Falling Forward

Day by day, step by step, I become a little more unbroken. And though sometimes I fall…I’m forever falling forward.

Favorite Quotes

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. ~Nelson Mandela

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 is not just in some of us; it is 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

Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the 60’s. Or maybe I was just a girl… interrupted. ~Girl, Interrupted (Film)

I know what it’s like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can’t. How you hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside. ~Girl, Interrupted (Film)

Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is… Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. They were not perfect, but they were my friends and by the ’70s most of them were out living lives. Some I’ve seen, some never again, but there isn’t a day my heart doesn’t find them. ~Girl, Interrupted (Film)

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again. ~Abraham Maslow

I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am, I am, I am. ~Sylvia Plath

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work. ~Pearl S. Buck

He that will not sail til all dangers are over must never put to sea. ~Thomas Fulle

You must do the things you think you cannot do. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Descend down into thine own heart and there read what thou art and what thou shalt be ~Jemima Wilkinson

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. ~Will Rogers

Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things… I am tempted to think there are no little things. ~Bruce Barton

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. ~Lao tsu

There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes even if you lose, you win. ~Elie Wiesel

Unto a broken heart/No other one may go/Without the high prerogative/Itself has suffered too

~Emily Dickinson

There are parts of a ship which taken by themselves would sink. The engine would sink. The propeller would sink. But when the parts of a ship are built together, they float. So with the events of my life. Some have been tragic. Some have been happy. But when they are built together, they form a craft that floats and is going someplace. ~Ralph W. Sockman

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. ~Albert Einstein

Oh, the glory of growth, silent, mighty, persistent, inevitable! To awaken, to open up like a flower to the light of a fuller consciousness! ~Emily Carr

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure – try to please everybody. ~Herbert Bayard Swope

My own experience has taught me this: if you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured it may never arrive. Mountains will not be climbed, races won or lasting happiness achieved. ~Maurice Chevalier

God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way. ~C.S. Lewis

Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know. ~William Saroyan

We ask God for strength and God gives us difficulties to make us strong. We ask God for wisdom and God gives us problems. ~ Author Unknown

There is nothing the body suffers that the soul may not profit by. ~George Meredith

What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger. ~Albert Camus

Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties. ~Charles Spurgeon

I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God. ~Helen Keller

Silence is the virtue of fools.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Great men are they who see that spiritual force is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself. ~C.S. Lewis

God is love, generosity, and forgiveness.  If we believe this, we will never allow our weaknesses to paralyze us. ~Paolo Coehlo

The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love. ~Paolo Coehlo

One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving. ~Paolo Coehlo

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it. ~Paolo Coehlo

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred… Unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. ~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Look, in my opinion the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what-have-you. The right person is still going to think the sun shines out of your ass. That’s the kind of person worth sticking with. ~Mac McGuff, Juno

You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now, and where you stand? ~Robert Louis Stevenson

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. ~Thomas A. Edison

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. ~Pablo Picasso

A finished person is a boring person. ~Anna Quindlen

I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much. ~Mother Teresa

Every time you suppress some part of yourself or allow others to play you small, you are in essence ignoring the owner’s manual your creator gave you and destroying your design. ~Oprah Winfrey

You can take from every experience what it has to offer you. And you cannot be defeated if you just keep taking one breath followed by another. ~Oprah Winfrey.

I would rather be ashes than dust!

I would rather that my spark should burn out

in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom

of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time. ~Jack London

Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free. ~Jim Morrison

A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself. ~Jim Morrison

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. ~Dylan Thomas.

Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. ~Arnold Schwarzenegger

I want to feel passion, I want to feel pain. I want to weep at the sound of your name. Come make me laugh, come make me cry… just make me feel alive.” ~Joey Lauren Adams

My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night; but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends – it gives a lovely light! ~Edna St. Vincent Millay

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again. ~Sylvia Plath

Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.  Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V. ~V is for Vendetta

It is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: the worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but are not in it. ~Susanna Kaysen, Girl Interrupted

When you’re sad, you need to hear your sorrow structured into sound. ~Susanna Kaysen, Girl Interrupted

I wasn’t convinced I was crazy, thought I feared I was. Some people say that having any conscious opinion on the matter is a sign of sanity, but I’m not sure that’s true. I still think about it. I’ll always have to think about it. ~Susanna Kaysen, Girl Interrupted

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of the telescope. ~Dr. Seuss

We’re all just walking each other home. ~Ram Dass

If you hear a voice within you say “You cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. ~Van Gogh

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 can no longer flow into our souls. ~Elizabeth Cady Stanton

I beg you… to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

To learn to succeed, you must first learn to fail. ~Michael Jordan

If you want a place in the sun, you’ve got to expect a few blisters. – Abigail van Buren

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. ~Douglas Adams

Fear is about survival. When you drop under that and experience the fear without trying to change it, just letting it be, then it becomes still. When you open your heart to fear, rather than trying to fight it or deny it or even overcome it, then you find it is just energy. ~Gangaji

I invite people to just stop and be still. And in that you discover who you are, because once you discover who you are, you can stop fragmenting into pieces. I know that in any one day there are moments were there is nothing going on, but we link up what is happening from thought to thought without any space. We overlook the spaciousness that it is all happening in. ~Gangagi

It is not the diagnosis of your illness that is most important. It is your perception of the diagnosis that makes the difference. If you perceive the diagnosis to be the end, that is what it will be. If you perceive the diagnosis to be an opportunity to live your life in a new way, then it will be so. ~Ken Standley

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. ~Kahlil Gibran

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~Anne Frank

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are. ~Gail Godwin

Beyond a wholesome discipline,be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. ~Desiderata

It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth comes to the top. ~Virginia Woolf

Language is wine upon the lips. ~Virginia Woolf

Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order. ~Virginia Woolf

The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder. ~Virginia Woolf

If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I’m neurotic as hell. I’ll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days. ~Sylvia Plath

I love him to hell and back and heaven and back, and have and do and will. ~Sylvia Plath

The blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it. ~Sylvia Plath

I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. ~Sylvia Plath

I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between. ~Sylvia Plath

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. ~Sylvia Plath

Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that – I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much – so very much to learn. ~Sylvia Plath

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live. ~Leo F. Buscaglia

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot. So what the hell, leap. ~Cynthia Heimel

I hold it true, whate’er befall;

I feel it , when I sorrow most;

‘Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

~Alfred Tennyson

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. ~Andre Gide

It’s not so much that we’re afraid of change or so in love with old ways, but it’s that place between that we fear… It’s like being between trapezes. It’s Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There’s nothing to hold on to. ~Marilyn Ferguson

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~Anais Nin

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down. ~Ray Bradbury

If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more. ~Erica Jong

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. ~Albert Camus

The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one’s mind, is the condition of the normal man. Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal. Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years.~ R.D. Laing

Life can be magnificent and overwhelming — that is the whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live. ~ Albert Camus

Life’s not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about getting out there and dancing in the rain.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Happiness is not a goal; it’s a byproduct. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

The giving of love is an education in itself. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience  in which you really stop 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

I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it. ~Audrey Hepburn

May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. Deliver me, Tyler, from being perfect and complete. ~Chuck Palahnuik, Fight Club, Chap 5

At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ~Chuck Palahnuik, Fight Club, Chap 6

The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after you lose everything that you’re free to do anything. ~Fight Club movie 1999

It is something to be able to pain a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look. To affect the quality of the day – that is the highest of the arts. ~Henry David Thoreau

In every block of marble I see a statue;

See it as plainly as though it stood before me,

Shaped and perfect in attitude and action.

I have only to hew away the rough walls

Which imprison the lovely apparition

To reveal it to other eyes, as mine already see it.

