Nothing Is True Quotes & Sayings

Philosophy has been described as thinking about thinking, and all Christians should do that. The term comes from two Greek words, philia ("love") and sophia ("wisdom"), thus "loving wisdom." Nothing anti-Christian appears in that definition. Problems arise if we seek wisdom apart from God, or elevate human reason above Him, but according to Proverbs 4:5-7, God's people should love and seek wisdom.
Formal philosophy is divided into three major areas-incidentally, all core Christian issues: (1) Metaphysics,
which asks questions about the nature of reality: "What is real?" "Is the basic essence of the world matter, or spirit, or something else?" (2) Epistemology, which addresses issues concerning truth and knowledge: "What do we know?" "How do we know it?" "Why do we think it's true?" (3) Ethics, which considers moral problems: "What is right and wrong?" "Are moral values absolute or relative?" "What is the good life, and how do we achieve it? — Rick Cornish

Now departure from the world of men is nothing to fear, if gods exist: because they would not involve you in any harm. If they do not exist, or if they have no care for humankind, then what is life to me in a world devoid of gods, or devoid of providence? But they do exist, and they do care for humankind: and they have put it absolutely in man's power to avoid falling into the true kinds of harm. — Marcus Aurelius

No, take more! What may be sworn by, both divine and human, Seal what I end withal! This double worship, Where [one] part does disdain with cause, the other Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom, Cannot conclude but by the yea and no Of general ignorance - it must omit Real necessities, and give way the while To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr'd, it follows Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore beseech you - You that will be less fearful than discreet; That love the fundamental part of state More than you doubt the change on't; that prefer A noble life before a long, and wish To jump a body with a dangerous physic That's sure of death without it - at once pluck out The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonor Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state Of that integrity which should become't; Not having the power to do the good it would, For th' ill which doth control't. — William Shakespeare

They are between. Not what they used to be, and not what they have become. In those times, they are nothing. And I am invisible, and I am nothing too. That is the true demimonde, Lucien, and the secret is, it is not always desperate and dark. Sometimes it is just nothing. No burden of potential or regret. There are worse things than being nothing, my friend. — Christopher Moore

The compass rose is nothing but a star with an infinite number of rays pointing in all directions.
It is the one true and perfect symbol of the universe.
And it is the one most accurate symbol of you.
Spread your arms in an embrace, throw your head back, and prepare to receive and send coordinates of being. For, at last you know - you are the navigator, the captain, and the ship. — Vera Nazarian

Can Christian preaching expect modern man to accept the mythical view of the world as true? To do so would be both senseless and impossible. It would be senseless, because there is nothing specifically Christian in the mythical view of the world as such. It is simply the cosmology of a pre-scientific age. — Rudolf Karl Bultmann

Admitting that this job isn't always easy doesn't make somebody a bad mother. At least, it shouldn't. We're all on this ride together. We are not the first ones to ever accidentally tell our children to shut up, or wonder - just for a moment - what it would be like if we'd never had children. We aren't the first mothers to feel overwhelmed and challenged and not entirely fulfilled by motherhood. And we certainly won't be the last. Nothing can be lost by admitting our weaknesses and imperfections to one another. In fact, quite the opposite is true. We will be better mothers, better wives, and better women if we are able to finally drop the act and get real. Who are we pretending for, anyway? — Jill Smokler

Prusis told me that the fluke's raging in Moscow, and there's nothing to bury people in. All the material's been used up. So I decided to come out and set things straight.'
Ostap, who had been listening curiously to the entire conversation, stepped in. 'Listen, pops. It's Paris where the flu is raging.'
'In Paris?'
'Well, yes. So go to Paris. You'll rake it in there! It's true that you'll have a few difficulties with the visa, but don't get down about it, pops. If Briand takes a shine to you, your life won't be half-bad: you'll be set up as personal coffin-maker to the municipality of Paris. — Ilya Ilf

