Commonplace

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and trough me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see it’s path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

— Frank Herbert

“Be tolerant with others, and strict with yourself.”

— Marcus Aurelius

“The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.”

— Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness

“Tell me, Legolas, why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not foresee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli son of Gloin!’.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien, Gimli to Legolas, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien, Faramir, The Two Towers

“Emotions are great servants but terrible masters.”

— Kajana Cetshwayo

“Did you put your heart and soul into it?”

— Unknown

“The absence of the accident doesn’t mean the presence of safety.”

— Unknown

“Death can have me when it earns me.”

— Kratos, God of War Ragnarok

“We live so much, and we experience so little. We see so much and we notice so little.”

— Alain de Botton

“What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.”

— Seneca

Today it’s bad, tomorrow it will be worse, until the worst of all happens"

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“No-one has ever properly understood me, I have never fully understood anyone; and no-one understands anyone else.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“In the minds of geniuses, we find once more, our own neglected thoughts.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”

— Sören Kierkegaard (attributed)