I've been collecting quotes for quite a while now and I've decided to finally share them.
I forgot to note the speaker or writer for some- but that's what google is for.
For me, the meaning is often more important than who said the quote, especially because we often give so much special credit to quotes by famous people even if they haven't said anything truly inspired. For me, quotes, similar to artwork, are relationships with the reader. And although they do get stripped from the entire context, sometimes we just need to read a couple of sentences for us to feel a connection with another's soul.
Quotes:
"Claim your experience. Don't let it claim you. What if there were no survivors, meaning, what if people decided to just claim their trauma as an experience instead of taking it on as an identity? Maybe it would be the end of being trapped in our wounds and the beginning of amazing self-exploration and discovery and growth. Maybe it would be the start of defining ourselves by who we have become and who we are becoming."- Debra Jarvis
“When my sister’s having a manic episode, she thinks she has superpowers. She’ll go outside and strip off her clothes. She’ll develop all these conspiracies about the government being out to get her, and she’ll think that something she’s done has made our whole family unsafe... It’s hard to see her like that, and it’s hard to say that there’s anything nice about it, but then again, I can’t help but feel that she has a certain freedom that I envy when she’s having an episode. I feel like everyone’s a little crazy and we all walk around with this armor of sanity, and she’s just able to cast it off completely. I’d almost like to join her and run around the city if only she could keep it from spinning out of control.”- HONY page
“To know all is to forgive all.”
"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 others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
— Steve Jobs
"As children we owned all of ourselves. As adults, in response to the expectations of others, we have had to hide much of ourselves away, out of sight even from our own eyes. The cost of such voluntary losses is great. No one can afford to give up any part of himself. All of you is worth something. Even the evil can be a source of vitality if only you can face it and transform it. Our love of pure goodness, our insistence on innocence, is a hazard. For the sake of appearing to be what others require us to be, to be more moral than any man can be, we sacrifice our strength."
"Writing a first draft is very much like watching a Polaroid develop. You can’t—and, in fact, you’re not supposed to—know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing."
— Anne Lamott
"Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to."
— Laura Vanderkam
As we cannot be universal by knowing everything there is to know about everything, we must know a little about everything, because it is much better to know something about everything than everything about something. Such universality is the finest.
— Blaise Pascal
It is most important to run out of scapegoats.
Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again.
Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
— Dale Carnegie
"If you can… fall in love, with the work, with people you work with, with your dreams and their dreams. Whatever it was that got you to this school, don’t let it go. Whatever kept you here, don’t let that go. Believe in your friends. Believe that what you and your friends have to say… that the way you’re saying it — is something new in the world."
"the next time you have a conflict with a friend, find the courage to speak openly about how you feel. Each time you listen to your inner voice and act on it, you build a skill that will help you get closer to leading the life you truly want."
"it’s just that many of us don’t belong to where we come from" SeouJae
"Knowledge should mean a full grasp of knowledge:
Knowledge means to know yourself, heart and soul.
If you have failed to understand yourself,
Then all of your reading has missed its call."
-Sufi`s saying
"If you can dream it you can achieve it" - Always dare to dream, because even though it's hard for you to believe it right now, your craziest, most wonderful dreams might actually come true
“I don’t come to bow. I come to conquer.” #bobmarleyquotes
"Change, when it comes, cracks everything open." -Dorothy Allison
"Wishing for us all in this 5775 the wisdom, courage, and flexibility to better understand what is asked of us as individual souls and as members of larger communities -- to deepen our awareness of our place in history, and yet be filled with a compelling urge to transcend it." L'shana tova tikatevu.
"The most successful people are those with a thirst for knowledge and the willingness to keep learning" -Edward Gallante, former Senior VP of Exxon Mobile
"If you're feeling stuck tonight, remember that people are always transforming. You can be whomever you want today, no matter who you were before."
“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose”
― Charles Bukowski
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski
“Find what you love and let it kill you.”
― Charles Bukowski
“My dear,
Find what you love and let it kill you.
Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.
Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.
For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover.
~ Falsely yours”
― Charles Bukowski
“I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can't feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.”
― Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness
“I wanted the whole world or nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski, Post Office
“We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes”
― Charles Bukowski
“It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum
“People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women
“there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
a space
and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest times
times
we will know it
we will know it
more than
ever
there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and
we will wait
and
wait
in that space.”
― Charles Bukowski
“There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die.”
― Charles Bukowski
“This is very important -- to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you're gonna lose everything...just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That's why they're all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful.”
― Charles Bukowski
“Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings -- that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
Buddha (500BC)”
Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents. Later, when we are sick and old, we are again dependent on the kindness of others. Since we are so dependent on others at the beginning and end of our lives, how could it be that we would neglect kindness towards others in the middle?
-Dalai Lama
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)”
“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgements requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.
John Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)”
“Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.
Heraclitus (535BC-475BC)”
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because some day in life you will have been all these.
George Washington (1732-1799)”
“Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)”
“True science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider most important. Art transmits these truths from the region of perception to the region of emotion.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)”
"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance"
Don't just write in an active voice, live your life that way."
Fundamentalism makes life better in so many practical ways.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"
“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
― John Lennon
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.”
― Paulo Coelho, Alchemist
“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
― Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
― Plato
“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi
“I’m intimidated by the fear of being average.”
― Taylor Swift
“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.”
― Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
“She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by-
And never knew.”
shel silvestein
“Books are finite, sexual encounters are finite, but the desire to read and to fuck is infinite; it surpasses our own deaths, our fears, our hopes for peace.”
― Roberto Bolaño
“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”
― Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
“To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.” - Hermann Hesse
“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” - Franz Kafka
"Love is the recognition of beauty
A flower doesn't stop being beautiful just because somebody walks by without noticing it, nor does it cease to be fragrant if its scent is taken for granted. The flower just continues to be its glorious self: elegant, graceful, and magnificent.
Our Mother Nature has provided us with these immeasurably valuable teachers that blossom despite their short lifespan, stars that continue to shine even if we fail to stare at them, and trees that don't take it personally if we never bow down in gratitude for the oxygen they provide.
We also have an incredible and unlimited capacity to love, but the question is: can we do it like a flower? Without needing to be admired, adored, or even noticed? Can we open our hearts completely to give, forgive, celebrate, and joyfully live our lives without hesitation or need for reciprocity?
It seems like sometimes we go beyond taking things personally and are noticeably deflated when unappreciated. In-fact, devastated, we wilt in sorrow and then attempt to guard ourselves by withholding, using all sorts of protections and defenses. We get hurt (even angry), if our boss fails to recognize an astonishing feat, if a lover pulls their hand away, or when a friend forgets our birthday. Can you imagine a flower copping an attitude for not being praised, or the moon dimming its glow because we're too self-absorbed to notice it more often?
Make an effort to shine no matter what, to love unconditionally, and to be a kind and gentle soul (even when nobody is watching). And, if you're so inclined, hug the next tree you see and say, "Thank you!"
"But what if we viewed leisure time not as goofing off, but as necessary time for reflecting, for inspiring creativity, and for saving up brainpower and energy for future work?"
“You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.”
- Robin Williams
"We all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own" - DPS
"No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world" - DPS
" We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human is filled with passion and medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."
"Do you have a soulmate?/Define that./ Somebody who challenges you. Someone who touches your soul."
"Seize every day. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold and die."
"I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way"
"You'll have bad times, but it'll always wake up up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to."
"You must strive to find your own voice. Because the long you wait to begin, the less likely you are to fine it at all."
"The things we fear the most have already happened to us."
"Why can't we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity and decency, and God forbid- maybe even humor."
“Carpe. Hear it? Carpe. Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.” – John Keating, Dead Poets Society
“I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself.” – John Keating, Dead Poets Society
“Our job is improving the quality of life, not just delaying death.” – Patch Adams, Patch Adams
We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"
Neil: [quoting Henry David Thoreau] "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."
Dalton: I'll second that.
Neil: "To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived."
Have you ever told your father what you just told me? About your passion for acting? You ever showed him that?
Neil Perry: I can't.
John Keating: Why not?
Neil Perry: I can't talk to him this way.
John Keating: Then you're acting for him, too. You're playing the part of the dutiful son. Now, I know this sounds impossible, but you have to talk to him. You have to show him who you are, what your heart is!
Neil Perry: I know what he'll say! He'll tell me that acting's a whim and I should forget it. They're counting on me; he'll just tell me to put it out of my mind for my own good.
John Keating: You are not an indentured servant! It's not a whim for you, you prove it to him by your conviction and your passion! You show that to him, and if he still doesn't believe you - well, by then, you'll be out of school and can do anything you want."
"The loneliest people are the kindest, The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone else suffer the way they do."
"By day I praised you
and never knew it.
By night I stayed with you
and never knew it.
I always thought that
I was me--but no,
I was you
and never knew it."
"The Lovers
will drink wine night and day.
They will drink until they can
tear away the veils of intellect and
melt away the layers of shame and modesty.
When in Love,
body, mind, heart and soul don't even exist.
Become this,
fall in Love,
and you will not be separated again."
"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do."
"Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl."
"Close the door of words that the window of the heart may open."
"Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls."
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”
“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” - Maya Angelou
"I completely understand. I'm like this too (but thankfully a lot less so recently). Sometimes you just have to accept that you have a melancholic temperament. It's not something to be pathologized, just something to be integrated into your whole being. I bet this person also has high empathy for others. There are a lot of gifts that come with the pervasive underlay of sadness. Some people may call this "depression," and they may in fact be right, and probably are. But on the other hand, life is sad. Even happiness is rooted in sadness. “The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.”
"If you are like me...you are not depressed. Most of the people that know me would not think that. I am sensitive. I am empathetic. I am a deep thinker. I am a people pleaser, it brings me joy. I am "affected" by people and the energy around me. I can be very fun, I love life, I love so many things. I do a lot of fun things. But...I feel things to my core. Allow yourself to be who you are and don't allow anyone to label you."
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know" -Hemingway
Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them.” ― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
"At this point in my life, I'm trying to figure out the things I truly care about."
"What's something you care about less than you did ten years ago?"
"Being extraordinary."
“At crucial junctures, every individual makes decisions and … every decision is individual,” by Raul Hilberg, a refugee from Nazism and a leading Holocaust scholar
“My parents were always fighting. They weren’t very supportive. I used to be bitter about it. I was caught up on how my life could have been different if I had better parents. How things would have been different if x, y, and z had happened. But then you get older and you realize maybe they didn’t have the capacity to give you what you needed. They couldn’t understand you, just like you couldn’t understand them. You realize they were dealing with their own disappointments. And you even start to think, ‘Maybe I could have been a better son.’”
