“যক্ষপুরীর হাওয়ায় সুন্দরের পরে অবজ্ঞা ঘটিয়ে দেয়, এইটেই সর্বনেশে। নরকেও সুন্দর আছে, কিন্তু সুন্দরকে কেউ সেখানে বুঝতেই পারে না, নরকবাসীর সব চেয়ে বড়ো সাজা তাই।”
― Rabindranath Tagore, quote from Red Oleanders
“স্বয়ং বিধির কৃপায় মদের বরাদ্দ জগতের চার দিকেই, এমন-কি, তোমাদের ঐ চোখের কটাক্ষে। আমাদের এই বাহুতে আমরা কাজ জোগাই, তোমাদের বাহুর বন্ধনে তোমরা মদ জোগাও। জীবলোকে মজুরি করতে হয়, আবার মজুরি ভুলতেও হয়। মদ না হলে ভোলাবে কিসে।”
― Rabindranath Tagore, quote from Red Oleanders
“: বাজে কথা বাদ দিয়ে আসল কথা আদায় করাই তো পণ্ডিতের অভিপ্রায়।
: কিন্তু বিধাতার নয়। তিনি আসল জিনিস সৃষ্টি করেছেন বাজে জিনিসকে লালন করবার জন্যে। তিনি সম্মান দেন ফলের আঁঠিকে, ভালোবাসা দেন ফলের শাঁসকে।”
― Rabindranath Tagore, quote from Red Oleanders
“: রাজা বলে, পুরাণ বলে কিছুই নেই। বর্তমান কালটাই কেবল বেড়ে বেড়ে চলেছে।
: পুরাণ যদি নেই তা হলে কিছু আছে কী করে? পিছন যদি না থাকে তো সামনেটা কি থাকতে পারে?
: রাজা বলেন, মহাকাল নবীনকে সম্মুখে প্রকাশ করে চলেছে, পণ্ডিত সেই কথাটাকে চাপা দিয়ে বলে : মহাকাল পুরাতনকে পিছনে বয়ে নিয়ে যাচ্ছে।”
― Rabindranath Tagore, quote from Red Oleanders
“বুঝছ না? আমাদের তো শুধু একটা চেহারা, সর্দারের চেহারা। কিন্তু ওর-যে এক পিঠে গোঁসাই, আর-এক পিঠে সর্দার। নামাবলিটা একটু ফেঁসে গেলেই সেটা ফাঁস হয়ে পড়ে। তাই সর্দারিধর্মটা নিজের অগোচরে পালন করতে হয়, তা হলে নামজপের বেলায় খুব বেশি বাধে না।”
― Rabindranath Tagore, quote from Red Oleanders
“Having escaped the Dark Ages in which animals were mere stimulus-response machines, we are free to contemplate their mental lives. It is a great leap forward, the one that Griffin fought for. But now that animal cognition is an increasingly popular topic, we are still facing the mindset that animal cognition can be only a poor substitute of what we humans have. It can’t be truly deep and amazing. Toward the end of a long career, many a scholar cannot resist shining a light on human talents by listing all the things we are capable of and animals not. From the human perspective, these conjectures may make a satisfactory read, but for anyone interested, as I am, in the full spectrum of cognitions on our planet, they come across as a colossal waste of time. What a bizarre animal we are that the only question we can ask in relation to our place in nature is “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the smartest of them all?”
― Frans de Waal, quote from Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
“Things are strongest where they’re broken,”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning
“Even the primary visual areas in the brain show the special organizing function of space. Each patch of cortical real estate is dedicated to a fixed spot in the visual field, and contours in the world are represented as contours across the surface of the brain, at least on a large scale. Time also has a presence in the mind that is more than just any old attribute of an experience. Neuroscientists have found biological clocks ticking in the brains of organisms as simple as fruit flies. And just as we see stuff that is connected in space as an object, we see stuff that is connected in time as a motion, such as a trajectory or gesture, or, in the case of sound, as a melody or stretch of speech.”
― Steven Pinker, quote from The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature
“Liquid nitrogen,” said Olaf. “Try not to shoot them.” “Really cold?” “Really explosive.”
― Peter Clines, quote from The Fold
“I want him to be with me because he likes being with me, not because he's forced to be with me or because he wants something from me. That's not how friendship should be." [Ellani]”
― A.L. Davroe, quote from Nexis
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.