So old and persistent did Mother's unhappiness seem that I had never stopped to ask its true cause. Nothing is more acceptable than that which we are born into. — Hisham Matar

I have always considered imaginative truth to be more profound, more loaded with significance, than every day reality ... Everything we dream about, and by that I mean everything we desire, is true (the myth of Icarus came before aviation, and if Ader or Bleriot started flying it is because all men have dreamed of flight). There is nothing truer than myth ... Reality does not have to be: it is simply what is. — Eugene Ionesco

Make no mistake, hiding one's true self away in a closet and creating a facade of heterosexuality is not without its consequences. It may appear to have a degree of safety but from my experience they are very unhealthy places and do all kinds of terrible things to individuals psychologically, emotionally and behaviourally ... to say nothing of projection. The damage of the fear, shame, guilt and self-loathing that exist inside a closet are often reflected unknowingly in the external life of the individual. In or out of the closet; there is a price to pay. Each individual must weigh up the consequences of honesty, openness, secrecy and deception for themselves. Coming out, for most of us, is like an exorcism that releases us of the darkness we have lived in for years and caused us to believe awful things about ourselves. On the other side of the looking glass are freedom, light and life. — Anthony Venn-Brown

On this day, Eustace was heating iron rods to fix a broken piece on his antique mower. He had a number of irons cooking in his forge at the same time and, distracted by trying to teach me the basics of blacksmithing, he allowed several of them to get too hot, to the point of compromising the strength of the metal. When he saw this, he said, "Damn! I have too many irons in the fire."
Which was the first time I had ever heard that expression used in its proper context. But such is the satisfaction of being around Eustace; everything suddenly seems to be in its proper context. He makes true a notion of frontier identity that has long since passed most men of his generation, most of whom are left with nothing but the vocabulary. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The more you work, the less you exist. I believe (at least, I used to believe, because I no longer think this is entirely true) that the artist is like someone carrying a mirror in which everyone can look and recognize themselves, so that the person who carries the mirror ends up being nothing. — Christian Boltanski

No one can stop death, Omari. It is normal and certain. And nothing should get in the way of a person's true destiny. — Stephen Whitfield

Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that what is taken to be true. It's the currency if living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions. What do you assume? — Tom Stoppard

One of the most commonly overlooked spiritual practices is daring to be completely honest with everyone you encounter. Some may say others cannot handle their honesty, but true honesty is not a strategy or a weapon of any kind. It is the willingness to be open and absolutely transparent in sharing how any moment feels in your heart. It has nothing to do with confrontation, accusation, or any form of blame. True honesty is the willingness to stand completely exposed, allowing the world to do what it may, and say what it will, only so you may know who you are - beyond all ideas. — Matthew Kahn

True religion is when you serve God to get nothing else but more of God. — J.D. Greear

Staying silent is like a slow growing cancer to the soul and a trait of a true coward. There is nothing intelligent about not standing up for yourself. You may not win every battle. However, everyone will at least know what you stood for - YOU. — Shannon L. Alder

Routine comes down like twilight on a harsh landscape, softening it until it is tolerable. The complexity is too subtle, too varied; the values are changing utterly with each lesion of vitality; it has begun to appear that we can learn nothing from the past with which to face the future - so we cease to be impulsive, convincible men, interested in what is ethically true by fine margins, we substitute rules of conduct for ideas of integrity, we value safety above romance, we become, quite unconsciously, pragmatic. — F Scott Fitzgerald

The Buddha said: Believe nothing because a wise person said it, Believe nothing because it is generally held. Believe nothing because it is written. Believe nothing because it is said to be Divine. Believe nothing because someone else believes it. But believe only what you yourself judge to be true. — Russill Paul

Happiness, true happiness, is an inner quality. It is a state of mind. If your mind is at peace, you are happy. If your mind is at peace, but you have nothing else, you can be happy. If you have everything the world can give - pleasure, possessions, power - but lack peace of mind, you can never be happy. — Dada Vaswani