Everyone who works with love and with intelligence finds in the very sincerity of his love for nature and art a kind of armor against the opinions of other people.
“People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder.” —Salma Hayek
Do you know what frees one from this captivity? It is every deep serious affection. Being friends, being brothers, love, these open the prison by supreme power, by some magic force. Where sympathy is renewed, life is restored.
It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done!
In order to work and to become an artist one needs love. At least, one who wants sentiment in his work must in the first place feel it himself, and live with his heart.
the silver lining given difficult experiences in life:
Analysis and academic abilities can be learned (albeit with lots of effort), but perspective that's formed and is unique, is much harder to learn/shift and change. Oddly, this reality is inherently dependent on humankind's inability to fully empathize with all experiences.
If frodo can get the ring to Mordor, you can get out of bed!
"Seek to disrupt the structures that taught those of us who gained more access that we are worth more than where we left, and less than what we found ourselves among."
“You are terrifying and strange and beautiful, someone not everyone knows how to love.”
― Warsan Shire
“give your daughters difficult names. give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. my name makes you want to tell me the truth. my name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.”
― Warsan Shire
“two people who were once very close can
without blame
or grand betrayal
become strangers.
perhaps this is the saddest thing in the world.”
― Warsan Shire
“It's not my responsibility to be beautiful. I'm not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me.”
― Warsan Shire
“make love
like you have no
secrets
like you’ve
never been
left
never been
hurt
like the world
don’t owe you a
single
wretched
thing.”
― Warsan Shire
“you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that”
― Warsan Shire
“Don't assume, ask. Be kind. Tell the truth. Don't say anything you can't stand behind fully. Have integrity. Tell people how you feel.”
― Warsan Shire
“You tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.”
― Warsan Shire
"You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day.
This is a power you can cultivate.
If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind.
That's the only thing you should be trying to control." - Elizabeth Gilbert
You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame.
How could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master...”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
“To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced
life.”
“Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing...”
“There’s a crack (or cracks) in everyone…that’s how the light of God gets in.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
“Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
tags: crying, sorrow
You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert
“If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will protect upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert
“Look for God. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert
“My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.”
― Warsan Shire
"Find something that makes you feel like the world makes sense, even if you can’t justify it intellectually to yourself or anyone else."
"Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day." Zen Proverb.
"When life give your something that makes you feel afraid, that's when life gives you a chance to be brave." -Lupytha Hermin
'"You don't believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they're true," she points out.
"But"—I speak slowly as I mull that over—"isn't looking at the result of a belief a good way of evaluating if it's true?"'- Veronica Roth
"A few of them are split from punching Caleb, and dotted with faint bruises. It seems fitting that the blow would leave a mark on both of us. That's how the world works." -Veronica Roth- Allegiant.
"This power of good must prove its truth and strength by its fearlessness, by its refusal to accept any imposition which depends for its success upon its power to produce frightfulness and is not ashamed to use its machines of destruction to terrorize a population completely disarmed. We must know that moral conquest does not consist in success, that failure does not deprive it of its dignity and worth. Those who believe in spiritual life know that to stand against wrong which has overwhelming material power behind it is victory itself, it is the victory of the active faith in the ideal in the teeth of evident defeat."
—Rabindranath Tagore, in a letter (April 19, 1919) to Mahatma Gandhi
To be so far from want that we wish others to be partakers of our plenty — that is something for which to give thanks.
"Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
-L.Cohen
"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in."
- Hub
"To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."
- Walter Pater
“Within tears, find hidden laughter
Seek treasures amid ruins, sincere one. ”
― Rumi
It is precisely the role of human rights to identify the workings of power that keep unac- ceptable things as they are, and to challenge that power with a different vision of human well-being. The challenge does not have to be confrontatio- nal or angry; it can proceed softly, through dia- logue and consensus. But it will always be daring because it requires us to dare to imagine a dif- ferent reality, and to have the courage to call, each in his or her own voice and with his or her own means, for the re-arrangements of power necessary to change the unacceptable.
if you make enough effort with huge passion there is no impossible.
Maybe everyone is a little mad, and how much depends on how lucky you are?
Maybe if you are diagnosed with a mental illness, maybe you see things differently than most people.
Rule 35
In this world, it is not similarities or regularities that take us a step forward, but blunt opposites. And all the opposites in the universe are present within each and every one of us. Therefore the believer needs to meet the unbeliever residing within. And the nonbeliever should get to know the silent faithful in him. Until the day one reaches the stage of Insane-I Kamil, the perfect human being, faith is a gradual process and one that necessitates its seeming opposite: disbelief.
The past is an interpretation. The future is on illusion. The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness. If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the PRESENT MOMENT.
“The Koran doesn’t specifically state that you must be covered,” said Professor Asma Afsaruddin, an expert on Islamic law at Indiana University. “It talks about modesty. And modesty is a cultural concept. What is considered modest in some Muslim societies is not necessarily what is considered modest in the United States.”
“You can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.”
― Michelle Obama
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.
“We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.”
― Amy Tan
there is no security on this earth- only opportunity
"No eminence is greater than to adopt humbleness; no exaltation is superior to knowledge; nothing is more respectable than forgiveness and forbearance; no support and defense are stronger than consultation" -Hazart Ali
"It captures the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations, that our rights are wrapped up in the rights of others and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all as citizens of these United States to be the authors of the next great chapter of our American story."
