PHILOSOPHICAL QUOTES FROM LITERATURE

 PHILOSOPHICAL QUOTES FROM LITERATURE

To be a good teacher you have to be good at finding ways to get young people interested in the subject - to arouse their curiosity. This requires a profound appreciation of the way young people think and feel - something which many people lose as they pursue a narrow interest in their chosen subject. People may graduate from university with an excellent qualification but then find it almost impossible to capture the imaginations of students who come into the classroom wishing they were still out in the yard with their mates. Sometimes people who are too hooked on their own subject quickly become disillusioned with the difficulties of working with teenagers who are not patiently waiting to hear about poetry or photosynthesis.

               

                                                      LITERARY QUOTES

                                    OPENING / FIRST LINES / SENTENCES (from novels)

Ursula K. Le Guin once said: "First sentences are doors to worlds." Here are some of the best in literature.

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. Franz Kafka, (The Metamorphosis, 1915).

For a long time, I went to bed early. Marcel Proust, (Swann's Way, 1913)

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Leo Tolstoy, (Anna Karenina, 1877).

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea.

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. Raphael Sabatini, (Scaramouche, 1921).

Here's how The Great Gatsby begins: In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, (The Great Gatsby, 1925).

Explanation: Nick Carraway is the narrator of this story. He is portrayed as an Everyman, in other words, a typical human being. Nick is presented as having a level of uprightness that the other characters lack. The inclusion of this piece of paternal advice at the very start of his narration suggests that he is exhorting us to reserve judgment ourselves.

I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho' not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull; He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence (*) he had married my Mother. Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719).

(*) literary (1. from where, 2. for which reason)

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me. Laurence Sterne, (Tristram Shandy (1767)

If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog. Saul Bellow, (Herzog)

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951).

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Jane Austen, (Pride and Prejudice, 1813).

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963)

It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. Paul Auster, (City of Glass, 1985)

It was like so, but wasn't. Richard Powers, (Galatea 2.2, 1995).

It was love at first sight. Joseph Heller, (Catch-22, 1961).

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859).

Justice?—You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law. William Gaddis, A Frolic of His Own (1994)

Mother died today. Albert Camus, (The Stranger, 1942).

Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women. Charles Johnson, Middle Passage (1990).

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. Virginia Woolf, (Mrs. Dalloway).

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. Anne Tyler, (Back when we were grownups). 

Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. Franz Kafka, (The Trial, 1925).

Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago. Miguel de Cervantes, (Don Quixote, 1605).

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. G. K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904).

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)

This is the saddest story I have ever heard. Ford Madox Ford, (The Good Soldier, 1915).

Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye (1988).

To be born again, first you have to die. Salman Rushdie, (The Satanic Verses, 1988).

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. Charles Dickens, (David Copperfield, 1850)

You better not never tell nobody but God. I'd kill you mammy. Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982)

                                                        CLOSING / FINAL LINES

(VOY POR LA 25)

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ehisosifo1/beautiful-last-lines-literature-books

Don’t judge a book by its cover - instead, try and wait for the last line.

After all, tomorrow is another day. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell.

And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden). 

And we live on. God help us. Gregory David Roberts, (Shantaram)

Darling,' replied Valentine, 'has not the count just told us that all human wisdom is summed up in two words?. Wait and hope. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate. Albert Camus, (The Stranger).

Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain. Thomas Hardy, (Mayor of Casterbridge) 

He didn't think about it, he went straight to a seat facing forwards, so that he could see where he was going. The Outcast, Sadie Jones.

I am thinking of angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita. Vladimir Nabokov, (Lolita).

I don’t have anything else to add. I just wanted to make sure I had the last word. I think I’ve earned that. Gillian Flynn, (Gone girl).

I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be. Kazuo Ishiguro, (Never Let Me Go).

I’m a liar and a cheat and a coward, but I will never, ever, rarely let a friend down. Mark Lawrence, (The Wheel of Osheim).

Isn't it pretty to think so? Ernest Hemingway, (The sun also rises).

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both. E.B. White, (Charlotte's Web). 

It's funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. 

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger.

So, if this does end up being my last letter, please believe that things are good with me, and even when they're not, they will be soon enough. And I will believe the same about you. Love always, Charlie. Stephen Chbosky, (Perks of Being a Wallflower).

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. F.Scott Fitzgerald, (The Great Gatsby, 1925).

The class met on Tuesdays. No books were required. The subject was the meaning of life. It was taught from experience. The teaching goes on. Mitch Albom, (Tuesdays with Morrie)

The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling.

There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it. Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx.

They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things, if love can ever be called that. Leigh Bardugo, (The Grisha)

Whatever our struggles and triumphs (are /may be), however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper. Memoirs of a Geisha, A. Golden.

OSCAR WILDE

A bad woman is the sort of woman a man never gets tired of. Oscar Wilde, (A Woman of No Importance), Oscar Wilde.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. Oscar Wilde, (A Woman of No Importance, 1893).

Duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself. Oscar Wilde, (A Woman of No Importance, 1893).

Examinations are of no value whatsoever. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him. Oscar Wilde, (A Woman of No Importance, 1893).

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly rational being. Oscar Wilde, (A Woman of No Importance, 1893).

I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living. Oscar Wilde, (A Woman of No Importance, 1893).

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry. Oscar Wilde, (A Woman of No Importance, 1893).

The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived. Oscar Wilde, (A Woman of No Importance, 1893).

To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people, that is all! Oscar Wilde, (A Woman of No Importance, 1893).

Who, being loved, is poor? Oh, no one. I hate my riches. They are a burden. Let him share it with me. Oscar Wilde, (A Woman of No Importance, 1893).

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy, No man does. That is his.

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of being earnest, (1895)

The aim of life is self-development, to realize one's nature. That's what we're here for. Oscar Wilde, (The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890).

CHARLES DICKENS

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts. Charles Dickens, (Hard times, 1854)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. As you like it.

'I can see he's not in your good books,' said the messenger. 'No, and if he were I would burn my library. Much ado about nothing.

I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue. Much ado about nothing.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so ... Hamlet.

To be, or not to be, that is the question. Hamlet.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. The Tempest, 1611.

Explanation: Here what Prospero is referring to is the sleep of death. He is alluding to the transitory nature of life, likening it to the temporary world of acting and the ephemeral realm of the spirits.

We know what we are, but (know) not what we may be. Hamlet.

When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Much ado about nothing.

JOHN STEINBECK

People like you to be something, preferably what they are. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

A man so painfully in love is capable of self-torture beyond belief. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

... It's awful not to be loved. It's the worst thing in the world...It makes you mean, and violent, and cruel. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

I wonder how many people I have looked at all my life and never really seen. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

No one who is young is ever going to be old. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

I believe that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. I would fight for the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

But you must give him some sign, some sign that you love him... or he'll never be a man. All his life he'll feel guilty and alone unless you release him. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

Maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure, never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself? John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

The Irish are a dark people with a gift for suffering way past their deserving. It's said that without whiskey to soak and soften the world, they'd kill themselves. John Steinbeck, (East of Eden, 1952).

STEPHEN KING

@ Do we really need to own what they're selling, become what they want us to become, think what they want us to think. Fight Club.

@ 'More is Less' and vice-versa, as you see through Tyler Durden, who is almost the opposite of The narrator in the sense of materialism. "Advertisement has us chasing cars and clothes, getting jobs we don't want to buy shit we don't need." This is very important in the understanding of Fight Club, as it shows that big-name brands and in-fashion things are only wanted because of their advertisement and reputation among the lifeless society who live in this world. Basically, people are living unnecessary lives as they work the job that they can@ The story of his escape is a metaphor for your life. He’s trapped in prison and wrongfully there. Don’t you feel like it’s not your fault you’re in the situation you’re in?. The best way to start your escape is to just do it. Take action. Don’t listen to the ugly people. Follow your passion or dreams.

@ What Does “Get Busy Living” Mean to You?: Does it mean start living your life how you dream it to be now?. Does it mean carpe diem?. Does it mean following your passion?. Does it mean taking less pay but having more free time? To sum up everything I wrote: Are you truly living life or just waiting to die?

“Am I weird?"

"Yeah. But so what? Everybody's weird.” Stephen King, Different Seasons.

I used to laugh at that old wheeze about a man wanting his son to be better than he was, but as I get older it seems less funny and more true. Stephen King, Different Seasons.

It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living or get busy dying.....there ain't nothing inbetween. Stephen King, Different Seasons.

Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free. Stephen King, Different Seasons.

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12, Jesus, did you?

Stephen King, (Different Seasons, Stand by me).

Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. Stephen King, Different Seasons.

The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them. They are the things you get ashamed of. It's hard to make strangers care about the good things in your life. Stephen King, Different Seasons.

There's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst. Stephen King, Different Seasons.

BOOK LINES

After all, tomorrow is another day!. Margaret Mitchell, (Gone with the Wind, 1936)

All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time. Mitch Albon, (The Five People You Meet In Heaven).

All I wanted was to be loved for myself. Gaston Jeroux, (The Phantom of the Opera, 1909).

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. J.R.R. Tolkien, (The Fellowship of the Ring).

Because when you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worth while. Lucy Maud Montgomery, (Anne of Green Gables).

Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful. Mary Shelley, (Frankenstein, 1818). 

But I, being poor, have only my dreams.  William Butler Yeats, (The Wind Among the Reeds).

But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave. Milan Kundera, (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984).

Do not squander time; for that’s the stuff life is made of. Benjamin Franklin.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Leo Tolstoy, (Anna Karenina, 1877).

He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. Wuthering Heights (1847), Emily Brontë, (Wuthering Heights, 1847)

I am alone and miserable. Only someone as ugly as I am could love me. Mary Shelley, (Frankenstein, 1818).

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains. Anne Frank, (The Diary of Anne Frank, 1947)

I know what I want, I have a goal, an opinion, I have a religion and love. Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. Anne Frank, (The Diary of Anne Frank, 1947).

I want you to be weak. As weak as I am. Milan Kundera, (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear! Mary Shelley, (Frankensteinj, 1818).

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of. Bruce Lee.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. J. Salinger, (The Catcher in the Rye, 1951).

In order for there to be a mirror of the world, it is necessary that the world have a form.

Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose).

In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart ... Anne Frank, (The Diary of Anne Frank).

In the end, you have to choose whether or not to trust someone. And I do choose to trust him. I do. Sophie Kinsella, (Shopaholic & Baby, 2007).

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Jane Austen, (Pride and Prejudice, 1813).

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. Andre Gide, (Autumn Leaves).

It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. I don’t want to die without any scars. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club.

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. J.K. Rowling, (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. Charles Dickens, (A Tale of Two Cities, 1859).

Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all. Milan Kundera, (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984).

Lightness may seem at first to be a sweet deal, no responsability, no judgment, no meaning, sounds like fun, at first. But eventually, we would like for our lives to mean something. We want them to have weight and significance, because we want them to matter. Milan Kundera, (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984).

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1847).

Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.

Milan Kundera, (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984).

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses, 1833).

Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite ... Milan Kundera, (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984).

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. Virginia Woolf, (Mrs. Dalloway, 1925).

Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. Harper Lee, To kill a Mockingbird.

Explanation: This quote is part of Atticus Finch’s lesson to his son Jem on the subject of courage. Atticus wants Jem to understand that courage comes in different forms; they are talking about the death of Mrs Dubose who, before she died, successfully fought a morphine addiction.

Sometimes you make up your mind about something without knowing why, and your decision persists by the power of inertia. Every year it gets harder to change. Milan Kundera, (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984).

Surely there can't be so many countries worth dying for. Anything worth living for, is worth dying for. And anything worth dying for, is certainly worth living for. Joseph Heller, Catch 22.

This is the saddest story I have ever heard. Ford Madox Ford, (The Good Soldier, 1915).

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. H. Jackson Jr, (P.S. I Love You).

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same. Anne Frank, (Place for writing thoughts, 2020).

We live as we dream, alone .... Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness).

What necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surer, (and) the Future so much brighter? Jane Eyre (1847), Charlotte Bronte.

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. Emily Bronte, (Wuthering Heights, 1845)

Explanation: Here Cathy is talking to Nelly, the family servant, about her inescapable connection to Heathcliff. She recognises that her feelings for Linton, whom she is going to marry, are entirely different to her almost spiritual relationship with Heathcliff.

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. Milan Kundera, (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984)

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. Charles Dickens, (David Copperfield, 1850).

Who, being loved, is poor? Oscar WIlde, A Woman of No Importance.

Your father and I are learning that middle age is when you have two choices and you choose the one that gets you home earlier. Lyndon Johnson, I love you.