I hate the word fine. It is descriptive of nothing. Socially acceptable filler with no true meaning. It's what you say when you are checking your feelings, unwilling or unable to let yourself be too happy or too sad. Fine. It's an emotional bookmark. A pause until you can continue the story. — Emme Burton

Finally we are being told the truth: life isn't always easy and pleasant. We already know this to be true, but somehow we tend to go through life thinking that there is something wrong with us when we experience sadness, grief, and physical and emotional pain. The first truth points out that this is just the way it is. There is nothing wrong with you: you have just been born into a realm where pain is a given. — Noah Levine

Nothing is needed so much as a holy indignation against sin. It is true that there is not enough love for God, and one sign of it is that there is not enough hatred for sin. — Vance Havner

We have devoted ourselves to the government and extension of the Church, and, among other objects, we have conceived it to be our duty to foster especially literature and the fine arts ... next to knowledge and true worship of the Creator, nothing is better or more useful to mankind than such studies. — Pope Leo X

If evolution is true, you could not know that it's true because your brain is nothing but chemicals. Think about that. — Kent Hovind

When we hurt for somebody, it's almost always related to our own emotions, with nothing to do with the other person. Sounds selfish, but it's true; and life is less complicated when we give in to the truth. — Vanessa Garden

In life, in true life, there can be nothing better than what is. Wanting something different than what is, is blasphemy. — Leo Tolstoy

There is nothing but water in the holy pools. I know, I have been swimming there. All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can't say a word. I know, I have been crying out to them. The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words. I looked through their covers one day sideways. What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through. If you have not lived through something, it is not true. — Kabir

It is hard to say anything as true as saying nothing. — Marty Rubin

Reading has a kernel to it, and the mere shed is little worth. In prayer there is such a thing as praying in prayer - a praying that is in the bowels of the prayer. So in praise there is a praising in song, an inward fire of intense devotion which is the life of the hallelujah. It is so in fasting: there is a fasting which is not fasting, and there is an inward fasting, a fasting of the soul, which is the soul of fasting. It is even so with the reading of the Scriptures. There is an interior reading, a kernel reading - a true and living reading of the Word. This is the soul of reading; and, if it be not there, the reading is a mechanical exercise, and profits nothing. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

It is in the nature of original contemporary art to present itself as a bad risk. And we the public ... should be proud of being in this predicament, because nothing else would seem to us quite true to life; and art, after all, is supposed to be a mirror of life. — Leo Steinberg

Nothing is true, nothing is real except love and our perception of love. — Debasish Mridha

We must have the daring to be nothing but ourselves if we are to know what true power is. — Danielle LaPorte

The True is the whole. But the whole is nothing other than the essence consummating itself through its development. Of the Absolute it must be said that it is essentially a result, that only in the end is it what it truly is; and that precisely in this consists its nature, viz. to be actual, subject, the spontaneous becoming of itself. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Natural beauty is always tiresome. It lacks that careless touch of artifice that is the hallmark of true originality. There is nothing so overdone and vulgar as unspoilt simplicity. — Emily Croy Barker

The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities. — Victor Hugo

The mistakes of my youth have allowed me to see what true love is through the experience of its absence. They have allowed me to see that love is not a feeling but an action. It is the laying down of one's life for the beloved. It is not the laying down of someone else's life or body for our own gratification. Ultimately, as a Christian, I have come to see that love is not merely an action but a commandment. We are commanded to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbor - and our enemy. Clearly true love has nothing to do with selfishness in any — Joseph Pearce

The right to or claim on something means nothing more than to do it, or take it or be able to use it without in any way thereby injuring another: simplicity is the sign of the true. This sheds light on the meaninglessness of the same questions, e.g. whether we have the right to take our own life. But as concerns the claims that others could personally have upon us, they rest upon the condition that we are living, and therefore cease if the condition ceases. That the one who no longer wants to live for himself should now continue to live merely as a machine for the use of others is an extravagant demand. — Arthur Schopenhauer

