Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” Quotes (95 Quotes)

A chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy.

He moves his thumb in a slow circle over the back of my hand. It is meant to comfort me, but it frustrates me instead. I need to talk to him. I need to look at him.

I have never been carried around by a large boy, or laughed until my stomach hurt at the dinner table, or listened to the clamor of a hundred people all talking at once. Peace is restrained; this is free.

In our factions, we find meaning, we find purpose, we find life.

She is well practiced in the art of losing herself.

Valuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places.

A Dauntless Ferris wheel wouldn't have cars. You would just hang on tight with your hands, and good luck to you.

He pulls me over the railing and against his chest, gathering me into his arms, easing an arm under my knees. I press my face into his shoulder, and there is a sudden, hollow silence.

I have your back. I didn't mean only when it's easy. All the time.

It isn't right to wish pain on other people just because they hurt me first.

She is well protected in the art of losing herself.

We believe in bravery. We believe in taking action. We believe in freedom from fear and in acquiring the skills to force the bad out of our world so that the good can prosper and thrive. If you also believe in those things, we welcome you.

And is it selfish of me to crave victory, or is it brave?

He smiles in my memory. A curled lip. Straight teeth. Light in his eyes. Laughing, teasing, more alive in memory than I m in reality. It was him or me. I chose me. But I feel dead too.

I hear my heartbeat. I have been looking at him too long, but then, he has been looking back, and I feel like we are both trying to say something the other can't hear, though I could be imagining it. Too long - and now even longer, my heart even louder, his tranquil eyes swallowing me whole.

It must require bravery to be honest all the time.

Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.

We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.

Be brave, Beatrice. I love you.

Hearing him talk about his mother, about his intact family, makes my chest hurt for a second, like someone pierced it with a needle.

I ignore my fear. When I make decisions, I pretend it doesn't exist.

It was him or me. I chose me. But I feel dead too.

Sometimes I see him as just another person, and sometimes I feel the sight of him in my gut, like a deep ache.

We kiss again and this time, it feels familiar. I know exactly how we fit together, his arm around my waist, my hands on his chest, the pressure of his lips on mine. We have each other memorized.

Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.

His absence will haunt their hallways, and he will be a space they can't fill. And then time will pass, and the hole will be gone, like when an organ is removed and the body's fluids flow into the space it leaves. Humans can't tolerate emptiness for long.

I kiss him as the train slides into unlit, uncertain land. I kiss him for as long as I want, for longer than I should, given that my brother sits three feet away from me.

It's easy to be brave when they're not my fears.

Sometimes it isn't fighting that's brave, its facing the death you know is coming.

What do I believe? I do not know; I do not know; I do not know.

But maybe what I saw as fearless was actually fear under control.

How can you fail a test you aren't allowed to prepare for?

I need the protection of seeming weak.

Learning how to think in the midst of fear is a lesson that everyone needs to learn.

Sometimes pain is for the greater good.

What good is a prepared body if you have a scattered mind?

Decades ago, our ancestors realized that it is not just political ideology, religious belief, race, or nationalism that is to blame for a warring world. Rather, they determined that it was the fault of human personality - of humankind's inclination towards evil, in whatever form that is. They divided into factions that sought to eradicate those qualities they believed responsible for the world's disarray.

Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again.

I note how calm she looks and how focused she is. She is well-practiced in the art of losing herself. I can't say the same of myself.

Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.

Sometimes, the best way to help someone is just to be near them.

What irritates me most about him is his natural goodness, his inborn selflessness.

Eric called Al's suicide brave, and he was wrong. My mother's death was brave. I remember how calm she was, how determined. It isn't just brave that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation, and without appearing to consider another option.

Human reason can excuse any evil.

I pause a second. He doesn't look at me the way Will, Christina, and Al sometimes do - like I am too small and too weak to be of any use, and they pity me for it.

My father says that those who want power and get it live in terror of losing it. That's why we have to give power to those who do not want it.

Suicide to them is an act of selfishness. Someone who is truly selfless does not think of himself often enough to desire death.

What's worse: to be idle while someone dies, or to be exiled and empty-handed?

Every faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it's not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay that way. But our minds move in a dozen different directions. We can't be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can't be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them.

Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it's so important that we don't rely on it.