“You, you'll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused! Too long you looked on the ones you never should have seen, blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind from this hour on! Blind in the darkness-blind!”
― Sophocles, quote from The Complete Plays
“ANTIGONE Yea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus, And she who sits enthroned with gods below, Justice, enacted not these human laws. Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man, Could’st by a breath annul and override The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. I was not like, who feared no mortal’s frown, To disobey these laws and so provoke The wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die, E’en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery. Thus my lot appears Not sad, but blissful; for had I endured To leave my mother’s son unburied there, I should have grieved with reason, but not now. And if in this thou judgest me a fool, Methinks the judge of folly’s not acquit.”
― Sophocles, quote from The Complete Plays
“And now that Reason’s light returns, New sorrow in his spirit burns.”
― Sophocles, quote from The Complete Plays
“Therefore, while our eyes wait to see the destined final day, we must call no one happy who is of mortal race, until he has crossed life's border, free from pain.”
― Sophocles, quote from The Complete Plays
“O građani otadžbine Tebe, evo Edipa,
znalca čudesne zagonetke i prvog čoveka,
čiju sreću niko nije gledao bez zavisti!
Gledajte u kakav ponor sudbe grozne pade on!
Zato nikog, dan dok onaj poslednji ne dočeka,
neću proslavljati kao srećna, pre no doplovi
kraju veka svog a nikakav ne pogodi ga jad.”
― Sophocles, quote from The Complete Plays
“We so often seek what we’re deprived of in childhood. Sheltered children become reckless. Starving children become ambitious.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“And finally it is Thursday and the day of my guitar lesson. I jump out of bed as though it’s Christmas morning and I am six years old and a child of the Brangelina. I am in front of the mirror fixing my make up when Brodie waltzes in and plonks herself on my bed.
‘Why do you look pretty?’ she asks.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from The Sound
“If a life can be ruined in a single moment, a moment of betrayal, or violence, or ill luck, then why can a life not also be saved, be worth living, be made, by just a few pure moments of perfection?”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Midwinterblood
“For all the strides the Nation [of Islam] had made in promoting self-improvement in the lives of its members, its political isolation had left it powerless to change the external conditions that bounded their freedoms (177).”
― Manning Marable, quote from Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
“If small groups are included in the decision-making process, then they should be allowed to make decisions. If an organization sets up teams and then uses them for purely advisory purposes, it loses the true advantage that a team has: namely, collective wisdom.”
― James Surowiecki, quote from The Wisdom of Crowds
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.