We are not to renounce our senses and experience, nor (that which is the undoubted Word of God) our natural Reason. For they are the talents which he hath put into our hands to negotiate, till the coming again of our blessed savior, and therefore not to be folded up in the napkin of an implicate faith, but employed in the purchase of justice, peace, and true religion. For though there be many things in God's Word above Reason
that is to say, which cannot by natural reason be either demonstrated or confuted
yet there is nothing contrary to it. — Thomas Hobbes

I know I am incapable of courage unless I have decided to give my life. Without that choice, there is nothing but flight. But you take such a decision on the spur of the moment and you cannot make it last for weeks and months. The mental effort is too great. Hence the rarity of true courage. We generally accept a kind of lame compromise between the destiny and the man, which reason rejects. — Gabriel Chevallier

A person's sense of morality and responsibility to other human beings, must not come from a professed faith or belief system. Because when it does - it is merely a projection and not an internalization. A person must be able to say "I believe this, I do this, I say this, because this is who I am; not because I see myself as a member of so and so belief system." Adam and Eve walked with God every day in the garden of Eden and yet, they still chose their own way. This only means that their own way had nothing to do with God's way. Even if they walked with God physically, daily, in a garden! This is witness to the fact that your sense of morality and responsibility must be incarnated within you. In fact, this is the beauty of God - to unfold your own spirit within you - and then you see your own spirit and say that it is indeed beautiful. — C. JoyBell C.

Honestly, you can't manage expectations. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with everyone else. And everyone else is going to have expectations, and all you can do is do your job and do your best and be true to yourself. — Erin Davie

I recognized that Christianity had taught me that sacrifice is the way of life. I forgot the neighbor who raped me, but I could see that when theology presents Jesus' death as God's sacrifice of his beloved child for the sake of the world, it teaches that the highest love is sacrifice. To make sacrifice or to be sacrificed is virtuous and redemptive.

But what if this is not true? What if nothing, or very little, is saved? What if the consequence of sacrifice is simply pain, the diminishment of life, fragmentation of the soul, abasement, shame? What if the severing of life is merely destructive of life and is not the path of love, courage, trust, and faith? What if the performance of sacrifice is a ritual in which some human beings bear loss and others are protected from accountability or moral expectations? — Rebecca Ann Parker

I have given up the ambition to be a great scholar. I want to be more- simply a human ... We are not true humans, but beings who live by a civilization inherited from the past, that keeps us hostage, that confines us. No freedom of movement. Nothing. Everything in us is killed by our calculations for our future, by our social position and cast. You see, I am not happy-yet I am happy. I suffer, but that is part of life. I live, I don't care about my existence, and that is the beginning of wisdom. — Albert Schweitzer

Nothing is beautiful and true. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Most other people, your wife included, with her unerring inner compass, seem to be able to get around without difficulty. They know where they are, where they have been, and where they are going, but you know nothing, you are forever lost in the moment, in the void of each successive moment that engulfs you, with no idea where true north is, since the four cardinal points do not exist for you, have never existed for you. A minor infirmity until now, with no dramatic consequences to speak of, but that doesn't mean a day won't come when you accidentally walk off the edge of a cliff. — Paul Auster

Then I noticed that my shadow was crying too, shedding clear, sharp shadow tears. Have you ever seen the shadows of tears, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? They're nothing like ordinary shadows. Nothing at all. They come here from some other, distant world, especially for our hearts. Or maybe not. It struck me then that the tears my shadow was shedding might be the real thing, and the tears that I was shedding were just shadows. You don't get it, I'm sure, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. When a naked seventeen-year-old girl is shedding tears in the moonlight, anything can happen. It's true. — Haruki Murakami

