

“The only thing standing between you and your dreams is ... reluctance.”
― Carroll Bryant

“A bird is safe in its nest - but that is not what its wings are made for.”
― Amit Ray, World Peace: The Voice of a Mountain Bird

“Reading is going toward something that is about to be, and no one yet knows what it will be.”
― Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

“Have I had two roads, I would have chosen their third.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, In the Presence of Absence

“When people say they hate life, to what are they comparing it to? The alternative isn't any more appealing.”
― Carroll Bryant

“A house is a compressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by and safely.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“Izzi: Remember Moses Morales?
Tom Verde: Who?
Izzi: The Mayan guide I told you about.
Tom Verde: From your trip.
Izzi: Yeah. The last night I was with him, he told me about his father, who had died. Well Moses wouldn't believe it.
Tom Verde: Izzi...
Izzi: [embraces Tom] No, no. Listen, listen. He said that if they dug his father's body up, it would be gone. They planted a seed over his grave. The seed became a tree. Moses said his father became a part of that tree. He grew into the wood, into the bloom. And when a sparrow ate the tree's fruit, his father flew with the birds. He said... death was his father's road to awe. That's what he called it. The road to awe. Now, I've been trying to write the last chapter and I haven't been able to get that out of my head!
Tom Verde: Why are you telling me this?
Izzi: I'm not afraid anymore, Tommy.”
― Darren Aronofsky, The Fountain

“Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you're suffering a pain at which one would like to laugh, at which you'll soon laugh for yourself.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“No matter where you go, there you are.”
― Keith Caserta

“We are what we repeatedly do. Greatness then, is not an act, but a habit”
― Will Durant

“Nothing is as it seems, but something is everything it is made out to be.”
― Carroll Bryant