FAVORITE QUOTES
following are some favorite quotes from brilliant minds and hearts that have graced this planet. What are some of your favorites? Share by clicking here.
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
―Desmond Tutu
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” ―Albert Einstein
“Instead of praying for a specific outcome, I pray for the highest good for all.”
“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”
“Never surrender to the flow of time. Never put off what you have decided to do.”
—Simone Weil, French Philosopher/Political Activist (1909–1943)
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
“And sometimes when we listen, we are led into places we do not expect, into adventures we do not always understand.”
“I have drawn things since I was 6. All that I made before the age of 65 is not worth counting. At 73 I began to understand the true construction of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. At 90 I will enter into the secret of things. At 110, everything — every dot, every dash — will live. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age, I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign myself ‘The Old Man Mad About Drawing.’”
—Hokusai Katsushika
"Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky."
—Ranier Maria Rilke
“After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future world depends.”
"She is free in her wildness, she is a wanderess, a drop of free water. She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules or customs. "Time" for her isn't something to fight against. Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water."
—Roman Payne
"Most people have a hard time delegating, or even wanting to delegate, because you have been justifying your existence through your hard work, and you equate success with struggle; you equate results with struggle. And so, you sort of wear your struggle like a badge of honor. And all of that is opposite of allowing the Well-being. The only thing that ever matters in success or achievement is your achieving the things that you want to achieve. So if you are setting standards and you're feeling uncomfortable about the standards that you've set, tweak the standards back a little bit. Ratchet it back a notch. Give yourself a break. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt. Lighten up. Be easier. Go slower. Take it easy. Have more fun. Love yourself more. Laugh more. Appreciate more. All is well. You can't get it wrong. You never get it done."
—Abraham-Hicks
"But only a mother can walk with the weight of a second beating heart."
—Ocean Vuong, from Headfirst
"Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment."
—Carl Sanberg
’When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability…to be alive is to be vulnerable.”
“We have what we seek. It is there all the time, and if we give it time it will make itself known to us.”
—Thomas Merton
"What is the name of the deep breath I would take over and over for all of us?"
“Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.”
—B.K.S. Iyengar
“I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Let even a fountain have a rest.”
—Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoi
“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”
—Michelangelo
“If you are lonely at the top, you are not a leader—you are a hiker.”
“Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. In the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.”
—Max Ehrmann
“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, from A Return to Love
“To write a poem is to explore the unknown capacities of the mind and the heart; it is an emotive, empathic exercise and, like being struck by lightning, it will probably leave you stunned and singed…”
“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It finds the thought and the thought finds the words.”
—Robert Frost
“Let your love be disgraceful, crazy and wild. If you’re too holy and careful God will escape you.”
—Rumi
“Don’t be afraid your life will end; be afraid it will never begin.”
—Grace Hansen
“Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.”
—Thomas Edison
“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”
—George Eliot
“Don’t be afraid. Just play the music.”
—Charlie Parker
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
—Philo
“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”
—Mother Jones
“Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is. The future has not yet come. Looking deeply at life as it is in the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom. We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late.”
—Buddha
“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.”
—George Bernard Shaw
“Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size.”
—Mark Twain
“Everything passes; nothing remains. Understand this, loosen your grip, and find serenity.”
“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”
—Goethe
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
—Adlai E. Stevenson
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed with the things you didn’t do rather than the things you did.”
—Mark Twain
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
“A few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them: Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
“I walked for miles at night along the beach, composing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.”
“Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit the evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you are in now.
—Epictetus
“All you can do for another person is be an environment in which if they wanted to come up for air, they could.”
“I feel like I’ve been petting a cat against the grain all this time and I’ve just figured out to smooth the fur. It’s like, WHOOSH! How can I do good? How can I serve?”