Pilar Calvet Alfonso > Pilar's Quotes

“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.”
― Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Diggers

“Words were different when they lived inside of you.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn't get--and never would get.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I had a feeling there was something wrong with me. I guess I was a mystery even to myself.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“We all fight our own private wars.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Not all those who wander are lost.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
― haruki murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.”
― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

“We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you truly who you are—that we’re ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: it's got to be the right wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.”

I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.”
― Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
― Plato

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Albert Einstein

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile”
― E.E. Cummings, E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962

“The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.”
― Jay McInerney, The Last of the Savages

“Resist much, obey little.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“I have learned that to be with those I like is enough”
― Walt Whitman

“Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.”
― Walt Whitman

“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering... these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love... these are what we stay alive for.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best. ”
― Walt Whitman

“Peace is always beautiful.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrible.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies