Nate’s 9: Favorite Quotes
Winding
down to the final couple of Nate’s 9 blogs, this was a topic that I’ve really
wanted to do from the get go. After
getting started on it though, I realized how extreme of a topic that quotes
are, and how difficult it would be to whittle it down to nine. There are essentially hundreds of thousands
of great quotes, and I wouldn’t be able to navigate through all of them to get
it down to single digits. I decided to
go with a different method instead, and picked out some quotes that I try to
live by on a daily basis. Some are
favorites, some are just true, some brought a smile to my face, and some are
goals of mine. Hope you enjoy the list,
and thanks for taking the time to read some of these nine over the last 2
years. Peace.
Note: I’ve decided to leave the names of the
people who have made these statements out of my blog for the sole purpose of
the reader not having to make judgments about the author. There’s always
copying and pasting to Google if your curiosity gets the best of you!
Note II: The Waste Land
For
success, attitude is equally as important as ability.
When
I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life.
When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I
wrote down “happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told
them they didn’t understand life.
As
a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.
I
dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned
about their motives.
Your
best teacher is your last mistake.
If
you love a flower, don’t pick it up. Because if you pick it up, it dies, and
ceases to be what you loved. So, if you love a flower, let it be.
Love
is not about possession. Love is about
appreciation.
Live
in such a way, that if someone spoke badly of you, no one would ever believe
it.
"I
wanted to see exotic Vietnam Southeast Asia .
I, uh, I wanted to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient
culture, and kill them."
Sports
do not build character. They reveal it.
Better
to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Whatever
you are, be a good one.
I
have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
I have a dream
that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not
be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
If
there is dissatisfaction with the status quo, good. If there is ferment, so
much the better. If there is restlessness, I am pleased. Then let there be
ideas, and hard thought, and hard work. If man feels small, let man make
himself bigger.
I
will show you fear in a handful of dust.
My
fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do
for your country.
The
only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.
Peace
is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful
means.
It
is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
A
man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
We
hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Determine
never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time
who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always
doing.
It
is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never
experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.
People
who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
We
are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I
don't know.
I
always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments.
The front page has nothing but man's failures.
What
you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by
achieving your goals.
A
life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.
It
is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know
that it has begun.
Life
is a song - sing it. Life is a game - play it. Life is a challenge - meet it.
Life is a dream - realize it. Life is a sacrifice - offer it. Life is love -
enjoy it.
How
far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate
with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and
strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.
When
I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a
single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.
I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering 5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie, 15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock, 25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a
handful of dust.
As the seasons go, I am afraid of what I don't know. - Life: by Nate Confer (est.2002)
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