Best 481 quotes in «insightful quotes» category

To truly defeat an enemy, no sacrifice is too great.

True understanding lies beyond the desert

True freedom is in not having a master, but in making the master your slave

Ugliness is in a way superior to beauty because it lasts.

Unless they are off duty, no matter how wide it is, and even when it is sincere, a smile seems fake if the job description of the person who is smiling includes smiling.

Understand that relativity is everywhere, and that we view everything through its lens - rose-colored or otherwise. When you meet someone in a different country or city and it seems that you have magical connection, realize that the enchantment might be limited to the surrounding circumstances.

Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young philosopher to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient "interest" in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so helplessly lost to all honourable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are short-sighted; what us, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have left their opera glasses at home.

Vision attained through mindful thinking, imagination and purpose reveals both the forest and the trees – as well as a path forward.

We are way less likely to love someone just because they love us than we are to hate someone just because they hate us.

Until I moved to Stockhold I had felt there was a continuity to my life, as if it stretched unbroken from childhood up to the present, held together by new connections, in a complex and ingenious pattern in which every phenomenon I saw was capable of evoking a memory which unleashed small landslides of feeling in me, some with a known source, others without. The people I encountered came from towns I had been to, they knew other people I had met, it was a network, and it was a tight mesh. But when I moved to Stockholm this flaring up of memories became rarer and rarer, and one day it ceased altogether. That is, I could still remember; what happened was that the memories no longer stirred anything in me. No longing, no wish to return, nothing. Just the memory, and a barely perceptible hint of an aversion to anything that was connected with it.

We all have problems. Or rather, everyone has at least one thing that they regard as a problem.

We always find something, eh Didi, to let us think we exist?

We are entrusting thousands of strangers with our innermost thoughts and feelings, and then we're expecting them to be careful with those feelings. As much as we want it to be, the Internet is not a safe space. It is not a place where we can lay our burdens down and heal. Why? Because there are too many people there who do not give an ounce of a shit about our well-being. They do not deserve our rawness, and they will not treat it with care.

We are God's middle children, according to Tyler Durden, with no special place in history and no special attention.

We are loved way more by some of the people who have not contacted us in the last twelve or so months than we are loved by some of those who contact us every twelve or so days … or hours.

We are looking for value, guidance, advice, inspiration; for someone to show us the way. When we find him, he is our hero

We live in a 'two-hundred-year present'.

We must endure, Alyosha." That was the only thing she could say in response to my accounts of the ugliness and dreariness of life, of the suffering of the people — of everything against which I protested so vehemently. I was not made for endurance, and if occasionally I exhibited this virtue of cattle, wood, and stone, I did so only to test myself, to try my strength and my stability. Sometimes young people, in the foolishness of immaturity, or in envy of the strength of their elders, strive, even successfully, to lift weights that overtax their bones and muscles; in their vanity they attempt to cross themselves with two-pood weights, like mature athletes. I too did this, in the literal and figurative sense, physically and spiritually, and only good fortune kept me from injuring myself fatally or crippling myself for life. For nothing cripples a person so dreadfully as endurance, as a humble submission to the forces of circumstance.

We're prisoners here." "What would Jack do, Belle?" When did he become the insightful one? She mock pouted. "I suppose he would figure out some super clever way around it." The Beast looked at her with wry amusement. "Since you're the clever one here and haven't come up with a cunning plan, I was going to suggest brute force. Like we're a castle under siege, fighting them off. That's what I know." "That's a fair point," she ceded, smiling. "We should... round up everything sharp and cutting," he said. "And hammers and mallets to smash the panes between them." "Yes, sir, prince general, sir," Belle said, saluting him with a sparkle in her eye.

What are the years from twenty to forty? Fettered and bound by personal and emotional relationships. That's bound to be. That's living. But later there's a new stage. You can think, observe life, discover something about other people and the truth about yourself. Life becomes real--significant. You see it as a whole. Not just one scene--the scene you, as an actor, are playing. No man or woman is actually himself (or herself) till after forty-five. That's when individuality has a chance.

What you are to me is the guy that I’ve been madly in love with since sixth grade. You’re the guy I think about every night when I’m in bed by myself. You’re the one who doesn’t want me but insists on keeping me tied so close that I can’t have anyone else, who keeps one hand on my collar and the other hand up his girlfriend’s skirt. And I can’t do it anymore!” ~ Jordy

What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence, the question is what you can make people believe that you have done.

When in court, the primary role of lawyers is not to prove or disprove innocence; unbeknown to almost all lawyers and their clients, it is to save the court time.

We need a politician who hates politics.