~Michaelangelo

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

~Emily Dickinson

The more one does and sees an feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship. ~Amelia Earhart

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else. ~Charles Dickens

If you approach each new person you meet in a spirit of adventure, you will find yourself endlessly fascinated by the new channels of thought and experience and personality that you encounter. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

I’m going to turn on the light, and we’ll be two people in a room looking at each other and wondering why on earth we were afraid of the dark. ~Gale Wilhelm

Come to the edge, He said. They said: we are afraid. Come to the edge, He said. They came. He pushed them, and they flew. ~Guillaume Apollinaire

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. ~Henry Miller

Life can only take place in the present moment. If we lose the present moment, we lose life. ~Buddha

Why wait? Life is not a dress rehearsal. Quit practicing what you’re going to do, and just do it. In one bold stroke you can transform today. ~Marilyn Grey

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. ~Robert Frost

The more a man knows, the more he forgives. ~Confucious

Make it a rule never, if possible, to lie down at night without being able to say, “I have made one human being at least a little wiser, a little happier or a little better this day.” ~Charles Kingsley

Night is purer than day; it is better for for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn’t know how to disinguish bewteen day and night. He says things at night that should only be said by day. ~ Elie Wiesel

I don’t break the rules. I merely test their elasticity. ~Bill Veck

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. ~George Bernard Shaw

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. ~John F. Kennedy

Beauty is not caused. It is. ~Emily Dickinson

Forever is composed of nows. ~Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. ~Emily Dickinson

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams not mortal ever dared to dream before. ~Edgar Allen Poe

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. ~Edgar Allen Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary. ~Edgar Allen Poe

Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence – whether much that is glorious – whether all that is profound – does not spring from disease of thought – from moods of mind exalted at the expense of general intellect. ~Edgar Allen Poe

To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.  ~Marlon Brando

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. ~ Mark Twain

While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior. ~Henry C. Link

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything; but I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. ~Edward Hale

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. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves. ~Salma Hayek

Every one of those keen moments has left its trace, and lives in us still, but such traces have blent themselves irrecoverably with the firmer texture of our youth and manhood; and so it comes that we can look on at the troubles of our children with a smiling disbelief in the reality of their pain…Surely if we could recall that early bitterness, and the dim guesses, the strangely perspectiveless conception of life that gave the bitterness its intensity, we should not pooh-pooh the griefs of our children. (George Elliot – Mill on the Floss – Chapter VII)

I am the entire human race compacted together. I have found that there is no ingredient of the race which I do not possess in either a small way or a large way. ~Mark Twain

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. ~Ambrose Redmoon

Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre, and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes. ~Douglas Adams

Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish. ~John Jakes

There has to come a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complete package. Take me…or leave me. Accept me – or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don’t fit your idea of who I should be and don’t try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision. When you are strong enough to love yourself 100%, good and bad – you will be amazed at the opportunities life presents you. ~Stacey Charter

Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness. ~David Bohm

Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You. ~ Dr. Seuss

You’re only given a little spark of madness. Don’t lose it. ~Robin Williams

The only worse thing than being talked about is not being talked about. ~Oscar Wilde

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. –Krishnamurti

Laughter is the closest distance between two people. ~Victor Borge

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. ~Gilbert Highet

Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart. ~Washington Irving

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded. -Maya Angelou

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K. ~Ted Theodore Logan

Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation. ~Unknown

Have you had your existential angst today? ~Unknown

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable. -Mark Twain

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one. -Albert Einstein

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. -PJ O’Rourke

I don’t necessarily agree with everything I say. -Marshall McLuhan

Oh, there he goes off to his room to write that hit song “Alone in my principles.” ~Unknown

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. ~Unknown

I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific. ~Lily Tomlin

There’s only now, there’s only this: Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. ~ “Rent”

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. ~Alfred D. Souza

For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe. ~Larry Eisenberg

Music is higher revelation than philosophy. ~Beethoven

Dawn: When men of reason go to bed. ~Ambrose Bierce

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. ~Agatha Christie

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. ~Howard Thurman

A mind lively and at ease can do with seeing nothing and can see nothing that does not answer. ~Jane Austen, Emma

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one heck of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult. ~E.B. White

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are throw on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a selfish little clod of ailments and grievance complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. ~George Bernard Shaw

Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things. ~Denis Diderot

Blaze with the fire that is never extinguished. ~Luisa Sigea

I had learnt to seek intensity… more of life, a concentrated sense of life. ~Nina Berberova

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you. ~Maya Angelou

The high minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think. ~Aristotle

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. ~Nelson Mandela

Wit is educated insolence. ~Aristotle

Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything. You are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets. ~Henry Kissinger

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying ~Oscar Wilde

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. ~Theodore Hesburph

Fall seven times, stand up eight. ~Japanese Proverb

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit. ~Dawna Markova

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. ~C.S. Lewis

Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another. ~ Walter Elliott

Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again. ~Rick Polito, Marin Independent Journal’s TV listing for “The Wizard of Oz”

Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself. ~Rita Mae Brown

I have a feelin’ I’m gonna be busier than a one-armed octupus with the hives. ~The Incredible Mr. Limpet.

