Von Quotes

Investigation?" Isabelle laughed. "Now we're detectives? Maybe we should all have code names." "Good idea," said Jace. "I shall be Baron Hotschaft Von Hugenstein.

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

To be content with little is difficult; to be content with much, impossible.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be.

A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.

When a woman becomes her own best friend life is easier.

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

If you've never eaten while crying you don t know what life tastes like.

What you are is God's gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.

To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.

Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?

The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.

Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away.

I bid the chords sweet music make, And all must follow in my wake.

Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein. None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?

A person hears only what they understand.

I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.

By seeking and blundering we learn.

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.

Instruction does much, but encouragement everything." (Letter to A.F. Oeser, Nov. 9, 1768)

Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and -- if at all possible -- speak a few sensible words.

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.

Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens.

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

Insanity is catching.

All this time I drank you like the cure when maybe you were the poison.

Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.

Nothing is worth more than this day.

What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what they wish. They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others.

The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.

You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches.

Who are you then?" "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.

Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.

I commend my soul to any god that can find it.

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.

I know you and I are not about poems or other sentimental bullshit but I have to tell you even the way you drink your coffee knocks me the fuck out.

If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.

Music is liquid architecture; Architecture is frozen music.

We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden.

If anyone else were to kiss me, all they would taste is your name.

Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.

Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities.

The mediator between head and hands must be the heart!

Destiny is for losers. It's just a lame excuse for letting things happen to you instead of making them happen.

Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.

At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.

I’m scared you will realize I’m just bones and questions and leave me for something solid.

The most important relationship in your life is the relationship you have with yourself. Because no matter what happens, you will always be with yourself.

There is strong shadow where there is much light.

I know hate is a strong word and everything, but its okay: we're teenagers.

We are our own devils; we drive ourselves out of our Edens.

You never need to apologize for how you chose to survive.

Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.

Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

Sometimes I don't understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!

This is the true measure of love: when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us.

God help us -- for art is long, and life so short.

Look, he said to his imagination, if this is how you're going to behave, I shan't bring you again.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known.

A lot of truths about the living world are recorded in bad books; they are just badly written about.

My battered heart will always be where the ocean meets the sand, I will break over and over Every day. That is the best and worst part of me.

You have corrupted my imagination and inflamed my blood...

I will love you when you are a still day. I will love you when you are a hurricane.

Just because we can't be together doesn't mean I don't love you

I mean you ask me not to fall in love with you and then you go write poems with your tongue and draw constellations in my freckles.

It was sad, like those businessmen who came to work in serious clothes but wore colorful ties in a mad, desperate attempt to show there was a free spirit in there somewhere.

It was so typical. Whenever Blair did anything nice for someone else, she usually regretted it. Which kind of explained why she was such a bitch most of the time.

You're always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.

What a blessing it is to love books.

All theory is gray, my friend. But forever green is the tree of life.

All of us need to stop apologizing for having been to hell and come back breathing

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.

No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod.

Blair liked to think of herself as a hopeless romantic in the style of old movie actresses like Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. She was always coming up with plot devices for the movie she was starring in at the moment, the movie that was her life.

Not that she didn't love almost every boy she'd ever met, and not that every boy in the world didn't totally love her. It was impossible not to. But she wanted someone to love her and shower her with attention the way only a boy who was completely in love with her could. The rare sort of love. True love. The kind of love she'd never had.

People flock in, nevertheless, in search of answers to those questions only librarians are considered to be able to answer, such as "Is this the laundry?" "How do you spell surreptitious?" and, on a regular basis, "Do you have a book I remember reading once? It had a red cover and it turned out they were twins.

Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them. [Kalama Sutta, AN 3.65]

I am not the first person you loved. You are not the first person I looked at with a mouthful of forevers. We have both known loss like the sharp edges of a knife. We have both lived with lips more scar tissue than skin. Our love came unannounced in the middle of the night. Our love came when we’d given up on asking love to come. I think that has to be part of its miracle. This is how we heal. I will kiss you like forgiveness. You will hold me like I’m hope. Our arms will bandage and we will press promises between us like flowers in a book. I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat on your skin. I will write novels to the scar of your nose. I will write a dictionary of all the words I have used trying to describe the way it feels to have finally, finally found you. And I will not be afraid of your scars. I know sometimes it’s still hard to let me see you in all your cracked perfection, but please know: whether it’s the days you burn more brilliant than the sun or the nights you collapse into my lap your body broken into a thousand questions, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I will love you when you are a still day. I will love you when you are a hurricane.

I wonder if you know yet that you’ll leave me. That you are a child playing with matches and I have a paper body. You will meet a girl with a softer voice and stronger arms and she will not have violent secrets or an affection for red wine or eyes that never stay dry. You will fall into her bed and I’ll go back to spending Friday nights with boys who never learn my last name.

You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never Rises from the soul, and sways The heart of every single hearer, With deepest power, in simple ways. You’ll sit forever, gluing things together, Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps, Blowing on a miserable fire, Made from your heap of dying ash. Let apes and children praise your art, If their admiration’s to your taste, But you’ll never speak from heart to heart, Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.

I pity the woman who will love you when I am done. She will show up to your first date with a dustpan and broom, ready to pick up all the pieces I left you in. She will hear my name so often it will begin to dig holes in her. That is where doubt will grow. She will look at your neck, your thin hips, your mouth, wondering at the way I touched you. She will make you all the promises I did and some I never could. She will hear only the terrible stories. How I drank. How I lied. She will wonder (as I have) how someone as wonderful as you could love a monster like the woman who came before her. Still, she will compete with my ghost. She will understand why you do not look in the back of closets. Why you are afraid of what’s under the bed. She will know every corner of you is haunted by me.

I. Those of us born by water are never afraid enough of drowning. Bruises used to trophy my knees from my death-defying tree climb jumps. Growing up, my backyard was a forest of blackberry bushes. I learned early nothing sweet will come to you unthorned. II. At twelve your body becomes a currency. So Jenny and I sat down and cut up all our clothes into nothing. That year I failed math class but knew the exact number of calories in a carrot stick. I learned early being desired goes hand in hand with hunger. III. The last time I tried to scream I felt my father climbing up through my throat and into my mouth. IV. There is a certain kind of girl who reads Lolita at fourteen and finds religion. I painted my eyes black and sucked barroom cherries to red my tongue. There was a boy who promised Judas really did love Jesus. I learned early every kiss and betrayal are up for interpretation. V. I think he must have conferenced with my nightmares on exactly how to hurt me. VI. He never broke my heart. He only turned it into a compass that always points me back to him.