-My President, Barack Hussein Obama, The President of The United States of America
Where there is love of human kind, there is love of healing. -Hippocrates
we should be morally committed to being the healer of the world.
It’s a common belief that positive thinking leads to a happier, healthier life. As children we’re told to smile and be cheerful and put on a happy face. As adults we’re told to look on the brightside, to make lemonade and see glasses as half full. Sometimes, reality can get in the way of our ability to act the happy part, though. Your health can fail, boyfriends can cheat, friends can disappoint. It’s in these moments when you just want to get real, to drop the act, and be your true, scared, unhappy self. (Greys Anatomy)
It is a gift to be interested in something!
two things inspire me to awe- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within- Einstein
I try to think about life positively
why worry about stuff? there's always a solution lurking by...
Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. -Steve Jobs
You transform all those who are touched by you.~ Rumi
“You can be the most beautiful person in the world and everybody sees light and rainbows when they look at you, but if you yourself don't know it, all of that doesn't even matter. Every second that you spend on doubting your worth, every moment that you use to criticize yourself; is a second of your life wasted, is a moment of your life thrown away. It's not like you have forever, so don't waste any of your seconds, don't throw even one of your moments away.”
― C. JoyBell C.
Everything in life is connected somehow. You may have to dig deep to find it but its there. Everything is the same even though its different. Somehow everything connects back with your life. The faces in certain places may be different, but the situation is the same. Irony is a hidden factor that creeps around us in life, letting its presence felt only after it has left. Picture back to a year ago and the situation you were in. Look at how things are different yet somehow everything it still in some way cognate. Everything connects together to form the balance of life, to maintain structure. Change is and always will be inevitable, but everything is relative, and all the moments and times in your life will come back around again, you just might find yourself on the other side of the coin.
"The cosmos is also within us, We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." -Carl Sagan
"We are star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth, and perhaps throughout the cosmos."
Maneuvering through trying times is a lot like driving through dense fog. You can’t see where you’re going, you feel closed in, you want to turn back, and every mile feels like forever. Yet, scared or fatigued as you might be, there’s nothing you can do but breathe, stay observant, keep moving forward, and trust that someone with keener vision than yours is functioning as your guide.
We’ve bought into the idea that education is about training and “success”, defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers. A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death. -Chris Hedges
Don't let anyone ever make you feel like you don't deserve what you want.
"Make a wish and place it in your heart. Anything you want. Everything you want. Do you have it? Good. Now believe it can come true. You never know where the next miracle is going to come from, the next smile…the next wish come true. But if you believe that it is right around the corner, and you open your heart and mind to the possibility of it, to the certainty of it…you just might get the thing you're wishing for. The world is full of magic. You just have to believe in it. So make your wish. Do you have it? Good. Now believe in it…with all your heart."
The future is scary, but you can't keep running back to the past just because it's familiar.
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'
Eleanor Roosevelt
Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.
Norman Vincent Peale
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Mark Twain
If you want to conquer fear, don't sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
Dale Carnegie
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
Marianne Williamson
Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.
George S. Patton
If there is a situation that has potential for both awkward and good moments, I give it a try anyway. You never know what might come from the experience- Alina
Not everything is going to be picture perfect…
things sometimes take time, and have many rough things to go through before you can get there, but if you give up on the things you want…everything you’ve gone through ends up being worthless....Love the Life you Live ♥
love, charity, duty and patriotism- that's what makes america great! -Obama
we're all freaks one way or another so get over yourself- Drop dead diva
“You can even say that I hated myself at certain periods. I was too fat, or maybe too tall, or maybe just plain too ugly ... you can say my definiteness stems from underlying feelings of insecurity and inferiority. I couldn't conquer these feelings by acting indecisive. I found the only way to get the better of them was by adopting a forceful, concentrated drive.”
― Audrey Hepburn
humble assault on the common place
“Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality . Wake Up and Live!” ~ Bob Marley ♥
"It is hard to fail, but it is worse to never have tried to succeed." -Theodore Roosevelt.
“I'm tired of being sad. I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of feeling empty inside. I'm tired of feeling worthless. I'm tired of feeling stuck. I'm tired of feeling crazy. I'm tired of being alone. I'm tired of yelling. I'm tired of pretending. I'm tired of dreaming of a life I will never have. I'm tired of missing things. I'm tired of missing people. I'm tired of remembering. I'm tired of wishing I could start all over. I'm tired of not being able to just let go. I'm tired of faking it. I'm tired of being different. I'm tired of being angry. I'm tired of needing help. I'm tired of always wondering when God is finally going to let me be happy. Most of all, I'm just I'm tired of being tired.”
that's the thing: the day before your life changes forever, it feels like a normal day.
"When we follow our hearts
when we choose not to settle
it's funny isn't it-a weight lifts
the sun shines a little brighter
and for a brief moment at least
we find peace." -Meredith Grey
"To be nobody-but-yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” -E.E. Cummings
The next 30 days are going to pass whether you like it or not, so why not think about something you have always wanted to try and give it a shot for the next 30 days?” (Matt Cutts)
tiny tweaks can lead to big changes
Real faith cannot transcend real knowledge, it has to adapt to it and embrace it- Numb3rs
rahmanu
Change is inevitable and those who adapt quickly are more likely to survive- Flinehart
How we see ourselves changes how we see the world- flinehart
The human spirit is immeasurable- flinehart
"In no way do men more nearly approach the gods than in giving health to men!"-
I forgot to note the speaker or writer for some- but that's what google is for.
