Sayings & Quotes

[Lilith7]

"I have never admitted that I am more than 29, or 30 at the most. 29 when there are pink shades, 30 when there are not."

"Lead me not into temptation I can find the way myself."

"Hardening of the attitudes is one of the most dangerous diseases on this earth."

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world"

Oscar Wilde

[Lilith7]

"Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault."


"Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. "

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.”

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”
Oscar Wilde


“If men could get pregnant, then abortion would be a sacrament.”
Irish woman taxi driver, to Flo Kennedy & Gloria Steinem.

“I could go on and on, but the reality is that violence and discrimination against women  are still endemic in every society in the world.”
Sue Kedgely


"I cannot understand anti abortion arguments that centre on the sanctity of life. As a species we've fairly comprehensively demonstrated that we don’t believe in the sanctity of life. the shrugging acceptance of war, famine, epidemic, pain and life long poverty show us that. Whatever we tell ourselves, we've only made the most feeble of efforts to really treat human life as sacred'.
Caitlin Moran

[Lilith7]

“It has been said that marriage diminishes man, but it almost always annihilates woman.”
Simone de Beauvoir


"Men of quality do not fear equality."
Anon

"Feminism isn't simply about being a woman in a position of power. It's battling systemic inequities; it's a social justice movement that believes sexism, racism and classism exist and interconnect, and that they should be consistently challenged."
Jessica Valenti

"Well behaved women rarely make history."
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

"Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; and since man exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially fortunate that this authority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being. For the Jew, Mohammedans, and Christians, among others, man is Master by divine right; the fear of God will therefore repress any impulse to revolt in the downtrodden female."
Simone de Beauvoir

[Lilith7]

“It should be added that the men who most respect embryonic life are the same ones who do not hesitate to send young adults to death in war.”
Simone de Beauvoir

“I want any young men who buy a gun to be treated like young women who seek an abortion. Think about it: a mandatory 48-hours waiting period, written permission from a parent or a judge, a note from a doctor proving that he understands what he is about to do, time spent watching a video on individual and mass murders, traveling hundreds of miles at his own expense to the nearest gun shop, and walking through protestors holding photos of loved ones killed by guns, protestor who call him a murderer.
After all, it makes more sense to do this for young men seeking guns than for young women seeking an abortion. No young woman needing reproductive freedom has ever murdered a roomful of strangers.”
Anon (often attributed to Gloria Steinem)


"The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities."

"The long unmeasured pulse of time moves everything. There is nothing hidden that it cannot bring to light, nothing once known that may not become unknown. Nothing is impossible."     
Sophocles

[Lilith7]

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?’
“Who will guard the guards?’


'The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers.'

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

"The spiritual eyesight improves as the physical eyesight declines."

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

Plato - 1st Century.

[Lilith7]

“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.”


"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
Plato


"From the deepest desires often comes the deadliest hate."
Socrates


“Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself and in your way of thinking. "

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."

"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury."

Marcus Aurelius

[Lilith7]

“The happiness of your life depends  on the quality of your thoughts ”

"Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil."

"The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away."

"Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, 'This is a misfortune' but 'To bear this worthily is good fortune.'"

"Poverty is the mother of crime."

Marcus Aurelius.

[Lilith7]

"Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh."


Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight."


"Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability."

"How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks."

"Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there."
Marcus Aurelius

[Lilith7]

"Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away."      

"Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts."


"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.”

Marcus Aurelius

[Lilith7]

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”


“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”

“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
Marcus Aurelius

[Lilith7]

“Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.”

“How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life”

"Think of all the years passed by in which you said to yourself "I'll do it tomorrow," and how the gods have again and again granted you periods of grace of which you have not availed yourself. It is time to realize that you are a member of the Universe, that you are born of Nature itself, and to know that a limit has been set to your time. Use every moment wisely, to perceive your inner refulgence, or 'twill be gone and nevermore within your reach."
Marcus Aurelius

“They who say that we should love our fellow citizens but not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which benevolence and justice would perish forever.”


“If you have a garden & a library, you have everything you need.”

Marcus Tulius Cicero

[Lilith7]

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be
tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should
be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to
work, instead of living on public assistance."
Marcus Tulius Cicero - 55 BC


“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
Epicurus (341-270BC)


"Of all the things which wisdom provides
to make life entirely happy
much the greatest is
the possession of friendship."
Marcus Tulius Cicero


"Non nobis solum nati sumus."
(We are not born for ourselves alone.)

