The best lines from classic books

Here are some of the greatest lines from the best classics ever written.

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

I do suspect that he is not really necessary to my happiness.

Jane Austen, Emma

You can’t breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence.

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Time, which sees all things, has found you out.

Sophocles, Oedipus the King

They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.

Kate Chopin, The Awakening

I don’t exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.

J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same—everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another’s existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same—people who had never learned to think but who were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world.

George Orwell, 1984

Ever’body’s askin’ that. “What we comin’ to?” Seems to me we don’t never come to nothin’. Always on the way.

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

The Mole was a good listener, and Toad, with no one to check his statements or to criticize in an unfriendly spirit, rather let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more properly to the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-of-it-in-time-instead-of-ten-minutes-afterwards.

Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

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inspirational quotes about classical music

Here are some of the greatest minds in history who were touched and inspired by classical music and their inspiring words to describe it.

Tony Bennett: ‘In the 1920s and ’30s, there was a renaissance in music that was the equivalent of the artistic Renaissance. Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer and others created the best songs ever written. These are classics... This is classical music’

Albert Einstein: "I know that the most joy in my life has come to me from my violin."

St Augustine: "To sing is to pray twice."

Plato: "Rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul."

John Dryden: "What passion cannot music raise and quell!"

John Milton: "Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie."

Maya Angelou: "Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness."

Hans Christian Andersen: "Where words fail, music speaks."

Leo Tolstoy: "Music is the shorthand of emotion."

John Keats: "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. Therefore, ye soft pipes, play on."

Heinrich Heine: "When words leave off, music begins."

George Bernard Shaw: "Hell is full of musical amateurs."

Aldous Huxley: "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."

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Profound Words From Classic Literature That Will Change Your Day

Here are some positive words from classic literature that will help you change the outlook if you’re not having the best of days.

“’Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’ ‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.’” E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

“When a child first catches adults out—when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just—his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child’s world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.” – John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” – H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.” – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“We believe that we can change the things around us in accordance with our desires—we believe it because otherwise we can see no favourable outcome. We do not think of the outcome which generally comes to pass and is also favourable: we do not succeed in changing things in accordance with our desires, but gradually our desires change. The situation that we hoped to change because it was intolerable becomes unimportant to us. We have failed to surmount the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us round it, led us beyond it, and then if we turn round to gaze into the distance of the past, we can barely see it, so imperceptible has it become.” – Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

“Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for.” Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“All grown-ups were once children…but only few of them remember it.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—’God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.'” – Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

“Isn’t it pretty to think so?” – Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

“All was forgiven. All living things were brothers, all dead things even more so.” – Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes. People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“In the mirrors of the many judgments, my hands are the color of blood. I sometimes fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils; and on that great Day of which the prophets speak but in which they do not truly believe, on the day the world is utterly cleansed of evil, then I too will go down into darkness, swallowing curses. Until then, I will not wash my hands nor let them hang useless.” ― Roger Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon

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Lines from classic books that have stayed with us forever

Great books are powerful so to celebrate the magic of words, we have rounded up these literary pearls of wisdom for you to enjoy.

Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery

“Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.”

The Goldfinch

“I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe.”

– Donna Tartt

Wild

“It was my life – like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be.”

– Cheryl Strayed

Dracula

“There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.”

- Bram Stroker

My Antonia

“At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.”

- Willa Cather

Infinite Jest

“You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.”

- David Foster Wallace

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if only someone remembers to turn on the light.”

– J.K. Rowling

Beloved

“You are your best thing.”

– Toni Morrison

Les Miserables

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

- Victor Hugo

East Of Eden

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”

- John Steinbeck

The Dairy Of A Young Girl

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."

- Anne Frank

Oh, The Places You'll Go

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”

- Dr Seuss

Brida

“Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”

- Paulo Coelho

A Room Of One's Own

“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself."

– Virginia Woolf

The Alchemist

“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realise his dream.”

– Paulo Coelho

Peter Pan

“Just think happy thoughts and you’ll fly.”

– J.M. Barrie

Jane Eyre

"I would rather be happy than dignified."

– Charlotte Brontë

The Little Prince

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Stand

“The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there...and still on your feet.”