Alas! this is the crying sin of the age, this want of faith in the prevalence of a man. Nothing can be effected but by one man. Hewho wants help wants everything. True, this is the condition of our weakness, but it can never be the means of our recovery. We must first succeed alone, that we may enjoy our success together. — Henry David Thoreau

Vedanta is the teaching of the Upanishads, a collection of dialogues, stories, and poems, some of which go back to at least 800 B.C. Sophisticated Hindus do not think of God as a special and separate super-person who rules the world from above, like a monarch. Their God is "underneath" rather than "above" everything, and he (or it) plays the world from inside. One might say that if religion is the opium of the people, the Hindus have the inside dope. What is more, no Hindu can realize that he is God in disguise without seeing at the same time that this is true of everyone and everything else. In the Vedanta philosophy, nothing exists except God. There seem to be other things than God, but only because he is dreaming them up and making them his disguises to play hide-and-seek with himself. — Alan W. Watts

Relationships without a Divine Aim always "break up," for they are based on nothing. Divine Purpose could be described as forgiveness -- the undoing and releasing of the ego. Belief in the ego prevents awareness of True Union and Intimacy. The underlying fear of Intimacy and Union is the ego's fear of loss of itself, the 'personal self' and the 'personal world. — David Hoffmeister

It is time for us to take off our masks, to step out from behind our personas - whatever they might be: educators, activists, biologists, geologists, writers, farmers, ranchers, and bureaucrats - and admit we are lovers, engaged in an erotics of place. Loving the land. Honoring its mysteries. Acknowledging, embracing the spirit of place - there is nothing more legitimate and there is nothing more true. That is why we are here. That is why we do what we do. There is nothing intellectual about it. We love the land. It is a primal affair. — Terry Tempest Williams

Is the beam from a lighthouse affected by howling wind and rain? It remains perfectly steadfast and unaffected by the storm. Your true self is like that. Nothing can ever harm you once you are consciously aware that it is so. — Vernon Howard

Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature. — Michael Faraday

If truth is what each of us believed, and we each believe differently, there would be no such thing as truth. Truth stands against what's false. If there is no true and false, light and dark, right and wrong, then there is nothing to guide human morality. — Jill Williamson

In that way Vinteuil's phrase, like some theme, say, in Tristan, which represents to us also a certain acquisition of sentiment, has espoused our mortal state, had endued a vesture of humanity that was affecting enough. Its destiny was linked, for the future, with that of the human soul, of which it was one of the special, the most distinctive ornaments. Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is without existence; but, if so, we feel that it must be that these phrases of music, these conceptions which exist in relation to our dream, are nothing either. We shall perish, but we have for our hostages these divine captives who shall follow and share our fate. And death in their company is something less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps even less certain. — Marcel Proust

Rationally considered, nothing can be more absurd than the baptism of infants under any circumstances. No statement, no matter by whom it may be said to have been uttered, can make that true which is radically false. If an innocent child, unconscious of good or evil, irresponsible to God and man, incapable of thought or action, is not already, in accordance with Christian theology, a member of Christ, then no vicarious promise or priestly ablution can make him one. For if this were so, a similar ceremony under devil worship could make him a member of Satan. — Tennessee Celeste Claflin

Werewolves are not the subject of academe," she said, "but you know what the professors would be saying if they were. 'Monsters die out when the collective imagination no longer needs them. Species death like this is nothing more than a shift in the aggregate psychic agenda. In ages past the beast in man was hidden in the dark, disavowed. The transparency of modern history makes that impossible: We've seen ourselves in concentration camps, the gulags, the jungles, the killing fields, we've read ourselves in the annals of True Crime. Technology turned up the lights and now there's no getting away from the fact: The beast is redundant. It's been us all along. — Glen Duncan