For me, the meaning is often more important than who said the quote, especially because we often give so much special credit to quotes by famous people even if they haven't said anything truly inspired. For me, quotes, similar to artwork, are relationships with the reader. And although they do get stripped from the entire context, sometimes we just need to read a couple of sentences for us to feel a connection with another's soul.
Quotes:
"Claim your experience. Don't let it claim you. What if there were no survivors, meaning, what if people decided to just claim their trauma as an experience instead of taking it on as an identity? Maybe it would be the end of being trapped in our wounds and the beginning of amazing self-exploration and discovery and growth. Maybe it would be the start of defining ourselves by who we have become and who we are becoming."- Debra Jarvis
“When my sister’s having a manic episode, she thinks she has superpowers. She’ll go outside and strip off her clothes. She’ll develop all these conspiracies about the government being out to get her, and she’ll think that something she’s done has made our whole family unsafe... It’s hard to see her like that, and it’s hard to say that there’s anything nice about it, but then again, I can’t help but feel that she has a certain freedom that I envy when she’s having an episode. I feel like everyone’s a little crazy and we all walk around with this armor of sanity, and she’s just able to cast it off completely. I’d almost like to join her and run around the city if only she could keep it from spinning out of control.”- HONY page
“To know all is to forgive all.”
"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 others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
— Steve Jobs
"As children we owned all of ourselves. As adults, in response to the expectations of others, we have had to hide much of ourselves away, out of sight even from our own eyes. The cost of such voluntary losses is great. No one can afford to give up any part of himself. All of you is worth something. Even the evil can be a source of vitality if only you can face it and transform it. Our love of pure goodness, our insistence on innocence, is a hazard. For the sake of appearing to be what others require us to be, to be more moral than any man can be, we sacrifice our strength."
"Writing a first draft is very much like watching a Polaroid develop. You can’t—and, in fact, you’re not supposed to—know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing."
— Anne Lamott
"Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to."
— Laura Vanderkam
As we cannot be universal by knowing everything there is to know about everything, we must know a little about everything, because it is much better to know something about everything than everything about something. Such universality is the finest.
— Blaise Pascal
It is most important to run out of scapegoats.
Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again.
Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
— Dale Carnegie
"If you can… fall in love, with the work, with people you work with, with your dreams and their dreams. Whatever it was that got you to this school, don’t let it go. Whatever kept you here, don’t let that go. Believe in your friends. Believe that what you and your friends have to say… that the way you’re saying it — is something new in the world."
"the next time you have a conflict with a friend, find the courage to speak openly about how you feel. Each time you listen to your inner voice and act on it, you build a skill that will help you get closer to leading the life you truly want."
"it’s just that many of us don’t belong to where we come from" SeouJae
"Knowledge should mean a full grasp of knowledge:
Knowledge means to know yourself, heart and soul.
If you have failed to understand yourself,
Then all of your reading has missed its call."
-Sufi`s saying
"If you can dream it you can achieve it" - Always dare to dream, because even though it's hard for you to believe it right now, your craziest, most wonderful dreams might actually come true
“I don’t come to bow. I come to conquer.” #bobmarleyquotes
"Change, when it comes, cracks everything open." -Dorothy Allison
"Wishing for us all in this 5775 the wisdom, courage, and flexibility to better understand what is asked of us as individual souls and as members of larger communities -- to deepen our awareness of our place in history, and yet be filled with a compelling urge to transcend it." L'shana tova tikatevu.
"The most successful people are those with a thirst for knowledge and the willingness to keep learning" -Edward Gallante, former Senior VP of Exxon Mobile
"If you're feeling stuck tonight, remember that people are always transforming. You can be whomever you want today, no matter who you were before."
“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose”
― Charles Bukowski
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski
“Find what you love and let it kill you.”
― Charles Bukowski
“My dear,
Find what you love and let it kill you.
Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.
Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.
For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover.
~ Falsely yours”
― Charles Bukowski
“I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can't feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.”
― Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness
“I wanted the whole world or nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski, Post Office
“We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes”
― Charles Bukowski
“It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum
“People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women
“there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
a space
and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest times
times
we will know it
we will know it
more than
ever
there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and
we will wait
and
wait
in that space.”
― Charles Bukowski
“There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die.”
― Charles Bukowski
“This is very important -- to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you're gonna lose everything...just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That's why they're all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful.”
― Charles Bukowski
“Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings -- that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
Buddha (500BC)”
Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents. Later, when we are sick and old, we are again dependent on the kindness of others. Since we are so dependent on others at the beginning and end of our lives, how could it be that we would neglect kindness towards others in the middle?
-Dalai Lama
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)”
“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgements requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.
John Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)”
“Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.
Heraclitus (535BC-475BC)”
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because some day in life you will have been all these.
George Washington (1732-1799)”
“Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)”
“True science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider most important. Art transmits these truths from the region of perception to the region of emotion.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)”
"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance"
Don't just write in an active voice, live your life that way."
Fundamentalism makes life better in so many practical ways.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"
“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
― John Lennon
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.”
― Paulo Coelho, Alchemist
“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
― Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
― Plato
“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi
“I’m intimidated by the fear of being average.”
― Taylor Swift
“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.”
― Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
“She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by-
And never knew.”
shel silvestein
“Books are finite, sexual encounters are finite, but the desire to read and to fuck is infinite; it surpasses our own deaths, our fears, our hopes for peace.”
