Literature
Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?
- Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.
- Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
- Frank Herbert, Dune
And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.
- Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
Film
Training is nothing, will is everything - the will to act.
- Batman Begins
Beneath this mask, there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.
- V for Vendetta
Mess with the best, die like the rest.
- Hackers
Poetry
- Philip Larkin, Aubade
- William Ernest Henley, Invictus
- Percy Shelley, Ozymandias
Historical Figures
In battle, in forest, at the precipice in the mountains, On the dark great sea, in the midst of javelins and arrows, In sleep, in confusion, in the depths of shame, The good deeds a man has done before defend him.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
- Albert Einstein
The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope the people will forget. The engineer simple cannot deny he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned."
- Herbert Hoover
A man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures — and that is the basis of all human morality.
- Winston Churchill
Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-league ball players and the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time.
- George S. Patton (I highly recommend watching the film)
The reason the American army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American army practices chaos on a daily basis.
- A German General
If we don't know what we are doing, the enemy certainly can't anticipate our future actions!
- U.S. Army Logistics Operations and Readiness Division
Religious Texts
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
For the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?