In the old stories, despite the impossibility of the incidents, the interest is always real and human. The princes and princesses fall in love and marry
nothing could be more human than that. Their lives and loves are crossed by human sorrows ... The hero and heroine are persecuted or separated by cruel stepmothers or enchanters; they have wanderings and sorrows to suffer; they have adventures to achieve and difficulties to overcome; they must display courage, loyalty and address, courtesy, gentleness and gratitude. Thus they are living in a real human world, though it wears a mythical face, though there are giants and lions in the way. The old fairy tales which a silly sort of people disparage as too wicked and ferocious for the nursery, are really 'full of matter,' and unobtrusively teach the true lessons of our wayfaring in a world of perplexities and obstructions. — Andrew Lang

Jealousy is nothing but a fear of being abandoned — Heidi Heilig

The only thing that holds true happiness is that moment when you're in it. Nothing can be controlled. — Eliza Doolittle

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge. — Socrates

And I know,
There is nothing that I would not do for you,
Forever be true,
And I know,
Although times can be hard
We will see it through,
I'm forever in love with you. — Katy Perry

For a long time," he said at last, "when I was small, I pretended to myself that I was the bastard of some great man. All orphans do this, I think," he added dispassionately."It makes life easier to bear, to pretend that it will not always be as it is, that someone will come and restore you to your rightful place in the world."
He shrugged.
"Then I grew older, and knew that this was not true. No one would come to rescue me. But then-" he turned his head and gave Jamie a smile of surpassing sweetness.
"Then I grew older still, and discovered that after all, it was true. I am the son of a great man."
The hook touched Jamie's hand, hard and capable.
"I wish for nothing more. — Diana Gabaldon

What is remarkable in Burke's first performance," wrote his great nineteenth-century biographer John Morley, "is his discernment of the important fact that behind the intellectual disturbances in the sphere of philosophy, and the noisier agitations in the sphere of theology, there silently stalked a force that might shake the whole fabric of civil society itself."4 A caustic and simplistic skepticism of all traditional institutions, supposedly grounded in a scientific rationality that took nothing for granted but in fact willfully ignored the true complexity of social life, seemed to Burke poorly suited for the study of society, and even dangerous when applied to it. Burke would warn of, and contend with, this force for the rest of his life. — Yuval Levin

It is true that there is nothing like a blaze in the hearth to soothe the nerves and restore order to a house. — Donald Antrim

For what St. Augustine said is true, that one can sing nothing worthy of God save what one has received from Him. Wherefore though we look far and wide we will find no better songs nor songs more suitable to that purpose than the Psalms of David, which the Holy Spirit made and imparted to him. Thus, singing them we may be sure that our words come from God just as if He were to sing in us for His own exaltation. Wherefore, Chrysostom exhorts men, women, and children alike to get used to singing them, so as through this act of meditation to become as one with the choir of angels. — William Romaine

I think Kwan intended to show me the world is not a place but the vastness of the sou. And the soul is nothing more than love, limitless, endless, all that moves us toward knowing what is true ... If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them anytime with our hundred secret senses. — Amy Tan

Your belief without logical evidence & true knowledge is nothing but primitive superstition. — Md. Mujib Ullah

That's because true travel, the kind with no predetermined end, is one of the most selfish endeavors we can possibly undertake-an act in which we focus solely on our own fulfillment, with little regard to those we leave behind. After all, we're the ones venturing out into the big crazy world, filling up journals, growing like weeds. And we have the gall to think they're just sitting at home, soaking in security and stability.
It is only when we reopen these wrapped and ribboned boxes, upon our triumphant return home, that we discover nothing is the way we had left it before. — Stephanie Elizondo Griest

What is enlightenment? In the Korean tradition of Tao, it is known a Mu-Ah (Mu means "No" or "Nothing" and Ah means "Me"). It is no-me-ness, or egoless-ness. It means realizing the true, unchanging nature of the person you happen to be. — Ilchi Lee

Thou talk'st of nothing." "True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasty; Which is as thin of substance as the air; And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his face t the dew-dropping south. — William Shakespeare

