Great Touchstone Quotes & Sayings

For those of us who were brought up in the creed of respect for humanity, the simple encounters that can sometimes change into almost miraculous experiences mean a great deal. Respect for humanity ... that is the touchstone! When the Nazi respects only what resembles him, he merely respects himself. He rejects the creative contradictions, ruins any hope of advance, and for the next thousand years replaces man with the robot in the anthill. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

We can let our goals motivate and inspire us, but we don't want to let them determine our happiness or self worth. — Elaina Marie

I have never read any Tolstoy. I felt badly about this until I read a Bill Simmons column where he confessed that he'd never seen 'The Big Lebowski.' Simmons, it should be pointed out, has seen everything. He said that everyone needs to have skipped at least one great cultural touchstone. — Malcolm Gladwell

Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. — Matthew Arnold

I've had people ask me: 'How can you make a movie about a murderer? A terrorist?' What they don't understand is that I'm in support of everyone who appears on screen. I have to be. I take the position of everyone who's on screen. I'm not judging them one way or another. — Benicio Del Toro

Modesty means admitting the possibility of error, subsuming the self for the good of the whole, remaining open to surprise and the gifts that only failure can bring. There are many ways to practice it. Try taking up golf. Or making your own bagels. Or raising a teenager. — Nancy Gibbs

If you're ever if you're ever thinking, "Oh, but I'm a waste of space and I'm a burden," remember: that also describes the Grand Canyon. Why don't you have friends and family take pictures of you from a safe distance? Revel in your majestic profile? — Maria Bamford

To deny women directors, as I suspect is happening in the States, is to deny the feminine vision. — Jane Campion

He [Llewelyn Powys] has always in mind the great touchstone Death & consequently life is always judged as how far it fits us, or compensates us, for ultimately dying. — Philip Larkin

Everything that happened to you is a page that's been turned and is done with. — Alaa Al Aswany