― Roberto Bolaño
“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”
― Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
“To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.” - Hermann Hesse
“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” - Franz Kafka
"Love is the recognition of beauty
A flower doesn't stop being beautiful just because somebody walks by without noticing it, nor does it cease to be fragrant if its scent is taken for granted. The flower just continues to be its glorious self: elegant, graceful, and magnificent.
Our Mother Nature has provided us with these immeasurably valuable teachers that blossom despite their short lifespan, stars that continue to shine even if we fail to stare at them, and trees that don't take it personally if we never bow down in gratitude for the oxygen they provide.
We also have an incredible and unlimited capacity to love, but the question is: can we do it like a flower? Without needing to be admired, adored, or even noticed? Can we open our hearts completely to give, forgive, celebrate, and joyfully live our lives without hesitation or need for reciprocity?
It seems like sometimes we go beyond taking things personally and are noticeably deflated when unappreciated. In-fact, devastated, we wilt in sorrow and then attempt to guard ourselves by withholding, using all sorts of protections and defenses. We get hurt (even angry), if our boss fails to recognize an astonishing feat, if a lover pulls their hand away, or when a friend forgets our birthday. Can you imagine a flower copping an attitude for not being praised, or the moon dimming its glow because we're too self-absorbed to notice it more often?
Make an effort to shine no matter what, to love unconditionally, and to be a kind and gentle soul (even when nobody is watching). And, if you're so inclined, hug the next tree you see and say, "Thank you!"
"But what if we viewed leisure time not as goofing off, but as necessary time for reflecting, for inspiring creativity, and for saving up brainpower and energy for future work?"
“You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.”
- Robin Williams
"We all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own" - DPS
"No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world" - DPS
" We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human is filled with passion and medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."
"Do you have a soulmate?/Define that./ Somebody who challenges you. Someone who touches your soul."
"Seize every day. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold and die."
"I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way"
"You'll have bad times, but it'll always wake up up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to."
"You must strive to find your own voice. Because the long you wait to begin, the less likely you are to fine it at all."
"The things we fear the most have already happened to us."
"Why can't we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity and decency, and God forbid- maybe even humor."
“Carpe. Hear it? Carpe. Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.” – John Keating, Dead Poets Society
“I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself.” – John Keating, Dead Poets Society
“Our job is improving the quality of life, not just delaying death.” – Patch Adams, Patch Adams
We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"
Neil: [quoting Henry David Thoreau] "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."
Dalton: I'll second that.
Neil: "To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived."
Have you ever told your father what you just told me? About your passion for acting? You ever showed him that?
Neil Perry: I can't.
John Keating: Why not?
Neil Perry: I can't talk to him this way.
John Keating: Then you're acting for him, too. You're playing the part of the dutiful son. Now, I know this sounds impossible, but you have to talk to him. You have to show him who you are, what your heart is!
Neil Perry: I know what he'll say! He'll tell me that acting's a whim and I should forget it. They're counting on me; he'll just tell me to put it out of my mind for my own good.
John Keating: You are not an indentured servant! It's not a whim for you, you prove it to him by your conviction and your passion! You show that to him, and if he still doesn't believe you - well, by then, you'll be out of school and can do anything you want."
"The loneliest people are the kindest, The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone else suffer the way they do."
"By day I praised you
and never knew it.
By night I stayed with you
and never knew it.
I always thought that
I was me--but no,
I was you
and never knew it."
"The Lovers
will drink wine night and day.
They will drink until they can
tear away the veils of intellect and
melt away the layers of shame and modesty.
When in Love,
body, mind, heart and soul don't even exist.
Become this,
fall in Love,
and you will not be separated again."
"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do."
"Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl."
"Close the door of words that the window of the heart may open."
"Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls."
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”
“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” - Maya Angelou
"I completely understand. I'm like this too (but thankfully a lot less so recently). Sometimes you just have to accept that you have a melancholic temperament. It's not something to be pathologized, just something to be integrated into your whole being. I bet this person also has high empathy for others. There are a lot of gifts that come with the pervasive underlay of sadness. Some people may call this "depression," and they may in fact be right, and probably are. But on the other hand, life is sad. Even happiness is rooted in sadness. “The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.”
"If you are like me...you are not depressed. Most of the people that know me would not think that. I am sensitive. I am empathetic. I am a deep thinker. I am a people pleaser, it brings me joy. I am "affected" by people and the energy around me. I can be very fun, I love life, I love so many things. I do a lot of fun things. But...I feel things to my core. Allow yourself to be who you are and don't allow anyone to label you."
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know" -Hemingway
Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them.” ― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
"At this point in my life, I'm trying to figure out the things I truly care about."
"What's something you care about less than you did ten years ago?"
"Being extraordinary."
“At crucial junctures, every individual makes decisions and … every decision is individual,” by Raul Hilberg, a refugee from Nazism and a leading Holocaust scholar
“My parents were always fighting. They weren’t very supportive. I used to be bitter about it. I was caught up on how my life could have been different if I had better parents. How things would have been different if x, y, and z had happened. But then you get older and you realize maybe they didn’t have the capacity to give you what you needed. They couldn’t understand you, just like you couldn’t understand them. You realize they were dealing with their own disappointments. And you even start to think, ‘Maybe I could have been a better son.’”