There is one thing I can say for certain: the older a person gets, the lonelier he becomes. It's true for everyone. But maybe that isn't wrong. What I mean is, in a sense our lives are nothing more than a series of stages to help us get used to loneliness. That being the case, there's no reason to complain. And besides who would be complaint to anyway? (A Walk To Kobe, Granta 124: Travel) — Haruki Murakami

Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it an infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life. So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist. It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living, and the dead no longer are. — Epicurus

Nothing is to wonderful to be true — Michael Faraday

I need to give you one last bit of advice in the off chance this rather extraordinary and enviable situation in which you find yourself is actually true- that somehow you've fallen deep down into a Cordova story. I stared back at him. Be the good guy, he said. How do I know I'm the good guy? He pointed at me, nodding. A very wise question. You don't. Most bad guys think they're good. But there are a few signifiers. You'll be miserable. You'll be hated. You'll fumble around in the dark, alone and confused. You'll have little insight as to the true nature of things, not until the very last minute, and only if you have the stamina and the madness to go to the very, very end. But most importantly- and critically- you will act without regard for yourself. You'll be motivated by something that has nothing to do with the ego. You'll do it for justice. For grace. For love. Those large rather heroic qualities only the good have the strength to carry on their shoulders. And you'll listen. — Marisha Pessl

Anything can be an instrument, Chugurh said. Small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. to separate the act from the the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it? — Cormac McCarthy

You are a perfect child of a divine Creator, and nothing about you is imperfect. The Creator, being perfect, does not create the imperfect. It is therefore humble - not arrogant - to accept the divine perfection of your true self. In any moment when you behaved imperfectly, you did not become imperfect; in that moment, you simply forgot your perfection. You simply forgot who you are. And when we cannot remember who we are, we have a harder time behaving like the person who in our heart we most long to be. — Marianne Williamson

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

And here are trees and I know their gnarled surface, water and I feel its taste. These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes-how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I feel? Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine. You describe it to me and you teach me to classify it. You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases. At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multicolored universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. You explain this world to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know. — Albert Camus

It's all right."
"It's not. Nothing's right. I've never done a right thing in my life, it seems."
"That makes a pair of us then." Her lips pressed against the spot under his ear. "But I believe we are right together, don't you? People like us ... we have no talent for following rules. We can only follow our hearts. I've wronged people as well, but is it horribly wicked that I can't bring myself to regret it? It brought me to you."
He took one of her hands and kissed it. "You're so young, you can't know the meaning of true regret. It's never what you've done, love, it's what you've left undone. — Tessa Dare

Nothing is rarer than true good nature; they who are reputed to have it are generally only pliant or weak. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Keep true to the rare music in your heart, to the marvelous and unique form that is and shall always be nothing else but you. Keep to that and you can do no wrong, which I realize is easier said than done. — Mark Z. Danielewski

Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. — Timothy Snyder

Curiosity and irreverence go together. Curiosity cannot exist without the other. Curiosity asks, "Is this true?" "Just because this has always been the way, is the best or right way of life, the best or right religion, political or economic value, morality?" To the questioner, nothing is sacred. He detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality, rebels against any repression of a free, open search of ideas no matter where they may lead. He is challenging, insulting, agitating, discrediting. He stirs unrest. — Saul D. Alinsky

Believe nothing because it is written in books. Believe nothing because wise men say it is so. Believe nothing because it is religious doctrine. Believe it only because you yourself know it to be true. — Gautama Buddha

Things I learned from a man called "The Nazarene"
1- Being poor does not equal being miserable.
2- People will judge you, but their judgment should not define who you are.
3- Going against what others hold as true is not necessarily a bad thing.
4- Everyone is sacred.
5- Life is sometimes a lonely and dry place, like desert, but those times are there to help us meditate on what is truly important in our lives.
6- Complaining or getting angry because there is a storm in our lives solves nothing; embrace the storm and keep calm.
7- Treasure and protect the children of the world, they hold the key of what is pure and innocent; they are the way to freedom.
8- We are free to be who we want to be, it is our choice to be slaves or kings.
9- Fear nothing.
10- The person you don't like is also your neighbor.
11- The words following "I AM" define who we are, we must choose wisely. — Martin Suarez

