Mike Williams > Mike's Quotes

“I would become so choked up that sometimes I would walk in the streets until late into the night. Sometimes I would speak to no one for hours, thinking to myself about what the white man had done to our poor people here in America.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Of all that I have possessed in my life, my memories are the only things remaining to me. Indeed, I believe that memories are the only real treasure any human can hope to hold always.” - Mixtli (Aztec)”
― Gary Jennings, Aztec

“Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal.”
― Mary Renault, The Alexander Trilogy

“Dienekes says the mind is like a house with many rooms. There are rooms one must not go into. To anticipate death is one of those rooms. We must not allow ourselves even to think it.”
― Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire

“There are going to be many changes, I warn you. I want no officer who is not prepared to do everything that his men have to do. Not only that-he must be able to do it better.”
― Wallace Breem, Eagle in the Snow

“A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don't you do the same?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day when God designs to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, - Wait and hope. - Edmond Dantès”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Stress only happens when you resist life's events.”
― Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

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

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“Once, in my father's bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later—no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget—we will return.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind

“After a while it occurred to me that between the covers of each of those books lay a boundless universe waiting to be discovered while beyond those walls, in the outside world, people allowed life to pass by in afternoons of football and radio soaps, content to do little more than gaze at their navels.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Destiney is usually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love

“You see, Satan is not a monster. We don't see him when he comes because he has disguised himself in beauty.

The devil is, after all, an angel of light. The Morning Star. Do not allow yourself to be seduced by the beautiful side of evil.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter

“My father used to say that attacking an enemy who outnumbers you is like wrestling with a bear: You have to get your dagger into his heart before the beast crushes you with his paws.”
― Steven Pressfield, The Virtues of War

“You have asked, Itanes, if I feel fear. I answer, I may not. The soldier in the line is permitted to feel terror; the commander never. Too much depends upon him - the lives of his mates, the fate of the action. He cannot allow himself the luxury of fear. I eat mine, as a lion devours a kid. I consume it by my will to glory and my obligation to the corps.”
― Steven Pressfield, The Virtues of War

“What I've found over almost four decades of studying success is that the most successful people in any field aren't just lucky. They have a different set of beliefs. They have a different strategy. They do things differently than everyone else.”
― Tony Robbins, Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook

“I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity - because you can hardly mention anything I’m not curious about.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“You will never catch me with a free fifteen minutes in which I’m not studying something I feel might be able to help the black man.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Hope is the most intoxicating drug, better than wine or opium. Hope can make an exhausted man row two more hours; can cause a swordsman's arm to function for a few more cuts.
Those are the moments when the daimons that make a man's spirit prove themselves or fail. When everything is gone from you but that ray of hope.”
― Christian Cameron, Poseidon's Spear

“Talent is something you’re born with. It’s a gift and a curse, and it’s often cause for jealousy from those who are without it.”
― Alice Hoffman, Magic Lessons

“Enthusiasm makes up for a host of deficiencies.”
― Barack Obama, A Promised Land

“White folks kill you if you want too much, kill you if you want too little. You gotta follow the rules but they change ‘em when they feel. Devilish, you ask me.”
― Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half

“There should be no room in your life for regret. If in the moment of doing you felt clarity, you felt certainty, then why feel regret later?”
― Yaa Gyasi