This is inspired by @Theblackdoll's recent post: Favorite Quote – Prompt!!, where she writes:
“[,,,] I wanna know "Your favorite quote that you have ever heard.. your fav quote that inspired you so much so that you actually take it very seriously in your life and Live and swear by it??"
Since I have been reading copiously since I was a child, and also taken notes from my reading – I have collected thousands of quotes that way – this question caught my attention. Since I have many quotes in my notes (long-time members are aware of some small collections I have previously published here), it is hard to pick out one or a few as absolute favourites.
The most important quote in my life, has been the first four lines of Edgar Allan Poe's poem “Alone”:
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
I wrote about that in Poe: A Personal View:
“My strongest experience of Poe, however, was the first time I laid my eyes on a poem called “Alone”. It struck me as a thunderbolt, because it was about me. That is to say, of course it was not about me, it was about Poe himself, but it could have been about me. It expressed exactly what I did feel myself.”
The realization of that I was not the only one ever having had that feeling, made it somehow legitimate to be like that; I could suddenly appreciate to be an outsider, even actively choose to be one. (Read The Strength of Being an Outsider (by choice), for more details about what I mean with chosen outsidership.)
Since I written about this quote before, I will bring up two other of my many favourite quotes, the first of which is:
“Know this and know it well: time is never wasted. Wherever we go, whatever we do, everything is an aspect of education. Even when we don't immediately grasp the lesson.”
This was written by author Robert Silverberg. The words did not really change my life, but it expressed exactly my own view on life, time and education. My life has been dramatic; I'd say that this approach has made it easier for me to deal with tragedies throughout it. Whatever happens, however bad I feel about it, I can never feel sorry for myself; I always find something in it that is interesting, something I can learn something from, something that can make me grow as a person. Every experience is valuable, and bad experiences are no exception; processed by the mind, they become the soil from which wisdom can grow. No experience is wasted.
It also expresses another important point, namely that education doesn't equal schools – “everything is an aspect of education”. Schools can be a part of it, but it neither begins nor ends there.
This leads us to another quote about how the hard times of life can be those from which we benefit the most.
“A tree may be bent by harsh winds, but it is no less beautiful than the tree that grows in a sheltered nook, and often it bears the richer fruit.”
(Dorothy Gilman)
Adversity is necessary for growth, creativity and genuine beauty. A smooth, easy life is more comfortable, but, in my opinion, it is a life wasted. Comfort kills.
Søren Kirkegaard, 1813-1855, Danish philosopher, expressed this in another way:
“To dare is to lose one's foothold for a moment.
Not to dare is to lose oneself.”
It is necessary to take risks, to stick out the chin and challenge life, otherwise we wither and die.
How about describing this in a more dramatic way? These are the final words of "La Voyage", by French poet Charles Baudelaire:
"Nous voulons tant ce feu nous brûle le cerveau,
Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe?
Au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau!"
("This fire so scorches our brain, that we wish
To plunge into the depth of the gulf, Hell or Heaven, who cares?
To find something new in the depths of the Unknown!")
If we fear the "unknown", we will never grow, never find new knowledge.
Related articles:
With a Touch of Humour - More Quotes
Antibigbrotherism Quotes – and about Creating a New Word
Nietzsche: Selected Quotes & Brief Comments
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