words to inspire before you expire
“‘ . . . it is necessary for a knight-errant to wander about the world, seeking adventures, by way of probation; that by achieving some he may acquire such fame and renown, that, when he comes to the court of some great monarch, he shall be known by his works beforehand . . . ‘”
—from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
“As they were thus discoursing, they perceived some thirty or forty windmills that are in that plain; and as soon as Don Quixote espied them, he said to his squire:
‘Fortune disposes our affairs better than we ourselves could have desired; look yonder, friend Sancho Panza, where you may discover somewhat more than thirty monstrous giants, with whom I intend to fight, and take away all their lives: with whose spoils we will begin to enrich ourselves; for it is lawful war, and doing God good service to take away so wicked a generation from off the face of the earth.’
‘What giants?’ said Sancho Panza.
‘Those you see yonder,’ answered his master, ‘with those long arms; for some of them are wont to have them almost of the length of two leagues.’
‘Consider, Sir,’ answered Sancho, ‘that those which appear yonder, are not giants, but windmills; and what seem to be arms are the sails, which, whirled about by the wind, make the millstone go.’
‘One may easily see,’ answered Don Quixote, ‘that you are not versed in the business of adventures: they are giants; and, if you are afraid, get aside and pray, whilst I engage with them in a fierce and unequal combat.'”
—from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
“Thus, gentle reader, I have given thee a faithful history of my travels for sixteen years and above seven months: wherein I have not been so studious of ornament as of truth. I could, perhaps, like others, have astonished thee with strange improbable tales; but I rather chose to relate plain matter of fact, in the simplest manner and style; because my principal design was to inform, and not to amuse thee.”
—from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
“Temperance, industry, exercise, and cleanliness, are the lessons equally enjoined to the young ones of both sexes: and my master thought it monstrous in us, to give the females a different kind of education from the males, except in some articles of domestic management; whereby, as he truly observed, one half of our natives were good for nothing but bringing children into the world; and to trust the care of our children to such useless animals, he said, was yet a greater instance of brutality.”
—from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
“Difference in opinions has cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire; what is the best colour for a coat, whether black, white, red, or gray; and whether it should be long or short, narrow or wide, dirty or clean; with many more. Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long a continuance, as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent.”
—from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
“I was chiefly disgusted with modern history. For having strictly examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes, for a hundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers . . . [H]ow low an opinion I had of human wisdom and integrity, when I was truly informed of the springs and motives of great enterprises and revolutions in the world, and of the contemptible accidents to which they owed their success. ”
—from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
“‘My little friend . . . you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable; but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions.'”
—from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
“I hope the gentle reader will excuse me for dwelling on these and the like particulars, which, however insignificant they may appear to groveling vulgar minds, yet will certainly help a philosopher to enlarge his thoughts and imagination, and apply them to the benefit of public as well as private life, which was my sole design in presenting this and other accounts of my travels to the world; wherein I have been chiefly studious of truth, without affecting any ornaments of learning or of style.”
—from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
” . . . in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
—from The Diary of Anne Frank on Saturday, 15 July, 1944
“I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me.”
—from The Diary of Anne Frank on Tuesday, 4 April, 1944
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