Tag: Various

Quotes April 19, 2021

While thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.
Cyril Connolly
 
 
 
 
Everybody has a heart that can be touched by something.
Naoki Higashida
 
 
 
 
Understanding and loving are inseparable. If they are separate, it is a cerebral process and the door to essential understanding remains closed.
Erich Fromm
 
 
 
 
We all flow from one fountain — Soul. All are expressions of one love.
John Muir
 
 
 
 
A choir is made up of many voices, including yours and mine. If .one by one all go silent then all that will be left are the soloists. Don’t let a loud few determine the nature of the sound. It makes for poor harmony and diminishes the song.
Vera Nazarian
 
 
 
 
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.
Aldous Huxley
 
 
 
 
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, how can we know the dancer from the dance?
William Butler Yeats
 
 
 
 
Sometimes those who give the most are the ones with the least to spare.
Mike McIntyre
 
 
 
 
I came into poetry feeling as though, on some level, these words were not just mine but my grandparents’, their parents’.
Joy Harjo
 
 
 
 
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
James Clear
 
 
 
 
Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.
Jorge Luis Borges
 
 
 
 
Interaction with self, with other human beings, and with Nature, all should lead to harmony and peace. That is the purpose of life.
Anand Damani
 
 
 
 
The first and most important choice a leader makes is the choice to serve, without which one’s capacity to lead is severely limited.
Robert Greenleaf
 
 
 
 
Safety and security don’t just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear.
Nelson Mandela
 
 
 
 
What is this moment teaching me about myself and others, and how is it contributing to my ability to love?
Lee Perlman
 
 
 
 
A market exchange has an equilibrium or stasis: you pay to balance the scale. But when you give a gift there is momentum, and the weight shifts from body to body.
Lewis Hyde
 
 
 
 
The true life of the bowl began the moment it was dropped.
Ancient Kintsugi quote
 
 
 
 
I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion–and where it isn’t, that’s where my work lies.
Ram Dass

Quotes April 17, 2021

If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.
Larry McMurtry,
writer, screenwriter, bookseller
1936-2021
 
 
 
 
Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.
Beverly Cleary,
writer
1916-2021
 
 
 
 
Our past, our present, and whatever remains of our future, absolutely depend on what we do now.
Sylvia Earle,
marine biologist, conservationist, oceanographer, explorer
 
 
 
 
Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.
Hans Christian Andersen,
writer
 
 
 
 
The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism.
George Jean Nathan,
drama critic, magazine editor
 
 
 
 
Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.
D.H. Lawrence,
writer, poet
 
 
 
 
When people say, ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,’ it’s not true, because you can reinvent yourself and learn new things whenever you want.
Jonathan Van Ness,
hairdresser, actor, writer, TV personality, podcast host
 
 
 
 
There is a choice to make, a chance to take.
Jill McCorkle,
writer, educator
 
 
 
 
To be who you are and become what you are capable of is the only goal worth living.
One of the processes of your life is to constantly break down that inferiority, to constantly reaffirm that I Am Somebody.
Alvin Ailey,
dancer, director, choreographer, activist
 
 
 
 
The first act of insight is throw away the labels.
Never think you’ve seen the last of anything.
Eudora Welty,
writer, Pulitzer Prize winner
 
 
 
 
Judge not for your flaws, but for your Triumphs!
Whitney Houston,
singer, actor
 
 
 
 
The talent should speak for itself.
Jennifer Hudson,
singer, actor
 
 
 
 
You don’t paddle against the current, you paddle with it. And if you get good at it, you throw away the oars.
Kris Kristofferson,
singer-songwriter, actor

Quotes April 13, 2021

When I stand before thee at the day’s end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.
Rabindranath Tagore
 
 
 
 
Within sorrow is grace. When we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. And in that breaking open, we uncover our true nature.
Wayne Muller
 
 
 
 
Occasionally in life one develops a conviction so precious and meaningful that he will stand on it till the end. That is what I have found in nonviolence.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
 
 
 
No person, I think, ever saw a herd of buffalo, of which a few were fat and the great majority lean. No person ever saw a flock of birds, of which two or three were swimming in grease, and the others all skin and bone.
Henry George
 
 
 
 
The creative process is a process of surrender not control.
Julia Cameron
 
 
 
 
We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
 
 
 
 
Believing that your qualities are carved in stone –the fixed mindset–creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over.
Carol Dweck
 
 
 
 
When we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation.
Robin Wall Kimmerer
 
 
 
 
Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents.
Eckhart Tolle
 
 
 
 
Negativity is an addiction to the bleak shadow that lingers around every human form…you can transfigure negativity by turning it toward the light of your soul.
John O’Donohue
 
 
 
 
To heal means to “make whole,” and when we feel whole we are in touch with the whole world.
Michael Meade
 
 
 
 
I believe that you live on inside the hearts and minds of everyone you’ve touched while you were here on earth.
Mitch Albom
 
 
 
 
Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
Gary Snyder
 
 
 
 
The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.
Kahlil Gibran
 
 
 