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case. ~Chuck Close, artist

We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of the dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams; –

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams;

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world for ever, it seems.

~Arthur O’Shannesy

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The heights by great men reached kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure. ~Albus Dumbledore, The Half-Blood Prince

I am a leaf on the wind… watch how I soar. ~Serenity

When you’re at the end of your rope, all you have to do is make one foot move out in front of the other. Just take the next step. That’s all there is to it. ~ Samuel Fuller

At times of distress, strengthen your heart. Even if you stand at deaths door. The lamp has light before it is extinguished.The wounded lion still knows how to roar. ~ Samuel Hanagid

Never forget you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren’t any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn’t be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming lifes challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person. ~R.Buckminster Fuller

You can do anything, but not everything. ~David Allen

Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time, to figure out whether you like it or not. ~Virgil Garnett Thomson

When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught how to fly. ~Barbara J. Winter

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” ~C.S. Lewis

The pen is mightier than the sword. ~Edward Burton

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing. ~Camille Pissarro

All men dream but not equally.Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day
to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers ofthe day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible. ~T.E. Lawrence

The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. ~William Faulkner

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: “I’m with you kid. Let’s go.” ~Maya Angelou

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

If you judge people, you have no time to love them. ~Mother Teresa

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light. ~Plato

No man is free who is not master of himself. ~Epictetus

This above all; to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. ~Shakespeare

Do not let your peace depend on the hearts of men; whatever they say about you, good or bad, you are not because of it another man – for as you are, you are. ~Thomas a Kempis

Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Then I saw you through myself, and found we were identical. ~Fakhr ad-din Iraqi

When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything. ~Shunryu  Suzuki

I observe myself and I come to know others. ~Lao-tzu

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything. Life is made up of little things.  True greatness consists of being great in little things. ~Samuel Johnson

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. ~Winston Churchill

And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time. ~Libba Bray

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time. ~Libba Bray

We rest here while we can, but we hear the ocean calling in our dreams,

And we know by the morning, the wind will fill our sails to test the seams,

The calm is on the water and part of us would linger by the shore,

For ships are safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.

~Michael Lille

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise. — Baron de Montesquieu

When life gives you lemons, grab a lime.

For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone. ~Audrey Hepburn

The sight of stars makes me dream.~ Vincent van Gogh

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true. ~ Charles Dickens

Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?~ Clarence in Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”

It is never too late to be what you might have been. ~George Eliot

O me! O life! Of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,
and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean,
of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! So sad, recurring – 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.

~ Walt Whitman

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. ~Vincent Van Gogh

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, than I can change. ~Carl Rogers

Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow. ~Abraham Lincoln

Live every act fully, as if it were your last. ~Buddha

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. ~Gandhi

Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. ~Robert F. Kennedy

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. ~Talmud

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings. ~Pearl S. Buck

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee. ~Marian Wright Edelman

I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. ~Helen Keller

We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results. ~Herman Melville

The most solid comfort one can fall back upon is the thought that the business of one’s life is to help in some small way to reduce the sum of ignorance, degradation and misery on the face of this beautiful earth. ~George Eliot

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. ~Theodore Roosevelt

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. ~Elbert Hubbard

Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new. ~Ursula K. Le Guin

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. ~Edmund Burke

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have one life and one chance to make it count for something . . . I’m free to choose what that something is, and the something I’ve chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference. ~Jimmy Carter