What would be a better tool to use in high school classroom than textbooks or timelines for creating an effective learning environment that could reflect the dynamic nature of historical study? Out of all the various alternatives, by far, film. Film is a hugely popular medium with endless number of historically based works that not only present facts but dramatize the human relationships behind those facts. The main critique presented against the use of historical film in the classroom is the existence of rampant inaccuracies and biases laced throughout these films, not to mention the agendas of the filmmakers themselves. However these seeming flaws are part of the reason why film is an ideal teaching tool. It can foster deep critical thinking skills if instructors lead dialogues after film viewings about the inaccuracies, the biases and all of the things that make the film not just a record of a historical event, but also a reflection of the modern moment.

When people say they do not care what others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselves. Generally they mean only that no one will know their vulgarities; and at the utmost only that they are willing to act contrary to the opinion of the majority because they are supported by the approval of their neighbours. It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.

When I venture to point out the unfairness of this, I am reminded of the second item on my list. Apparently the only acceptable destiny for a young female mem​b​er of the house of Windsor is to marry into another of the royal houses that still seem to litter Europe, even though there are precious few reigning monarchs these days. it seems that even a very minor Windsor like myself is a desirable commodity for those wishing a tenuous alliance with Britain at this unsettled time. I am constantly being reminded that is is my duty to make a good match with some half-lunatic, buck-toothed, chinless, spinele​s​s​​​, and utterly awful European royal, thus cementing ties with a potential enemy. My cousin Alex did this, poor thing. I have learned from her tragic example.

When people say they do not care what others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselves. Generally they mean only that no one will know their vulgarities; and at the utmost only that they are willing to act contrary to the opinion of the majority because they are supported by the approval of their neighbours. It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set. It affords you then an inordinate amount of self-esteem. You have the self-satisfaction of courage without the inconvenience of danger.

Where would we be without the success of our mothers?

When you deserved it, even the mail could rape you.

Why lamenting Nature, for you have done on Earth and high Heavens the most adorned works,your hues spread the jocund rainbow shine,and blissful thoughts of breeze are awakened,yet like a tainted maid,you droop and wept, sad below the bleak, barren fields, concealed from the steep views,that human kept,and a white cloud of peace in you dissolved.

When selecting a one-night stand, a heterosexual woman who is materialistic is a trillion times more likely to choose a sexually unattractive poor man who seems rich over a sexually attractive rich man who seems poor.

...yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.

Would there be no end to publishing, he wondered? Perhaps it would be a good idea if everyone just stopped writing for a couple of years, and allowed readers to catch up.

You are a significant, unique, independent, individual soul, who has ventured into this world to expand your awareness of yourself and truth. You are an opportunity for the expansion of consciousness; you are an opportunity for evolution.

With regard to things such as independence, mental capabilities, and sexuality, a very old man is nothing but a gigantic infant with white hair and wrinkles.

Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. 'That's some catch, that Catch-22,' he observed. 'It's the best there is,' Doc Daneeka agreed. Yossarian saw it clearly in all its spinning reasonableness. There was an elliptical precision about its perfect pairs of parts that was graceful and shocking, like good modern art, and at times Yossarian wasn't quite sure he saw it at all, just the way he was never quite sure about good modern art or about the flies Orr saw in Appleby's eyes. he had Orr's word to take for Appleby's eyes.

You are what you believe

You can continue to cry over the same pain & complain about the same situations or you can expand your mind and you can grow. Maybe im not alone when I say, sometimes we all get a little confused and feel like we owe it to the people and places to try harder when in reality, most of the time lessons become lifelong if we don't learn the art of peaceful detachment early in the game.

You can have some, but not all. Wanting to have it all is a sure recipe for disaster

You cannot skip the beginning and hope to reach the end. You will fall as soon as you get there

You cannot write your character until you know how he or she thinks, until you know what their philosophy is in the world that they occupy.

You can’t ever really know someone else’s mind or someone else’s heart, what someone else is capable of.

You can truly have it all, just not all at the same time.

You dare quarrel with me Doerwyne? She wrinkled her nose. "It's not quarreling to express an opinion'" "Women don't have opinions." "Then I must be a man, because I have plenty.

Young, animated, entirely off your guard, and thoughtless of consequences, Imagination took the reins; and Reason, slow-paced, though sure-footed, was unequal to the race of so eccentric and flighty a companion. How rapid was then my Evelina's progress through those regions of fancy and passion whither her new guide conducted her!-She saw Lord Orville at a ball,-and he was the most amiable of men! -She met him again at another,-and he had every virtue under Heaven!

You never know who it's going to be, or what they'll bring, but whatever it is, it's always exactly what is needed.

You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.

Your beliefs are your power. Your beliefs are your ghost.

You're not seeing what you're looking at.