 
There is something magical about running; after a certain distance, it transcends the body. Then a bit further, it transcends the mind. A bit further yet, and what you have before you, laid bare, is the soul.
Kristin Armstrong

Quotes April 06, 2021

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
Mark Twain
 
 
 
 
Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory.
James Stephens
 
 
 
 
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
P. J. O’Rourke
 
 
 
 
The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.
Ward Cunningham, American computer programmer who developed the first wiki
 
 
 
 
It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
William Blake
 
 
 
 
Arrogant people are non-learners. They invest their energies in maintaining a cozy feeling of complacency, and complacency is the biggest single enemy to the process of continuously learning from experience. Arrogant people are exactly the sort of people who are destined to have one year’s experience 20 times rather than 20 years’ worth of experience.
Peter Honey
 
 
 
 
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
Jean Giraudoux
 
 
 
 
Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.
Vincent van Gogh
 
 
 
 
You hear about how many fourth-quarter comebacks that a guy has, and I think it means a guy screwed up in the first three quarters.
Peyton Manning
 
 
 
 
I am a believer in regular work, and never wait for an inspiration. Temperamentally, I am not only careless and irregular, but melancholy; still I have fought both down. The discipline I had as a sailor had a full effect on me. Perhaps my old sea days are also responsible for the regularity and limitations of my life. Five and a half hours [of sleep] is the precise average I allow myself, and no circumstance has yet arisen in my life that can keep me awake when the time comes to ‘turn in.’
Jack London
 
 
 
 
Publishing is a business. Writing may be art, but publishing, when all is said and done, comes down to dollars.
Nicholas Sparks

Quotes March 30, 2021

The muscles used to make a smile actually send a biochemical message to our nervous system that it is safe to relax the flight or freeze response.
Tara Brach
 
 
 
 
Until we define happiness for ourselves, clearly seeing the difference between excitement and joy, for example, our habits will likely not change. We will keep returning to the fruits of our desires
Judson Brewer
 
 
 
 
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.
Rabindranath Tagore
 
 
 
 
Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.
Rossiter W. Raymond
 
 
 
 
Everything we see and touch consists of matter rearranged by information and energy. Everything is in connections and bonds. Life, mind, and love, our human nature, have been created in partnership with the rules that run the world.
Paul R. Fleischman
 
 
 
 
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Alan Watts
 
 
 
 
So often, we leave the selfless side of ourselves for nights and weekends, for our charity work. It is our duty to inject that into our day-to-day business, into the work that we do, to improve corporations, to improve civil society, and to improve government.
Leila Janah
 
 
 
 
What will those who come after us think of us? Will they envy us that we saw butterflies and mockingbirds, penguins and little brown bats?
Derrick Jensen
 
 
 
 
This wonderful elixir of light is the thing that actually connects the immaterial with the material – that connects the cosmic to the plain everyday existence that we try to live in.
James Turrell
 
 
 
 
In our estrangement from nature we have severed our sense of the community of life and lost touch with the experience of other animals. …understanding the human animal becomes easier in context, seeing our human thread woven into the living web among the strands of so many others.
Carl Safina
 
 
 
 
Where there is anger there is always pain underneath.
Eckhart Tolle
 
 
 
 
Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable.
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
Wendell Berry
 
 
 
 
If you want to succeed, focus on changing yourself, not others.
Unknown

Quotes March 29, 2021

Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.
Simone de Beauvoir,
writer, activist, feminist, social theorist
March is Women’s History Month
 
 
 
 
We haven’t risen yet to the level of ourselves
I drink from a small spring, my thirst exceeds the ocean.
Adam Zagajewski,
poet, writer
1945-2021
 
 
 
 
Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present
Albert Camus
 
 
 
 
A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
Lao Tzu
 
 
 
 
The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace
Eckhart Tolle
 
 
 
 
Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.
Susan Sontag
 
 
 
 
In our uniqueness lies our universality. By being what only we are, we contribute to humanity what only we can give.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
 
 
 
 
Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.
Carlos Fuentes
 
 
 
 
Acts of caregiving come as close to what I think religion is as I could name.
Arthur Kleinman
 
 
 
 
Silence is the answer. And silence arises when we are willing to let go of everything we have built up so far, and continue from there. Not to want to perform to become what we pursue– but to become who we are.
Gert van Leeuwen
 
 
 
 
Trees do not preach learning and precepts. They preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
Herman Hesse
 
 
 
 
Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk’s flight on the empty sky.
Ursula K. Le Guin
 
 
 
 
The greatest healing would be to wake up from what we are not.
Mooji
 
 
 
 
Overthinking ruins you, ruins the situation, twists things around, makes you worry and just makes everything much worse than it actually is.
Unknown
 
 
 
 
Over 90% of what we worry about never happens.
Unknown

Quotes March 27, 2021

Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.
Naomi Shihab Nye
 
 
 
 
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
Henry David Thoreau
 
 
 
 
I don’t even try to persuade people to be artistic. I just say it’s permissible.
Davis Dimock
 
 
 
 
No matter how few possessions you own or how little money you have, loving wildlife and nature will make you rich beyond measure.
Paul Oxton
 