I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

~Edward Everett Hale

We rely upon the poets, the philosophers, and the playwrights to articulate what most of us can only feel, in joy and sorrow. They illuminate the thoughts for which we only grope; they give us the strength and balm we cannot find in ourselves. Whenever I feel my courage wavering I rush to them. They will give me the wisdom of acceptance, the will and resilience to push on. ~Helen Hayes

The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. ~Vincent Van Gogh

Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind. ~Magdalena Abakanowicz

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. ~Pablo Picasso

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. ~M. Scott Peck

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. ~Victor Frankl

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. ~Helen Keller

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. ~Richard Bach

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. ~Victor Frankl

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations. ~Anais Nin

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. ~Anais Nin

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. ~Helen Keller

We need to find the courage to say NO to the things and people that are not serving us if we want to rediscover ourselves and live our lives with authenticity. ~Barbara de Angelis

You must train your intuition — you must trust the small voice inside you which tells you exactly what to say, what to decide. ~Ingrid Bergman

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life. ~Leo Buscaglia

My will shall shape the future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man’s doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny. ~Elaine Maxwell

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. ~Leo Buscaglia

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. ~Thomas Paine

I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams. ~Jonas Salk

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. ~Edith Wharton

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.” ~Victor Frankl

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves — there lies the great, singular power of self-respect. ~Joan Didion

If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down. ~Mary Pickford

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. ~Samuel Smiles

Do not waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it’s better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you’re fighting for. ~Paulo Coelho

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing. ~George Bernard Shaw

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we often might win, by fearing to attempt. ~Jane Addams

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. ~Marie Curie

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain. ~Lord Byron

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. ~Albert Einstein

There is nothing we like to see so much as the gleam of pleasure in a person’s eye when he feels that we have sympathized with him, understood him. At these moments something fine and spiritual passes between two friends. These are the moments worth living. ~Don Marquis

The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. ~Elizabeth Foley

If one is estranged from oneself, then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in ~Rachel Carson

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. ~Anais Nin

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state to another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life. ~Alexandre Dumas

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell. ~Emily Dickinson

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? ~Kahlil Gibran

The pain passes, but the beauty remains. ~Renoir

Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves. ~Helen Keller

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves. ~James M. Barrie

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something completely great. ~Willa Cather

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~Gandhi

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter. ~Albert Camus

The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live. ~Bertrand Russell

The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven. ~John Milton

The real act of marriage takes place in the heart, not in the ballroom or church or synagogue. It’s a choice you make – not just on your wedding day, but over and over again — and that choice is reflected in the way you treat your husband or wife. ~Barbara de Angelis

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed. ~Vincent van Gogh

Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart. ~Washington Irving

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.~Pema Chodron

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men. ~Goethe

Life is meaningless only if we allow it to be. Each of us has the power to give life meaning, to make our time and our bodies and our words into instruments of love and hope. ~Tom Head

If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you’ll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren’t even giving to yourself. ~Barbara de Angelis

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you. ~Lao Tzu

The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself ~Alan Alda

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. ~Robert Frost

Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end. ~Scott Adams

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~Philo

A life lived in love will never be dull. ~Leo Buscaglia

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt. ~Frederick Buechner

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy and a tragedy. ~Mark Twain

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment. ~Rabindranath Tagore

Over the years I have developed a picture of what a human being living humanely is like. She is a person who understand, values and develops her body, finding it beautiful and useful; a person who is real and is willing to take risks, to be creative, to manifest competence, to change when the situation calls for it, and to find ways to accommodate to what is new and different, keeping that part of the old that is still useful and discarding what is not ~Virginia Satir

Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. ~Saint Francis

Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose – not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember. ~Anne Sullivan

Your mind, this globe of awareness, is a starry universe. When you push off with your foot, a thousand new roads become clear. ~Rumi

If all you can do is crawl, start crawling. ~Rumi

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning. ~J.B. Priestly

Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start. ~Nido Qubein

Begin doing what you want to do now. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake.  ~Marie Beyon Ray

What the caterpillar calls the end the rest of the world calls a butterfly. ~Lao Tzu

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again. ~Abraham Maslow

The secret to living the life of your dreams is to start living the life of your dreams today, in every little way you possibly can.  ~Mike Dooley