Everyone who works with love and with intelligence finds in the very sincerity of his love for nature and art a kind of armor against the opinions of other people.
“People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder.” —Salma Hayek
Do you know what frees one from this captivity? It is every deep serious affection. Being friends, being brothers, love, these open the prison by supreme power, by some magic force. Where sympathy is renewed, life is restored.
It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done!
In order to work and to become an artist one needs love. At least, one who wants sentiment in his work must in the first place feel it himself, and live with his heart.
the silver lining given difficult experiences in life:
Analysis and academic abilities can be learned (albeit with lots of effort), but perspective that's formed and is unique, is much harder to learn/shift and change. Oddly, this reality is inherently dependent on humankind's inability to fully empathize with all experiences.
If frodo can get the ring to Mordor, you can get out of bed!
"Seek to disrupt the structures that taught those of us who gained more access that we are worth more than where we left, and less than what we found ourselves among."
“You are terrifying and strange and beautiful, someone not everyone knows how to love.”
― Warsan Shire
“give your daughters difficult names. give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. my name makes you want to tell me the truth. my name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.”
― Warsan Shire
“two people who were once very close can
without blame
or grand betrayal
become strangers.
perhaps this is the saddest thing in the world.”
― Warsan Shire
“It's not my responsibility to be beautiful. I'm not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me.”
― Warsan Shire
“make love
like you have no
secrets
like you’ve
never been
left
never been
hurt
like the world
don’t owe you a
single
wretched
thing.”
― Warsan Shire
“you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that”
― Warsan Shire
“Don't assume, ask. Be kind. Tell the truth. Don't say anything you can't stand behind fully. Have integrity. Tell people how you feel.”
― Warsan Shire
“You tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.”
― Warsan Shire
"You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day.
This is a power you can cultivate.
If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind.
That's the only thing you should be trying to control." - Elizabeth Gilbert
You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame.
How could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master...”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
“To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced
life.”
“Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing...”
“There’s a crack (or cracks) in everyone…that’s how the light of God gets in.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
“Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
tags: crying, sorrow
You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert
“If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will protect upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert
“Look for God. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert
“My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.”
― Warsan Shire
"Find something that makes you feel like the world makes sense, even if you can’t justify it intellectually to yourself or anyone else."
"Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day." Zen Proverb.
"When life give your something that makes you feel afraid, that's when life gives you a chance to be brave." -Lupytha Hermin
'"You don't believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they're true," she points out.
"But"—I speak slowly as I mull that over—"isn't looking at the result of a belief a good way of evaluating if it's true?"'- Veronica Roth
"A few of them are split from punching Caleb, and dotted with faint bruises. It seems fitting that the blow would leave a mark on both of us. That's how the world works." -Veronica Roth- Allegiant.
"This power of good must prove its truth and strength by its fearlessness, by its refusal to accept any imposition which depends for its success upon its power to produce frightfulness and is not ashamed to use its machines of destruction to terrorize a population completely disarmed. We must know that moral conquest does not consist in success, that failure does not deprive it of its dignity and worth. Those who believe in spiritual life know that to stand against wrong which has overwhelming material power behind it is victory itself, it is the victory of the active faith in the ideal in the teeth of evident defeat."
—Rabindranath Tagore, in a letter (April 19, 1919) to Mahatma Gandhi
To be so far from want that we wish others to be partakers of our plenty — that is something for which to give thanks.
"Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
-L.Cohen
"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in."
- Hub
"To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."
- Walter Pater
“Within tears, find hidden laughter
Seek treasures amid ruins, sincere one. ”
― Rumi
It is precisely the role of human rights to identify the workings of power that keep unac- ceptable things as they are, and to challenge that power with a different vision of human well-being. The challenge does not have to be confrontatio- nal or angry; it can proceed softly, through dia- logue and consensus. But it will always be daring because it requires us to dare to imagine a dif- ferent reality, and to have the courage to call, each in his or her own voice and with his or her own means, for the re-arrangements of power necessary to change the unacceptable.
if you make enough effort with huge passion there is no impossible.
Maybe everyone is a little mad, and how much depends on how lucky you are?
Maybe if you are diagnosed with a mental illness, maybe you see things differently than most people.
Rule 35
In this world, it is not similarities or regularities that take us a step forward, but blunt opposites. And all the opposites in the universe are present within each and every one of us. Therefore the believer needs to meet the unbeliever residing within. And the nonbeliever should get to know the silent faithful in him. Until the day one reaches the stage of Insane-I Kamil, the perfect human being, faith is a gradual process and one that necessitates its seeming opposite: disbelief.
The past is an interpretation. The future is on illusion. The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness. If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the PRESENT MOMENT.
“The Koran doesn’t specifically state that you must be covered,” said Professor Asma Afsaruddin, an expert on Islamic law at Indiana University. “It talks about modesty. And modesty is a cultural concept. What is considered modest in some Muslim societies is not necessarily what is considered modest in the United States.”
“You can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.”
― Michelle Obama
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.
“We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.”
― Amy Tan
there is no security on this earth- only opportunity
"No eminence is greater than to adopt humbleness; no exaltation is superior to knowledge; nothing is more respectable than forgiveness and forbearance; no support and defense are stronger than consultation" -Hazart Ali
"It captures the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations, that our rights are wrapped up in the rights of others and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all as citizens of these United States to be the authors of the next great chapter of our American story."
