Wisdom Quote by Philip Pullman — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“What is the world of the spirits? It is nothing I know about. I don't know what spirit is.”

“Maybe sometimes we don't do the right thing because the wrong thing looks more dangerous, and we don't want to look scared, so we go and do the wrong thing just because it's dangerous. We're more concerned with not looking scared than with judging right.”

“There’s been terrible things we seen, en’t there? And more a coming, more’n likely. So I think I’d rather not know what’s in the future. I’ll stick to the present.”

“Occasionally they would hear a harsh croak or a splash as some amphibian was disturbed, but the only creature they saw was a toad as big as Will's foot, which could only flop in a pain-filled sideways heave as if it were horribly injured. It lay across the path, trying to move out of the way and looking at them as if it knew they meant to hurt it.”

“You are so young, Lyra, too young to understand this, but I shall tell you anyway and you'll understand it later: men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain. We bear their children, who are witches if they are female, human if not; and then in the blink of an eye they are gone, felled, slain, lost. Our sons, too. When a little boy is growing, he thinks he is immortal. His mother knows he isn't. Each time becomes more painful, until finally your heart is broken. Perhaps that is when Yambe-Akka comes for you. She is older than the tundra. Perhaps, for her, witches' lives are as brief as men's are to us.”

“When I stopped to take a breath, I noticed I had wings.”

“To be is the greatest paradox of life facing death.”

“It is much better to die of hunger unhindered by grief and fear than to live affluently beset with worry, dread, suspicion and unchecked desire.”

“The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.”

“Few things a doctor does are more important than relieving pain. . . pain is soul destroying. No patient should have to endure intense pain unnecessarily. The quality of mercy is essential to the practice of medicine; here, of all places, it should not be strained.”

“And above all,” Darian concluded, his gaze unwavering but hopeful, “Elian must come to understand—truly understand, not merely as an idea but as a conviction he lives by—that the life he has been given is not his alone. Every choice he makes either honors those who came before or diminishes their sacrifice. Every act either brightens or dims the path for those who follow. When he stands at life’s crossroads, let him ask not ‘What will this gain me?’ but ‘What light will this leave when I am gone?’ Let him plant seeds whose shade he’ll never sit under. For in the end, we are each but one chapter in humanity’s endless book—and I believe with all my heart that his will be one that future generations turn to for courage.”