– Stephen King

Of Human Bondage

“It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.”

- W. Somerset Maugham

De Profundis

“With freedom, books, flowers and the moon, who could not be happy?”

– Oscar Wilde

Atlas Shrugged

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserve and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real... it is possible... it's yours."

- Ayn Rand

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling

“Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect.”

- J.K Rowling

Just Kids

“Where does it all lead? What will become of us? These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed. It leads to each other. We become ourselves.”

― Patti Smith

The Cost of Living

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”

- Arundhati Roy

A Song Of Ice And Fire

"Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armour, then it can never be used to hurt you."

- George R.R. Martin

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”

- Stephen Chbosky

On The Road

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

- Jack Kerouac

Worstward Ho

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

- Samuel Beckett

The Ambassadors

"Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life."

- Henry James

The Secret

“There is a truth deep down inside of you that has been waiting for you to discover it, and that truth is this: you deserve all good things life has to offer. ”

― Rhonda Byrne

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The Secret Meanings Behind Classic Christmas Ornaments

Once you know the history of these Christmas tree ornaments, you will want to hang them on your tree this year.

The Pickle

There are many stories behind the pickled-shaped Christmas ornament. The most popular one is that it’s a German tradition where parents hide the pickle on the tree, and the first child to find it on Christmas morning gets to open the first gift.

Grapes

Kugels, meaning “round ball” in German, were actually made in the shape of grapes, apples, pears and even artichokes.

Bird Nest

Bird nest ornaments symbolize love, commitment and a happy home. By placing a bird nest ornament on your Christmas tree you may be blessed with good fortune.

Red Cardinal

Cardinals often symbolize Christmas and lost loved ones. Clip one onto your tree in memory of the family and friends that are no longer with you during the holidays.

Woven or Pleated Heart

The woven heart is a Danish tradition with many filled with candies or nuts and hung on the Christmas tree.

Bee

Bees represent resourcefulness and order and it is believed that they hum in honour of baby Jesus.

Rooster

According to legend, the one time a rooster crowed at midnight was to announce the birth of baby Jesus. This is also why Spain and many Latin American countries call their Christmas Eve midnight mass the Mass of the Rooster, or Misa de Gallo.

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Classic Movies to Watch on Netflix Canada

We all have a lot of free time on your hands now, so if you are looking for a a nostalgic flick, why not consider one of these?

Gone with the Wind (1939)

Over the duration of this film, a total of nearly four hours, Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) embark on a stormy romance during the American Civil War and Reconstruction. From Technicolor photography to Max Steiner’s score and of course, the career-defining performances, this is one of the best classic films ever.

Citizen Kane (1941)

Considered one of the greatest movies ever, Citizen Kane is an ode to lost childhood, a satire on capitalism, and even a cautionary tale on the dark side of the American Dream.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

In this family favourite, Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) announces that five lucky children will be given a tour of his famous chocolate factory to learn about the secrets of his candy and be given a lifetime supply of Wonka treats. Charlie is a kind-hearted boy who wins the prize, along with four other not so kind kids.

Notting Hill (1999)

Sweet, funny and loveable, this movie is the tale of a West London bookstore owner who falls for a famous Hollywood actress is one of the all-time best entries in the rom-com genre.

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Classics to Get You Through The Holidays

The holidays are a great time for get togethers with friends, winter activities, and family fun! With so much to do in a seemingly short amount of time it can be easy to assume that it’ll be rush rush rush until it’s time to get back to the real world. That said, the holidays tend to come with a bit of down time as well, and what better way to spend that down time than curled up with a good book! Here are a few great reads that will make time fly by.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Considered more of a modern classic, The Da Vinci Code is a non-stop thriller that will have you turning pages from end to end as you follow Robert Langdon on his quest to find the Sangreal.

The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. For those with a bit of extra time on their hands, there’s nothing quite like this epic journey through Middle-earth with Frodo and his friends. If the trilogy isn’t enough for you, why not follow it up with The Hobbit?

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling. If you still haven’t read these fantastical tales that took the world by storm with their record breaking motion pictures then now is the time! Join Harry and his friends as they grow, discover their abilities, and battle evil in the form of none other than Lord Voldemort.

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