Virginia Woolf

Books are the mirrors of the soul.

It is permissible even for a dying hero to think before he dies how men will speak of him hereafter. His fame lasts perhaps two thousand years. And what are two thousand years?… What, indeed, if you look from a mountain top down the long wastes of the ages? The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare.

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left.

If there’s only one answer, then this must not be a very interesting topic.

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

How beautiful the world was when one looked at it without searching, just looked, simply and innocently.

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.

There it is: it doesn’t make any difference who we are or what we are, there’s always somebody to look down on! somebody to hold in light esteem, somebody to be indifferent about.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

What is the purpose of life? I believe that the purpose of life is to be happy.

A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.