 
 
 
If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.
Lilla Watson
 
 
 
 
The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.
Pablo Picasso
 
 
 
 
In a time of crisis we all have the potential to morph up to a new level and do things we never thought possible.
Stuart Wilde
 
 
 
 
Let borders become sunlight so we traverse this Earth as one nation and drive the darkness out.
Kamand Kojouri
 
 
 
 
We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
Thornton Wilder
 
 
 
 
I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
John Muir
 
 
 
 
Connection and connectedness are other words for community and communion.
Parker Palmer
 
 
 
 
Love, oneness, is no separation between you and life. It is a progressive letting go, a progressive not fault finding… It’s very beautiful and very deep.
Ajahn Brahm
 
 
 
 
In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.
Fred Rogers
 
 
 
 
We’re all human. It’s the most important, neglected fact in business.
Chip Conley
 
 
 
 
Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.
Buddha
 
 
 
 
Make the rest of your life the best of your life.
Unknown
 
 
 
 
If you do not try, your chance of success drops to 0.0%
Unknown

Quotes March 09, 2021

The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity.
Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn’t be done.
Amelia Earhart,
aviation pioneer, writer, first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
March is Women’s History Month
 
 
 
 
When you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down until you get to the end of the row.
To me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.
Alice Paul,
suffragist, women’s rights activist, leader of the National Woman’s Party
March is Women’s History Month
 
 
 
 
To fly we have to have resistance.
Maya Lin,
architect, sculptor, designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Civil Rights Memorial
March is Women’s History Month
 
 
 
 
Don’t stir all the warmth out of your coffee; drink it.
Kate Chopin,
writer
March is Women’s History Month
 
 
 
 
There’s no such thing as a foreseeable future.
David McCullough,
historian, writer, Pulitzer Prize winner
 
 
 
 
Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
Robert Frost,
poet
 
 
 
 
If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.
Milton Berle
 
 
 
 
Simplicity is not a simple thing.
Life is a beautiful, magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish.
Charlie Chaplin,
actor, filmmaker
 
 
 
 
Life is too short to get hung up on the small things that do not matter.
Unknown
 
 
 
 
Repetitive complaining will attract things for you to complain about. Repeated gratitude will attract things for you to be thankful about. Unknown

Quotes March 04, 2021

Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they are supposed to help you discover who you are.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
 
 
 
 
Restoring rituals of initiation is at the heart of any meaningful cultural change.
Francis Weller
 
 
 
 
Be courageous and face this moment in time consciously and with all the discernment and clarity within your power.
James O’Dea
 
 
 
 
There’s a morning when presence comes over your soul. You sing like a rooster in your earth-colored shape. Your heart hears and, no longer frantic, begins to dance.
Rumi
 
 
 
 
Our Ancestors knew that healing comes in cycles and circles. One generation carries the pain so that the next can live and heal.
Gemma B. Benton
 
 
 
 
Kindness is the light that dissolves all walls between souls, families, and nations.
Paramahansa Yogananda
 
 
 
 
Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, a human cannot live without a spiritual life.
The Buddha
 
 
 
 
To live into the future means to leap into the unknown, and this requires a degree of courage for which there is no immediate precedent and which few people realize.
Rollo May
 
 
 
 
What if we started economics not with its long-established theories but with humanity’s long-term goals, and then sought out the economic thinking that would enable us to achieve them?
Kate Raworth
 
 
 
 
Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance.
A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people.
Brene Brown
 
 
 
 
Forgiveness is just another name for freedom.
Byron Katie
 
 
 
 
There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present.
Iris Murdoch
 
 
 
 
In a place where there are no humans, one must strive to be human.
Hillel the Elder
 
 
 
 
We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.
Gwendolyn Brooks

Quotes March 01, 2021

I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.
Jeff Bezos
 
 
 
 
Soul is that unconditioned, mysterious, untamed, undomesticated, unique individual wild core of ourselves which is inextricably connected to the mysteries of wild nature.
Claire Dunn
 
 
 
 
We’ve replaced what we thought of as superstition with a new superstition, which is the myth of progress.
Peter Kalmus
 
 
 
 
The persecution of any minority is inhuman and unnatural. That belief is timeless and beyond change.
Charlie Chaplin
 
 
 
 
Listen with a heart, but answer with a soul.
Oscar Auliq-Ice
 
 
 
 
One must always maintain one’s connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it.
Gaston Bachelard
 
 
 
 
Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
Pema Chodron
 
 
 
 
Light is a powerful substance. We have a primal connection to it. But, for something so powerful, situations for its felt presence are fragile.
James Turrell
 
 
 
 
There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
Shunryu Suzuki
 
 
 
 
There is no comradeship except through unity on the same rope, climbing towards the same peak.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
 
 
 
 
I must go there today —
Tomorrow the plum blossoms
Will scatter.
Ryokan
 
 
 
 
The future is not out there in front of us, but inside us.
Joanna Macy
 
 
 
 
Democracy is hard; demagoguery is easy.
Patricia Roberts-Miller
 
 
 
 
The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.
Rachel Carson