Celebrate endings – for they precede new beginnings. ~Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start. ~Nido Qubein

You don’t need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it today. Do it for twenty minutes and watch your heart start beating.  ~Barbara Sher

And you? When will you begin your long journey into yourself? ~Rumi

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path. ~Kahlil Gibran

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Oh soul, you worry too much. You have seen your own strength. You have seen your own beauty.You have seen your golden wings. Of anything less,why do you worry? You are in truth the soul, of the soul, of the soul. ~Rumi

‎Pause, you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron and gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day. -Charles Dickens

A man should go in living – if only to satisfy his curiosity. ~Yiddish Proverb

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life. ~Leo Buscaglia

I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my own happiness, without reference to you, or to any other person so wholly unconnected with me. ~ Jane Austen

You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes. ~Maimonides

Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner by myself with a little book. ~Thomas A Kempis

Wisdom tells us we are not worthy; Love tells us we are. My life flows between the two. ~Rumi

The wound is where the light enters. ~Rumi

We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become. ~Richard G. Scott

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche

I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really. ~Tennesse Williams

A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them. ~Oscar Wilde

16 Comments »

1. 

   Lillie said,

   February 20, 2010 at 9:35 pm

   I love this quote by Camus…

   Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

   Reply
   • 

     eddejae said,

     February 21, 2010 at 5:49 pm

     Very nice.

     Reply
2. 

   Lauren said,

   March 15, 2010 at 6:33 pm

   “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
   I love that one 🙂

   Reply
3. 

   fiamarie said,

   March 22, 2010 at 8:52 pm

   Check Paolo Coehllo quotes you’ll love them….

   Reply
   • 

     Edde said,

     March 22, 2010 at 10:42 pm

     Thanks! I added a few to my collection.

     Reply
4. 

   smallsteps2recovery said,

   April 24, 2010 at 8:12 pm

   Wonderful quotes. My favorite quote is also a Camus:

   In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

   You have been through so much, but in your writing I sense you are finding your invincible summer.

   Reply
   • 

     Edde said,

     April 25, 2010 at 12:49 am

     I love it. Thank you !

     Reply
5. 

   chiropractor in san jose said,

   November 18, 2010 at 4:51 pm

   love it!

   Reply
6. 

   Marcia Hendershot said,

   May 28, 2013 at 11:39 pm

   Terrific quotes. Wish there was a “Search” feature on the Home page.

   Reply
7. 

   Brian Murray, MS said,

   October 7, 2013 at 10:28 am

   Love your website. Thanks for all the great quotes. Keep falling forward…you are strong beyond measure!

   Reply
8. 

   cowgirlcath said,

   December 8, 2013 at 1:36 pm

   I’m so happy to have found you. These are really awesome quotes, I’ve had such a hard time finding good ones that everyone doesn’t already see every day. I like making up my own if its a really good one but that’s rare these days. I’m in an art class and we try to put a wise or at least fitting quote along with each piece of artwork.

   Reply
9. 

   Linda DeLaRue said,

   January 16, 2014 at 11:45 am

   So very inspiring….Thank you….!

   Reply
10. 

    Janet Pierce said,

    January 20, 2014 at 8:12 am

    Here are a few thoughts to ponder:

    Opinions are like noses – we all have one.

    A weakness that is recognized — begins an opportunity of learning.

    Don’t tune out the song in your heart & soul – the melody carries your uniqueness.

    A little bit of humor can go a long way.

    Smile!! This free & simple gesture tends to be contagious. Give often! Be BOLD & start an epidemic!!

    Reply
11. 

    SE94 said,

    January 23, 2014 at 8:36 am

    Hi Edde, I stumbled in while checking out this quote by Mandela which says, “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” This quote was printed on the ceiling of a MRT station in Singapore a year ago, and it was etched in my mind for some unknown reason; perhaps I thought it was such a kind advice to any student. Now that I am going through what i deem as the lowest point in my life, trying to recover from broken confidence and shattered self-regard after two years of continuous academic failure… this quote hit me.

