Vagop’s most recent Quotables

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” –

“There are three kinds of men: the one who learns by reading, the few who learn by observance, and the rest who have to pee on the electric fence themselves.”

The soldier who has died due to the failure of his officer is a crime before God. So study hard, young Lieutenant. Prepare yourself well. Burn the midnight oil so that in your old age you will not look down at your hands to find his blood red upon them.

Courage is… When you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” -

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. –

On the Plains of Apathy, bleach the bones of the victors who sat down to rest” –

Walk tall. Kick ass. Learn to speak Arabic, love music and never forget that you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers and warriors.”

Its not about the amount of days in your life, its about the amount of life in your days’.

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

Have more than thou showest; Speak less than thou knowest."

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.

Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good.

Those who would sacrifice essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Go without a coat when it's cold; find out what cold is. Go hungry; keep your existence lean. Wear away the fat, get down to the lean tissue and see what it's all about. The only time you define your character is when you go without. In times of hardship, you find out what you're really made of and what you're capable of. If you're never tested, you'll never define your character.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter and to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.”

If life gives you lemons don’t make lemonade, make life take the lemons back. Get mad, I don’t want your damn lemons, what am I supposed to do with these?! Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give you lemons.

First published in January 1776, Common Sense sold more than 100,000 copies within the first two months. That's equal to a million copies in today's market. But there was more. Within the year, an estimated 400,000 copies were printed for a nation of three million independence-minded people. To find a comparable, contemporary success, we'd have to compare Common Sense to the popular, albeit lesser cultural event: the Super Bowl.