Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Naguib Mahfouz

Quote by Naguib Mahfouz

Work

السراب

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian film writer known for his profound insights into Egyptian society and culture. His works extensively covered historical, religious, and contemporary social issues, profoundly influencing Egyptian cinema. more

You May Also Like

“Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.”

RegretWillSelf RelianceDiscontent
Book:Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
Create image

“And it was pointless...to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell...for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn't changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You're left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it's knowing you carry your scars with you.”

Regret
Book:Cold Mountain
Create image