    Never had I wished one day having to find comfort in Mandela’s words…but when the day came, I am truly thankful and grateful in knowing that I am not the first and only one to go through this ordeal and that it’s possible to redeem myself.

    Reply
12. 

    Lizzie said,

    February 5, 2014 at 3:38 pm

    “Maybe that’s what the night if for, just so’s we can know the difference when the light comes again”

    -My Favorite…but it changes weekly…

    Reply
13. 

    Mike said,

    February 14, 2014 at 8:10 pm

    You have contributed so much, my friend! These quotes you amassed here are sticking with me for a while, at least tonight while fresh. There will be people who will see me and feel these quotes come from my energies as I walk or bicycle these silly streets. I am going to look at people differently because I feel different. This difference will hopefully benefit another who may play it forward.

    This dynamic situation has potential! A lot may transpire tonight and forward. I don’t know for sure. But if it does, it began here because of you.

    I am not sure how I got here. I was doing a google search for something. That is no longer significant to me. What is significant is what I got from this place.

    We all are connected!

    I hope that the future is filled with so much bliss that you are able to take in and fill your soul until your cup runs way over. Let that dominate your life!

    I really appreciate your site a lot and how I feel now!

    Please be good to yourself!!!

    Namaste! Keep on trucking!

    Reply

• 

• About Me

  • My Story
  • Favorite Quotes

• Email Subscription

  Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  Email Address:

  Sign me up!

  Join 159 other subscribers

• Archives

  • May 2013 (1)
  • October 2010 (1)
  • August 2010 (1)
  • July 2010 (10)
  • June 2010 (8)
  • May 2010 (21)
  • April 2010 (46)
  • March 2010 (35)
  • February 2010 (12)

• Borderline Personality Disorder Links

  • About Borderline Personality Disorder
  • Anything to Stop the Pain
  • Black & White: Online Magazine
  • Borderline Personality Support
  • BPD Demystified
  • BPD Inside Out
  • BPD Today
  • BPD World
  • DBT Self Help
  • Dr. Kathleen Young
  • Middle Path
  • My DBT Life
  • National Education Alliance for BPD
  • On the Borderline
  • TARA Association for Personality Disorder
  • The Shack
• 

• Self-Harm and Suicide Links

  • About Self-Injury
  • About Suicide
  • American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
  • S.A.V.E.
  • Self-Injury: You're Not the Only One
  • To Write Love on Her Arms
  • Yellow Ribbon

• Depression and Anxiety Links

  • About Anxiety Disorders
  • About Depression
  • Stress, Anxiety, and Depression Resource Center
  • Surviving Depression

• Eating Disorder Links

  • About Eating Disorders
  • Binge Eating Disorder
  • Body Image Health
  • Food Addiction
  • Mirror Mirror
  • Pale Reflections
  • Something Fishy
  • Types of Eating Disorders

• Abuse Recovery Links

  • About Emotional Abuse
  • About Sexual Abuse
  • Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse
  • Growing Beyond Emotional Abuse
  • Help for Adult Victims of Child Abuse
  • Sexual Abuse Survivors in Recovery Anonymous

• Recommended Reading

  • Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When To Say No
  • BPD Survival Guide
  • Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from BPD
  • I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality
  • Lost in the Mirror: An Inside Look at BPD
  • Outgrowing the Pain: A Book For and About Adults Abused as Children
  • Sometimes I Act Crazy: Living with BPD
• 

• abuse anxiety beauty binge binging body image borderline personality disorder boundaries BPD breakdown clouds commitment communication courage cutting depression diet dreams eating disorder emotions exhaustion extremes fear fire forgiveness freedom friend friendship future Girl Interrupted goals guilt happiness healing hope identity Josh Groban Lexapro life love mental hospital mistakes motivation music nightmares ocean pain past perfectionism piano poem psych ward quirks recovery relationship relationships sea self-acceptance self-esteem self-harm self-love self-respect Seroquel sexual abuse shame sleep strength stress suicide sunset therapy trauma understanding victimization writing

• THIS BLOG AND ALL OF ITS CONTENTS ARE COPYRIGHTED

  
  This work by Edde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

· Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.