Quotation meme

So, I am supposed to be working right now. Feh.

The meme goes like this:

Go here and look through the random quotes until you find five that reflect who you are or what you believe. Repost in your LJ and invite anyone who wants to to do the same.

I gather that one is supposed to choose quotations that express life-guiding ideas, as opposed to quotations that are just neat, such as Paul Valéry's definition of poetry as "a profound hesitation between sound and sense" or Conrad's definition of art as "a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to the light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in its colors, in its light, in its shadows, in the aspects of matter and the facts of life, what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and essential." (Preface to The Nigger of the "Narcissus")

Or "Nothing she says, nothing she thinks is in itself singular; we have merely lost the habit of so rigorous a harmony between conscience and reflection." (The critic Mattieu Galey speaking of Marguerite Yourcenar in his preface to Les Yeux ouvertes)

At least, that seems to be the trend.

I don't have the patience to wade through the Random Quote Generator, and anyway, sometimes cheating leads to greater honesty.

So ( here are a bunch of quotations that I've liked and kept around for years. )