History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon
1. "Live in contact with dreams and you will get something of their charm: live in contact with facts and you will get something of their brutality. I wish I could find a country to live in where the facts were not brutal and the dreams not real."
George Bernard Shaw, "John Bull’s Other Island"
Other categories: Reality and Imagination
2. "There is only one passion, the passion for happiness."
Denis Diderot
Other categories: Happiness
3. "Man is the one who desires, woman the one who is desired. This is woman’s entire but decisive advantage. Through man’s passions, nature has given man into woman’s hands, and the woman who does not know how to make him her subject, her slave, her toy, and how to betray him with a smile in the end is not wise."
Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch, "Venus in Furs"
Other categories: Woman and Man
4. "Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them."
John Updike, "Self-Consciousness: Memoirs"
5. "Death is the most blessed dream."
Georg Büchner, "Leonce and Lena"
Other categories: Life and Death
6. "To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep."
Joan Klempner
7. "Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded."
Denis Diderot, "Philosophical Thoughts"
8. "The real test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has invented for himself, but how well he plays the role that destiny assigned to him."
Jan Patocka
Other categories: Human
9. "Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries. Only in proportion as we are desirious of living more do we really live."
Jose Ortega y Gasset, "The Dehumanization of Art"
Other categories: Life and Death
10. "Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need."
Gaston Bachelard
Other categories: Human
11. "God, that checkroom of our dreams."
Jean Rostand, "The Substance of Man"
Other categories: God and Religion
12. "A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream."
Gaston Bachelard
Other categories: Art and Culture
13. "A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams."
John Barrymore
Other categories: Sorrow and Nostalgia -:- Youth and Age
14. "Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are foosteps on the moon."
(?)
15. "Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment."
Jean Baudrillard, "Cool Memories"
Other categories: Science and Technology
16. "Within your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go."
Louise Driscoll
17. "If you pay attention to your dreams, they will begin to speak to you."
Natalie Goldberg
18. "Sanity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled."
George Santayana
Other categories: Normality and Madness
19. "Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you."
Marsha Norman
20. "Finding your passion is about connecting the dots between your head and your heart."
Maria Marsala
Other categories: Various
21. "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
22. "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler."
Henry David Thoreau
Other categories: Reality and Imagination
23. "Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything."
Napoleon Hill
Other categories: Success and Fame
24. "Become the change you want to see."
Oprah Winfrey
Other categories: Reality and Imagination
25. "If you want your dreams to come true, don't sleep."
Jewish proverb
Other categories: Work and Laziness
26. "Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds."
Saint Teresa of Avila (Teresa de Jesús)
Other categories: Human
27. "You can live in your dreams, but only if you are worthy of them."
Harlan Ellison
28. "Life + Desire = Man; Life - Desire = God"
Sathya Sai Baba
Other categories: God and Religion -:- Human
29. "Before your dreams can come true, you have to have those dreams."
Joyce Brothers
30. "Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion."
Arthur Koestler
Other categories: Joy and Sadness
31. "Man is an animal which, alone among the animals, refuses to be satisfied by the fulfillment of animal desires."
Alexander Graham Bell
Other categories: Human -:- Nature and Animals
32. "When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go."
Carol Burnett
33. "When the legends die, the dreams end; there is no more greatness."
Tecumseh
Other categories: Various
34. "It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it."
Eugene V. Debs
Other categories: Various
35. "The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality."
James A. Michener
Other categories: Life and Death -:- Reality and Imagination
36. "Writing is nothing more than a guided dream."
Jorge Luis Borges
Other categories: Art and Culture
37. "The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination."
Tommy Lasorda
Other categories: Optimism and Hope -:- Success and Fame
38. "The best reason for having dreams is that in dreams no reasons are necessary."
Ashleigh Brilliant
39. "Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish plays."
Friedrich von Schiller
Other categories: Defeates and Mistakes
40. "The greatest tragedy is when man gives up what he wants most for what he wants now!"
(?)
41. "The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man."
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein
Other categories: Woman and Man
42. "A person is only as big as the dream they dare to live."
(?)
43. "We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents."
Eric Hoffer
Other categories: Talent and Genius
44. "When we can't dream any longer we die."
Emma Goldman
Other categories: Life and Death
45. "A 'wish' changes nothing. A 'decision' changes everything!"
(?)
Other categories: Various
46. "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
Eleanor Roosevelt
Other categories: Time and Passing
47. "The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness."
Francis Herbert Bradley, "Aphorisms"
Other categories: Happiness
48. "A goal without a plan is just a wish."
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
49. "A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline."
Harvey Mackay
Other categories: Success and Fame
50. "Love is when you don't want to go to sleep because reality is better than a dream."
(?)
Other categories: Love -:- Reality and Imagination
2007, collected and compiled by Kazimierz Matan
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