This perpetual fear, always accompanying mankind in the ignorance of causes, as it were in the dark, must needs have for object something. And therefore when there is nothing to be seen, there is nothing to accuse, either of their good, or evil fortune, but some power, or agent invisible: in which sense perhaps it was, that some of the old poets said, that the gods were at first created by human fear: which spoken of the gods, that is to say, of the many gods of the Gentiles, is very true. — Christopher Hitchens

More important by far is that one be honest with oneself. I have always been, and it has cost me dearly. Nothing matters but the truth. I have dedicated my life to the pursuit of it, no matter where it hides. That is the heart of science, Will Henry, the true monster we pursue. — Rick Yancey

I remember so many things [. . .] The problem is, only half of them are true . . . and the half which is true keeps changing places with the half which is false. — Peter David

Nothing can be true which is either complete or vacant; every touch is false which does not suggest more than it represents, and every space is false which represents nothing. — John Ruskin

The most important thing is to express your true nature in the simplest, most adequate way and to appreciate it in the smallest existence. — Shunryu Suzuki

But no matte what kind of an understanding is adopted, whether associated with positivism, which asserts that the truth can only be reached by trial and error, or rationalism, which asserts that everything can be explained and grasped by reason, whether the perspective of romanticism, which overemphasizes imagination and sensitivity, or an approach based on ardent naturalism, whether based on realism, which aims to describe everything as it is including its shortcomings, or a curiosity-raising approach such as surrealism, whether idealism, which asserts that there is nothing real but ideas, or cubism, which asserts that there is nothing real but instead of direct description, or some other such current or perspective, that is not true poetry. — M. Fethullah Gulen

How could you turn your back and walk off when there was so much left to say,
How could you give up on me when it was nothing but just a evil phase,
Why would you build boundaries when you knew they were going to break,
Why wouldn't you come back as you know i will always cross your way cause this is real and not a mistake. — Khushboo Suneja

Imagine what else is true if you understood there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you. — Jim Palmer

You're no fun at all, you boys, you do nothing but worry. You need to think on the sunny side o' this. The worst that can happen is that Bethod don't show!'
'The worst?' Dogman stared at him. 'You sure? What about if Bethod does come, and his Carls kick your wall over like a pile o' turds and kill every last one of us?'
Crummock's brow furrowed. He frowned down at the ground. He squinted up at the clouds. 'True,' he said, breaking out in a smile. 'That is worse. You got a fast mind, lad.'
Dogman gave a long sigh, and stared down into the valley. — Joe Abercrombie

To be deeply loved, means a willingness to cut yourself wide open, exposing your vulnerabilities ... hopes, hurts, fears and flaws. Hiding behind the highlight reel of who you are, is the real you and that person is just as worthy of love. There is nothing more terrifying or fulfilling, than complete love, it's worth the risk ... reach for it. — Jaeda DeWalt

A hero is just somebody who does the right thing when it would be far, far easier to do nothing.
-Cedric Diggory- — G. Norman Lippert

And yet ... marriage seems to be the worst thing to happen to me. Though there are days I would argue that that wasn't true at all, and that the worst thing to happen to me is Nick Hudson. Not that picking one definitive answer would change the outcome. Nothing can change that now. Nothing dead can be brought back to life, literally or otherwise. — Crystal Cierlak

Now although man is created for the possession of happiness, yet, having deviated from his true end, his nature has become deformed and is entirely repugnant to true beatitude. And on this account we are forced to submit to God this depraved nature of ours which fills our understanding with so many occupations, and causes us to deviate from the true path, in order that he may entirely consume it until nothing remains there but himself; otherwise the soul could never attain stability nor repose, for she was created for no other end. — Catherine Of Genoa