Serious or amusing or cynical... these are some of my more favored quotes :)
"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." - Arthur Ashe
"In this world we do not see things as they are. We see them as we are, because what we see depends mainly on what we are looking for." - John Lubbock
"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition." - Timothy Leary
"That's always where the love goes, with someone else away from me." - Lemony Snicket
"Never was there a man of deep piety, who has not been brought into extremities - who has not been put into fire - who has been taught to say, "Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him." " - Richard Cecil
"I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Geniusness only thrives in the dark. Like celery." - Aldous Huxley
"Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind." - Epictetus
"The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there." - John Buchanan
"If we had no faults, we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others." - Francois de la Rochefoucauld
"Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer provide bad examples." - Fracois de la Rouchefoucauld
"What we call despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope." - George Eliot
"I have a strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it's apathy. It's not giving a damn." - Leo Buscaglia
"God has not chosen to save us without crosses; as He has not seen fit to create men at once in the full vigor of manhood, but has suffered them to grow up by degrees amid all the perils and weaknesses of youth." - Fracois Fenelon
"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens up your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone else can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different than any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like, 'Maybe we should just be friends' turns into a glass splinter working it's way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind.It's a soul-hurt, a real get-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love." - Neil Gaiman (This one happens to be one of my favorites when I'm feeling particularly cynical)
On the positive-ish side of love "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, unpenetrable, irredeemable... The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the dangers... of love is Hell." - C.S. Lewis "The Four Loves"
"Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens." - J.R.R. Tolkien
"Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to to with it." - W. Somerset Maugham
"And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - Marianne Williamson (Interesting thought, not entirely accurate as it is God's presence that liberates, not our own.. but something to mull on.)
"Perfect humility dispenses with modesty." - C.S. Lewis
"Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, impressions, and false judgements in life... the disillusionment that comes from God brings us to the point where we see people as they really are, yet without any cynicism or any stinging and bitter criticism. Many of the things in life that inflict the greatest injury, grief or pain, stem from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts, seeing each other as we really are; we are only true to our misconceived ideas of one another... And this is how that suffering happens - if we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive... Our Lord is so obviously uncompromising with regard to every human relationship that is not based on faithfulness to Himself will end in disaster." - Oswald Chambers
"A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake... A soul mate's purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, and make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life." - Elizabeth Gilbert (Don't fully agree with this either, but if you add in the God factor I think its largely agreeable.)
