Quotes from Being Erica

I watched Being Erica from 2008, for a few years, and I loved the quotes. So i'm posting them here.

Season 1

Episode 1 “Dr. Tom”

• In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. – Albert Einstein
• Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make. – Abraham Cowle
• Pressure makes diamonds. – General George S. Patton 
• The life which is unexamined is not worth living. – Plato
• We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way. – John Holt
• Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand. – Baruch Spinoza
• If life’s journey be endless where is its goal?  The answer is, it is everywhere. – Rabindranath Tagore

Episode 2 “What I Am Is What I Am”

• The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality and, instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are. – Samuel Johnson
• We are the sum of our decisions, and as long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters. – Antigone Morris, Erica’s classmate
• Those who plot the destruction of others often perish in the attempt. – Thomas Moore

Episode 3 “Plenty of Fish”

• Sarcasm: the last refuge of the modest people when the privacy of the soul is intrusively invaded. – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Let your net always be cast, and in the pool which you least expect, there will be a fish. – Ovid
• There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. – Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne in The Matrix)
• Chasing the past, she stumbled into the future. – T.A. Sachs

Episode 4 “The Secret of Now”

• You don’t miss your water until your well runs dry. – William Bell
• While we are postponing, life speeds by. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 5 BC
• Defeatism is the wretchedest of policies. – George Bernard Shaw
• Oops… I did it again. – Britney Spears
• Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go–it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow. – Alice M. Swain

Episode 5 “Adultescence”

• Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. – Prime Minister Winston Churchill
• No party is any fun unless seasoned with folly. – Desiderius Erasmus
• It takes a lot of courage to grow up and be who you really are. – e.e. cummings

Episode 6 “Til Death”

• The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
• There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. – Leonard Cohen

Episode 7 “Such a Perfect Day”

• You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses. – Zig Ziglar
• Although the world is full of suffering it is also full of the overcoming of it. – Helen Keller
• We cannot, we will not, choose the path of surrender. – President Woodrow T. Wilson

Episode 8 “This Be the Verse”

• There is no try, only do. – Yoda
• To err is human, but to forgive is divine. – Alexander Pope
• They screw you up, your mom and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. – Philip Larkin
• Your parents will mess you up. They don’t mean to, but they do it anyway. – Philip Larkin

Episode 9 “Everything She Wants”

• Labels are for cans, not people. – Anthony Rapp

Episode 10 “Mi Casa, Su Casa Loma”

• Being entirely honest with oneself is a worthwhile exercise. – Sigmund Freud
• A man has two reasons for doing anything – a good reason and the real reason. – J.P. Morgan

Episode 11 “She’s Lost Control”

• He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.. – George Orwell
• We create our fate every day we live. – Henry Miller
• There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain. – Aeschylus
• Men in the game are blind to what men looking on see clearly. – Chinese Proverb

Episode 12 “Erica the Vampire Slayer”

• Learn to be what you are, and learn to resign with good grace all that you are not. – Henri-Frédéric Amiel
• Thinking is easy, acting is difficult – and to put one’s thoughts into action, the most difficult thing in the world. –  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Season 2

Episode 1 “Being Dr. Tom”

• (Said by Dr Naadiah to Dr Tom) Fear is the mind-killer. – Frank Herbert
• I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but I always end up where I need to be. – Douglas Adams
• (Said by Erica to a young Dr Tom before he became Dr Tom) In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity – Albert Einstein
• When the student is ready the teacher will appear. – Buddhist Proverb
• For everything there is a season and a time. – Ecclesiastes 3:1

Episode 2 “Battle Royale”

• The course of true love never did run smooth – William Shakespeare
• Returning violence with violence only multiplies violence – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Episode 3 “Mama Mia”

• Diaper backward spells repaid. Think about it. – Marshall McLuhan
• Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.” C.S. Lewis

Episode 4 “Cultural Revolution”

• It doesn’t work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps. – American Proverb

Episode 5 “Yes We Can”

• Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. – Albert Camus
• To succeed in life you need two things: ignorance and confidence. – Mark Twain
• Everything has a consequence. Every action has a reaction. – Isaac Newton

Episode 6 “Shhh… Don’t Tell”

• There is no shame in not knowing. The shame lies in not finding out. – Russian Proverb

Being Erica - Erica Strange & Dr Tom in Dr Tom's office. Season 2 Episode 10

Episode 8 “Under My Thumb”

• (Said by Dr Fred to Dr Tom) Familiarity breeds contempt. – Aesop

Episode 9 “A River Runs Through It…It Being Egypt”

• All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered. The point is, to discover them. – Galileo Galilei
• Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away. – Elvis Presley
• The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is. – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

Episode 10 “Papa Can You Hear Me?”

