Andrew Bendelow > Andrew's Quotes

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
― Elie Wiesel

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Believe you can and you're halfway there.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first and love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“The reason fat men are good natured is they can neither fight nor run.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
― Herman Melville

“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, the Whale

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“It is not down on any map; true places never are.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“3. There are three stages. Thoughtless being. Thought. Return to thoughtless being.

33. Do not confuse the first and third stages. Thoughtless being is attained by everyone, the return to thoughtless being by a very few.”
― Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Why, Sam,” he said, “to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the
story was already written. But you’ve left out one of the chief characters; Samwise the stout hearted. ‘I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn’t they put in more of his talk, dad? That’s what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?’ ”

“Now, Mr. Frodo,” said Sam, “you shouldn’t make fun. I was serious.”

“So was I,” said Frodo, “and so I am. We’re going on a bit too fast. You and
I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point ‘Shut the book now, dad; we don’t want to read any more’.”

“Maybe,” said Sam, “but I wouldn’t be one to say that. Things done and
over and made into part of the great tales are different. Why, even Gollum might be good in a tale, better than he is to have by you, anyway. And he used to like tales himself once, by his own account. I wonder if he thinks he’s the hero or the villain?”
“Gollum!” he called. “Would you like to be the hero, now where’s he got to
again?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use – do the work you want to see done.”
― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

“You don’t get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers and you can pick your friends and you can pick the music you listen to and you can pick the books you read and you can pick the movies you see. You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.”
― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

“Don't wait until you know who you are to get started. If I'd waited to know who I was or what I was about before I started "being creative," well, I'd be sitting around trying to figure myself out instead of making things. In my experience, it's in the act of making things and doing our work that we figure out who we are. You're ready. Start making stuff.”
― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

“Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments – and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.”
― J. Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life

“do it or don't do it but get on with it...”
― J. Krishnamurti, Beginnings of Learning

“Knowledge is an illusion. Ecstasy is the true reality. Knowledge fills us with guilt. Ecstasy allows us to be one with he who is the Universe, before it existed, and after it has been destroyed.”
― Paulo Coelho, Hippie

“God...never again allow me to be satisfied with only my own company. [May I] never feel afraid of needing someone, or of suffering. For there is no suffering worse than the dark grey room where pain cannot reach...”
― Paulo Coelho, Hippie

“El peor de los asesinatos es el que termina matando nuestra alegría de vivir.”
― Paulo Coelho, Hippie

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist