Favourite quotes

"Ogni tanto mi chiedo cosa mai stiamo aspettando". Silenzio. "Che sia troppo tardi, Madame" ["Every so often I wonder what on earth we are waiting for." Silence. "For it to be too late, Madame".] (Alessandro Baricco)

Les hommes sont le produit de leur histoire, mais il n’en sont pas les prisonniers. Ce qu’ils font, ils le décident… (André Sibomana)

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been small in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way. (Viktor Frankl)

The essential prerequisites for human rights work are incurable optimism, patience and persistence and a long attention span. (Katarina Tomasevski)

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. (Mark Twain)

Tutto insegna, sta a noi imparare. [Everything teaches us something; it is up to us to learn.] (My Mum)

La fantasia è un posto dove ci piove dentro. [Fantasy is a place where it rains.] (Italo Calvino)

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. (Douglas Adams)

Never again will a single story be told as though it’s the only one. (John Berger)

On peut tuer des gens ; on ne peut pas tuer leurs idées. (André Sibomana)

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve. (Karl Popper)

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. (Mark Twain)

No one can offend you without your permission. (Eleanor Roosevelt)

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. (Maya Anghelou)

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them. (Epictetus)

A room without books is like a body without a soul. (Marcus Tullius Cicero)

Then there are the rest. The students who don’t read and are terrorized from an early age by the radioactive effect of meaning. Those who think they are stupid... Condemned to a life without books... A life without answers... And before long without questions too. (Daniel Pennac)

Accadono cose che sono come domande. Passa un minuto, oppure anni, e poi la vita risponde. [Things happen that are like questions. It takes one minute, or years, and then life answers.] (Alessandro Baricco)

The experience of everyday life negated by what we want it to be, negated in turn by what we hope it really is. (Alberto Manguel)

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. (Oscar Wilde)

I had nothing to offer anybody, except my own confusion. (Jack Kerouac)

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. (Abraham Lincoln)

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. (Albert Einstein)

Scrivere è sempre nascondere qualcosa in modo che venga poi scoperto. [Writing always means hiding something in such a way that it then is discovered.] (Italo Calvino)

There are no gains without pains. (Benjamin Franklin)

Don't let them take the fight outta you. (Ben Harper)

We chartered a course midway between panic and resolve. We resolved not to panic. (Marek Waldorf)