• Act the way you want to be and soon you’ll be the way you act. – Bob Dylan

Episode 11 “What Goes Up Must Come Down”

Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable. – Coco Chanel

• (Julianne Giacomelli to Erica) When the Lord closes a door he opens a window. – Mother Superior in “The Sound of Music”

Episode 12 “The Importance of Being Erica”

• Every wall is a door. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire Cat. “Which road do I take?,” she asked. “Where do you want to go?,” was his response. “I don’t know,” answered Alice. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.” – ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll
• (Erica to Kai Booker) This above all, to thine own self be true. – William Shakespeare
• We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves. – Galileo Galilei

Season 3

Episode 1 “The Rabbit Hole”

• Pressure makes diamonds. – General George S. Patton

Episode 2 “Moving On Up”

• Learning is finding out what you already know. – Richard Bach

Episode 3 “Two Wrongs”

• An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. – Gandhi
• Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Episode 4 “Wash, Rinse, Repeat”

• Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. – The Buddha aka Siddhartha Gautama

Episode 5 “Being Adam”

• It is our imagination that transforms itself into reality. – Helen Araromi

Episode 6 “Bear Breasts”

• Running away will never make you free. – Kenny Logins
• The id lives in our subconscious, it is the force that drives our most primitive impulses. – Sigmund Freud “The Ego and the Id.” (Out of a book and I assume that’s what it was called. Not an off the cuff quote as Dr. Tom usually does.)

Episode 7 “Jenny from the Block”

• And I saw Sisyphus, seeking to raise a monstrous stone with both his hands. Verily, he would thrust the stone toward the crest of a hill but the weight would turn it back. And then down again to plain would come rolling, the ruthless stone. – Homer, “Odyssey” Book 11 Line 593. However, this is a misquote by Dr Tom based on the quotes I found of the book online.

Episode 8 “Physician, Heal Thyself”

• Whatever your past has been, you have a spotless future. – Melanie Gustafson

Episode 9 “Gettin’ Wiggy Wit’ It”

• What is hateful to thyself do not do to another. – Hillel
• The Universe has a way of righting itself. – Tom ‘Dr. Tom’ Wexler paraphrased

Episode 10 “The Tribe Has Spoken”

• But the eyes are blind, one must look with the heart. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Episode 11

• And in a world that constantly shifts beneath our feet, the only thing we can know for certain is how we feel. The love we have, the fear we hide from, the pain we push away, give it a voice. And the rewards are peace of mind and a peaceful heart. - Erica Strange
  

Episode 12 “Erica, Interrupted”

• In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. – Erica to Leo.
  

Episode 13 “Fa La Erica”

Season 4

Episode 1 “Doctor Who?”

Patient: Josh McIntosh

• Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for greater responsibilities. – Napoleon Hill
• Life is too short to blend in. – Paris Hilton

• Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. – Sigmund Freud
• With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere. – C.S. Lewis
• Insecurity. It's in all of us. That voice inside that tells us we can't do something, that we're not good enough, that we shouldn't even try. And when we listen to the voice, we hold ourselves back, in ways we don't even realize. All because we're scared to take a chance. - Erica

Episode 3 “Baby Mama”

Patient: Barbara ‘Barb’ Strange

• Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation. – Charlotte Brontë

Episode 4 “Born This Way”

Patient: Brent Kennedy

• When the lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window. – Mother Superior (by Julianne)

Episode 5 “Sins Of The Father”

Patient: Dr Tom being treated by Dr Naadiah

• The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work. – Ralph Waldo Emerson (by Dr Tom’s father to Dr Tom)
• Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. – Aristotle

Episode 6 “If I Could Turn Back Time”

Patient: None.

• What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly. – Thomas Payne
• With great power comes great responsibility. – Spiderman (Ben ‘Uncle Ben’ Parker, but they don’t reference him specifically.)
• We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it. – George Bernard Shaw
• We learn by doing, there is no other way. – John Holt. This is a quote Dr Tom has used before but he didn’t bother to say who it was by this time.

Episode 7 “Being Ethan”

Patient: Ethan

• Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. – Oscar Wilde

Episode 8 “Please, Please Tell Me Now”

Patient: Erica by Dr Tom & Dr Tom by Dr Naadiah

Episode 9 “Erica’s Adventures in Wonderland”

Patient: Erica

• Fall in love for all the right reasons. – eHarmony
• We come to love not by finding the perfect person but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. – Sam Keen
• Live long and prosper. – Quoted by Dr Tom dressed as Mr Spock even though he doesn’t actually attribute it he is dressed as Mr Spock complete with prosthetic ears.

Episode 10 “Purim”

Patient: Erica’s Grandfather

Episode 11 “Dr. Erica”

Patient: Erica & later her first full patient.

• There is no constant but change. – Heraclitus (Erica says it to Dr Naadiah but doesn’t attribute it.)
• Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well. – The Buddha
• In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. – Albert Einstein (Erica to her first patient.)