Selma YALAMAN > Selma's Quotes

“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”
― David W. Orr, Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World

“And God said “Love Your Enemy,” and I obeyed him and loved myself.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Broken Wings

“How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging up roots? No, they double their efforts and keep slaving away.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“The opposite of poverty is not wealth. In too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice.”
― Bryan Stevenson

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“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

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“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

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

“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”
― Allen Saunders

“We read to know we're not alone.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

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

“When you learn, teach, when you get, give.”
― Maya Angelou

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
― Maya Angelou

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
― Maya Angelou

“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. ”
― William James

“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
― William James

“Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.”
― William James

“If you can change your mind, you can change your life.”
― William James

“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
― William James

“Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.”
― William James

“To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds,”
― William James

“My experience is what I agree to attend to.”
― William James