-My President, Barack Hussein Obama, The President of The United States of America
Where there is love of human kind, there is love of healing. -Hippocrates
we should be morally committed to being the healer of the world.
It’s a common belief that positive thinking leads to a happier, healthier life. As children we’re told to smile and be cheerful and put on a happy face. As adults we’re told to look on the brightside, to make lemonade and see glasses as half full. Sometimes, reality can get in the way of our ability to act the happy part, though. Your health can fail, boyfriends can cheat, friends can disappoint. It’s in these moments when you just want to get real, to drop the act, and be your true, scared, unhappy self. (Greys Anatomy)
It is a gift to be interested in something!
two things inspire me to awe- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within- Einstein
I try to think about life positively
why worry about stuff? there's always a solution lurking by...
Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. -Steve Jobs
You transform all those who are touched by you.~ Rumi
“You can be the most beautiful person in the world and everybody sees light and rainbows when they look at you, but if you yourself don't know it, all of that doesn't even matter. Every second that you spend on doubting your worth, every moment that you use to criticize yourself; is a second of your life wasted, is a moment of your life thrown away. It's not like you have forever, so don't waste any of your seconds, don't throw even one of your moments away.”
― C. JoyBell C.
Everything in life is connected somehow. You may have to dig deep to find it but its there. Everything is the same even though its different. Somehow everything connects back with your life. The faces in certain places may be different, but the situation is the same. Irony is a hidden factor that creeps around us in life, letting its presence felt only after it has left. Picture back to a year ago and the situation you were in. Look at how things are different yet somehow everything it still in some way cognate. Everything connects together to form the balance of life, to maintain structure. Change is and always will be inevitable, but everything is relative, and all the moments and times in your life will come back around again, you just might find yourself on the other side of the coin.
"The cosmos is also within us, We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." -Carl Sagan
"We are star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth, and perhaps throughout the cosmos."
Maneuvering through trying times is a lot like driving through dense fog. You can’t see where you’re going, you feel closed in, you want to turn back, and every mile feels like forever. Yet, scared or fatigued as you might be, there’s nothing you can do but breathe, stay observant, keep moving forward, and trust that someone with keener vision than yours is functioning as your guide.
We’ve bought into the idea that education is about training and “success”, defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers. A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death. -Chris Hedges
Don't let anyone ever make you feel like you don't deserve what you want.
"Make a wish and place it in your heart. Anything you want. Everything you want. Do you have it? Good. Now believe it can come true. You never know where the next miracle is going to come from, the next smile…the next wish come true. But if you believe that it is right around the corner, and you open your heart and mind to the possibility of it, to the certainty of it…you just might get the thing you're wishing for. The world is full of magic. You just have to believe in it. So make your wish. Do you have it? Good. Now believe in it…with all your heart."
The future is scary, but you can't keep running back to the past just because it's familiar.
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'
Eleanor Roosevelt
Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.
Norman Vincent Peale
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Mark Twain
If you want to conquer fear, don't sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
Dale Carnegie
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
Marianne Williamson
Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.
George S. Patton
If there is a situation that has potential for both awkward and good moments, I give it a try anyway. You never know what might come from the experience- Alina
Not everything is going to be picture perfect…
things sometimes take time, and have many rough things to go through before you can get there, but if you give up on the things you want…everything you’ve gone through ends up being worthless....Love the Life you Live ♥
love, charity, duty and patriotism- that's what makes america great! -Obama
we're all freaks one way or another so get over yourself- Drop dead diva
“You can even say that I hated myself at certain periods. I was too fat, or maybe too tall, or maybe just plain too ugly ... you can say my definiteness stems from underlying feelings of insecurity and inferiority. I couldn't conquer these feelings by acting indecisive. I found the only way to get the better of them was by adopting a forceful, concentrated drive.”
― Audrey Hepburn
humble assault on the common place
“Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality . Wake Up and Live!” ~ Bob Marley ♥
"It is hard to fail, but it is worse to never have tried to succeed." -Theodore Roosevelt.
“I'm tired of being sad. I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of feeling empty inside. I'm tired of feeling worthless. I'm tired of feeling stuck. I'm tired of feeling crazy. I'm tired of being alone. I'm tired of yelling. I'm tired of pretending. I'm tired of dreaming of a life I will never have. I'm tired of missing things. I'm tired of missing people. I'm tired of remembering. I'm tired of wishing I could start all over. I'm tired of not being able to just let go. I'm tired of faking it. I'm tired of being different. I'm tired of being angry. I'm tired of needing help. I'm tired of always wondering when God is finally going to let me be happy. Most of all, I'm just I'm tired of being tired.”
that's the thing: the day before your life changes forever, it feels like a normal day.
"When we follow our hearts
when we choose not to settle
it's funny isn't it-a weight lifts
the sun shines a little brighter
and for a brief moment at least
we find peace." -Meredith Grey
"To be nobody-but-yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” -E.E. Cummings
The next 30 days are going to pass whether you like it or not, so why not think about something you have always wanted to try and give it a shot for the next 30 days?” (Matt Cutts)
tiny tweaks can lead to big changes
Real faith cannot transcend real knowledge, it has to adapt to it and embrace it- Numb3rs
rahmanu
Change is inevitable and those who adapt quickly are more likely to survive- Flinehart
How we see ourselves changes how we see the world- flinehart
The human spirit is immeasurable- flinehart
"In no way do men more nearly approach the gods than in giving health to men!"-
