Collecting Quotes

For the past five years or so, I’ve been collecting quotes that speak to me in a single note in my phone. It’s crazy to read certain ones and be brought back to what I was going through when the quote was relevant. With senior quote season upon us, I figured I’d share some of favorite quotes incase you needed inspiration. Whether encouraging me to keep trying, or just putting a smile on my face, I love them all the same. I’ve narrowed my list for your sake, but let me know if you’d like to hear more. They’ve come from a wide variety of sources, everything from history books to the chef at work. Wisdom is truly everywhere!

“It is not in words that I should wish my life to be distinguished, but rather in things done.”

-The Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles

“Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intention.”

-George W. Bush

“Not all girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Some girls are made of adventure far and near, brains, and no fear.”

-Unknown

“Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,

Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron

Can be retentive to the strength of spirit.”

-Julius Caesar, by Shakespeare

“Per aspera ad astra”

-Unknown (found in To Kill a Mockingbird)

“So long as [you] walk the earth alive,

So long you may try what enters your head;

Men make mistakes as long as they strive.”

-Unknown

“You are in the end . . . what you are.

You can put on the full-bottomed wigs with a million locks,

You can put on stilts instead of your socks,

You remain forever what you are.”

-Faust by Johann Wolfgang

“The great scene of the world is constantly open to her view, far from seeking to conceal it from her, it is everday disclosed more completely and she is taught to survey it with a firm and calm gaze. Thus the vices and dangers of society are early revealed to her; as she sees them clearly, she views them without illusion and braves them without fear, for she is full of reliance on her own strength, and her confidence seems to be shared by all around her.”

-Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville (I was very annoyed that my APUSH teacher made me read 10 chapters of this, but at least I got a good quote out of it)

“Good timber does not grow with ease; the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees.”

-Douglas Malloch

“I will be as harsh as truth, as uncompromising as justice…I will not equivocate-I will not excuse-I will not retreat a single inch-and I will be heard.”

-William Lloyd Garrison

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

-Walden by Henry David Thoreau

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired”

-The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he aspires to become greater than his nature will allow”

-Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

“She is something to behold, elegant and bold”

-Georgia by Vane Joy

“You are cast in a different mold to the majority”

-Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

“Reason, and not feeling, is my guide: my ambition is unlimited; my desire to rise higher, to do more than others, instatiable. I honor endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends, and mount to lofty eminence.”

-Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

-John 16:33 New International Version (NIV)

“There is only one duty, one safe course, and that is to try to be right and not to fear to do or say what you believe”

-Winston Churchill

“I know what it is like to lose. To feel so desperately that you’re right, yet to fail nonetheless. Dread it. Run from it. Destiny still arrives.”

-Thanos, Avengers Infinity Wars

“Cinco cinco cinco cinco, cinco cinco”

-Chef Smel’ Tunets at Cenacolo

I really love having a wealth of encouragement and reminders so accessible. I encourage you to keep track of the words and phrases that are important to you. Comment your favorite quote below!

Stay Classy,

Maya