"Silence is one of the great arts of conversation."

"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living."

Marcus Tulius Cicero

[Lilith7]

"The countenance is the portrait of the soul, & the eyes mark its intentions."

"Any man can make mistakes, but only a fool persists in his error."


"The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity & the brute by instinct."

"It is not by muscle, speed or dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character & judgement."

"Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent."

"The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk."

"Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body."

"Brevity is a great charm of eloquence."
Marcus Tulius Cicero

[Lilith7]

"The harvest of old age is the recollection & abundance of blessing previously secured."

"Friendship improves happiness & abates misery, by the doubling of our joy & the dividing of our grief."
Marcus Tulius Cicero

"We jail petty thieves, but appoint the great ones to public office."
Aesop

'In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.'
Hypatia

"A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether he is doing right or wrong."

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.'
Socrates

[Lilith7]

"Democracy is when there is a majority of free, poor men who have authority to rule, while oligarchy is when it is in the hands of the wealthy and well-born, who are a minority."
Aristotle

"An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics."
Plutarch


"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."
Aristotle

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it"
Aristotle

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."
Aristotle


"A friend to all is a friend to none."
Aristotle


"To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain perpetually a child. For what is the worth of a human life unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history."
Marcus Tullius Cicero

[Lilith7]

"The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk."

"Politicians are not born; they are excreted."
Marcus Tullius Cicero

"Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul."
Pythagoras

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful ."
Lucius Annaeus Seneco.

"It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. "
Seneca

[Lilith7]

"No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted."
Aesop

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
Socrates

"It is not my crimes that will convict me," he said. "But instead, rumour, gossip; the fact that by whispering together you will persuade yourselves that I am guilty."
Socrates


"He aha te mea nui o te ao?
He tangata! He tangata! He tangata!"

What is the most important thing in the world?
It is people! It is people! It is people!


"Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou
ka ora ai te iwi "
With your food basket and my food basket
the people will thrive .


"Kia ora te marino, kia ora whakapapa
Pounamu te moana,
Kia tere karohirohi i mua i tou
Huarahi."
May calm sea be spread around you,
May the sea glisten like
Greenstone & the shimmer of
Summer dance across your path.

“Me he toka tu moana.”
Your strength is like a rock standing in the ocean.


"Maa ngaa parirau te manu ka rere." 
It is the wings that allow the bird to fly.


"Whāia te iti kahurangi ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei"
Seek the treasure you value most dearly: if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain

Maori proverbs

[Lilith7]

"Ka pū te ruha, ka hao te rangatahi"
As a old net withers another is remade


"Ta te tamariki tana mahi wawahi tahā"
It is the job of the children to smash the calabash

"Te toto o te tangata, he kai,
Te orange o te tangata, he whenua"
(The blood of man is supplied by food,
The sustenance of man is supplied by land.)


"He aroha whakato.
He aroha puta mai."
(If kindness is sown
Then kindness you shall receive.)


'E hara kia tatou anake .'
Not unto ourselves alone.

Maori proverbs

[Lilith7]

"Maa ngaa parirau te manu ka rere." 
It is the wings that allow the bird to fly.

"Whatungarongaro te tangata toitū te whenua."
As man disappears from sight, the land remains
(This demonstrates the holistic values of the Maori, and the utmost respect of Papatuanuku, the mother of the earth.)

"He tangata takahi manuhiri, he marae puehu"
A person who mistreats his guest has a dusty Marae
(Someone who disregards his visitors will soon find he has no visitors at all. This accentuates the importance of Manaakitanga, or hospitality with Maori society and culture.)

[Lilith7]

"Ka mate te kāinga tahi, ka ora te kāinga rua"
When one house dies, a second lives
(Historically used when two houses or families are merged due to the unfortunate circumstances of one particular family. However this could be used when something good emerges from misfortune.)


"Moe atu nga ringa raupo"
Marry a man with calloused hands

"Tama tu tama ora, tama noho tama mate."
An active person will remain healthy while a lazy one will become sick
(An word of encouragement to urge children to participate in activities and exercise. It is like saying, To stand is to live, to lie down is to die.)