Quotes from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

'Never,' said my aunt, 'be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.'

"We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune down, Trot!"

'As I think I told you once before,' said I, 'it is you who have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is as certain as death.'

Anything Steerforth, you could have done anything, reached the stars! Waste, waste. Waste all waste. Life asks more of us: demands it. It is not enough to be talented Steerforth, or beautiful Dora, or even simply loving: yes Mother, or even simply loving. We must be strong or else the gifts that God sends us into the world with will just fade ad wither in the first cold wind that blows on us....the best steel...must go through the fire.

Never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!

I think of every little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles make the sum of life.

The remembrance of that life is fraught with so much pain to me, with so much mental suffering and want of hope, that I have never had the courage even to examine how long I was doomed to lead it. Whether it lasted for a year, or more, or less, I do not know. I only know that it was, and ceased to be; and that I have written, and there I leave it.

Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find, now, to have been my golden rules.

When this despondency was at its worst, I believed that I should die. Sometimes, I thought that I would like to die at home; and actually turned back on my road, that I might get there soon. At other times, I passed on farther away, -from city to city, seeking I know not what, and trying to leave I know not what behind.

"Come!" said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her over the fender, and looking wistfully up into my face, 'you know you wouldn't mistrust me, if I was a full-size woman!'
I felt that there was much truth in this; and i felt rather ashamed of myself.
'You are a young man,' she said, nodding. 'Take a word of advice, even from three foot nothing. try not to associate bodily defects with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason." (chapter xxxii)

"I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world."

"It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present."

My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and regrets.

"I find my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as it comes, and make the most of it. That's the best way, ain't it?"

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." Chapter XII

"There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose." Chapter XLV

Charles Dickens - 英国大文豪查理·狄更斯

从未想过自己对文学有如此深厚的摰爱。 在岁月与压力的催促下，自已在过去几年裡鲜少在文字行间漫步沉思了！直至两个星期前在偶然的机会之下接觸了Charles Dickens (英国大文豪查理·狄更斯) 的文学作品。他对人性善恶的透澈领悟，且能夠一笔一劃淋漓盡汁地发揮在 Bleak House 及 David Copperfield 裡其各种不同的角色身上令我震惊叹息。震惊他那超越，一针见血，幽默，富有想象力，及充满希望的文笔; 叹息我至今才認識他的作品。不过，慶幸這遲来的認識，畢竞总比好过未曾擦肩而过。

他精巧的文笔细腻地灌溉我那曾肥沃但已快枯干的文海心田。他使我开始品味我千篇一律的日常生话。古典文学及古典音乐雖不屬我一人，但我非屬它们不可。若將這两者從我生命中取掉，我將是位行尸走肉的人。除了我对主耶稣的信仰，是這两者陪伴我单獨面对过去十五年许多挑战性的日子。

熱爱文学的朋友们，有空不妨讀一讀他的作品。你绝不会後悔。

Mahatma Ghandi's Quotes

"Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingeuity of man."

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

"Satisfaction lies in the effort and not in the attainment."

"A nation that is capable of limitless sacrifice is capable fo rising to limitless heights. The purer the sacrifice the quicker the progress."

"Where there is love, there is life; hatred leads to destruction."

"Truth, purity, self-control, firmness, fearlessness, humility, unity, peace, and renunciation - these are the inherent qualities of a civil resister."

"Non-cooperation is a protest against an unwitting and unwilling participation in evil."

"You will eat not to satisfy your palate but your hunger. A self-indulgent man lives to eat; a self-restrained man eats to live."

"Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress."

"Love is the strongest force the world possesses, and yet it is the humblest imaginable."

"It does not require money to be neat, clean and dignified."

"Cowards can never be moral."

"To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves."

Isak Dinesen - Author of the novel, "Out Of Africa"

Due to my pending Europe trip in the early Fall, I have been doing some study on European continent and its travel information. One of the best ways I found is to watch DVDs filmed by professional travellers, such as Rudy Maxa and Rick Steve.

In one of the DVDs I came to know Isak Dinesen, the novelist who wrote "Out of Africa", which has been turned into a hollywood movie casted by Robert Redford. According to the lady in the DVDs, Isak Dinesen was interviewed at the end of her life about what she learned from her own life. Isak Dinesen responded, "1. You have to have courage to live. 2. You must be able to love. 3. You must have a sense of humor." I concur wholeheartedly. If there is something I would add to it, I would either expand the first statement a little bit or add a fourth statement, which is the courage to take some GOOD risk.

The word COURAGE is short and simple, and yet its impact, when fully exercised, can be so PROFOUND that even a disconnected artificial heart may feel its vibrance.

Is the lack of courage to live equivalent to the lack of hope to live? Have you met someone who has been diagnosed with terminal disease and yet still does his/her best to seize every moment to enjoy life? On the contrary, have you ever met someone who has a good family, a healthy body, and a decent job and yet nothing positive can come out of his/her mouths. To live well is to have courage to live and accept his/her own responsibilities. Merely living is like a walking skeleton. A pathetic scene to be seen. It is one thing to find life, at times, difficult, discouraged, and frustrated to deal with, but it is quite another to shrug off your own responsibilities and blaming on others.

A friend of mine recently told me that he can easily be attracted to girls, but he can't love. Why can't he love? Fear to have his heart pierced and twisted from the inside out again? Or fear that he may not be loved back with the same intensity that he so anticipated? Knowing his background, I am afraid to say that it is not as much of his inability to love as of his inability to overcome the fear of being hurt/rejected again. FEAR is the enemy of COURAGE!

PERFECT LOVE casts out FEAR.

Huh! Life is pain. The other day my girlfriends and I were talking about newborn babies and their crying the moment they are out of the mother's womb. I know there are medical explanation for their crying.. To be sentimental, I am a firm believer that we are born to troubles and that in order to go through this life in one piece, one must learn to be humorous and laugh at the happening...

A Wise Woman

One of my male friends gave me his unsolicited definition of a wise woman.
"A wise woman knows how to take good care of herself and be in control of her life in the absence of a man. But then, she also knows how to make her man feel in charge by letting her man be the man in his presence without compromising her own identity."

Well, I wonder what is the definition of a wise man!

让爱不虚假! Let love be without hypocrisy

My beloved....

Children are indeed a blessing from GOD...
For the past 11 of the 15 years in the States, especially the past 7 yrs, I saved up all my vacations just to visit Malaysia every year. Some people find it unbelievable. While there are many reasons, the major one is because of my sweet nieces and nephews. They are the joy of my life. Their innocent faces and laughters can easily roll away my blues. They continue to amaze me with their truthfulness, sincerity, innocence, and purity, which help to keep my child-like dreams and expectation of life and of people, respectively, vibrantly alive. And children are much more forgiving compared to the adults. I learn more about life on happiness from children than from any other self-help books.