Jorge Alvarez > Jorge's Quotes

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain.”
― Rene Descartes

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
― René Descartes

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”
― Joseph Campbell

“It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.”
― René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
― Joseph Campbell

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.”
― René Descartes

“The Hero Path

We have not even to risk the adventure alone
for the heroes of all time have gone before us.
The labyrinth is thoroughly known ...
we have only to follow the thread of the hero path.
And where we had thought to find an abomination
we shall find a God.

And where we had thought to slay another
we shall slay ourselves.
Where we had thought to travel outwards
we shall come to the center of our own existence.
And where we had thought to be alone
we shall be with all the world.”
― Joseph Campbell

“To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them.”
― René Descartes

“Follow your bliss.
If you do follow your bliss,
you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you,
and the life you ought to be living
is the one you are living.
When you can see that,
you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid,
and doors will open
where you didn't know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.”
― Joseph Campbell

“For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than the increasing discovery of my own ignorance”
― Rene Descartes

“Because reason...is the only thing that makes us men, and distinguishes us from the beasts, I would prefer to believe that it exists, in its entirety, in each of us...”
― Descartes

“I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.”
― Frank Capra

“Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.”
― Benjamin Franklin Wade

“At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.”
― Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method

“Let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something.”
― Descartes René 1596-1650

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century:
Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others;
Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected;
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it;
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences;
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind;
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“In times of war, the law falls silent.

Silent enim leges inter arma”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”
― Albert Camus

“...it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once.”
― DESCARTES

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
― Taylor Caldwell, A Pillar of Iron

“For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Senectute, De Amicitia

“The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time. Anyone who was given love will always live on in another's heart.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend”
― Albert Camus

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

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde