I against I
/“The last struggle for our rights, the battle for our civilization, is entirely with ourselves.”
Photo by Isabella McKenzie on Unsplash
Broken dreams
/Photo by Josh Sorenson on Unsplash
“If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again.”
Metamorphosis
/“What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.”
Photo by José Ignacio García Zajaczkowski on Unsplash
The real deal
/Photo by Jay Sadoff on Unsplash
“The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don’t tell you what to see.”
Perspective
/“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.”
Photo by Saketh Garuda on Unsplash
Want not want
/Photo by Parag Sharma on Unsplash
“Fantasies have to be unrealistic because the moment, the second that you get what you seek, you don’t, you can’t want it anymore. In order to continue to exist, desire must have its objects perpetually absent. It’s not the ‘it’ that you want, it’s the fantasy of ‘it.’ So, desire supports crazy fantasies. This is what Pascal means when he says that we are only truly happy when daydreaming about future happiness. Or why we say ‘the hunt is sweeter than the kill.’ Or ‘be careful what you wish for.’ Not because you’ll get it, but because you’re doomed not to want it once you do. So the lesson of Lacan is, living by your wants will never make you happy. What it means to be fully human is to strive to live by ideas and ideals, and not to measure your life by what you’ve attained in terms of your desires but those small moments of integrity, compassion, rationality, even self-sacrifice. Because in the end, the only way that we can measure the significance of our own lives is by valuing the lives of others.”
Of towels and throwing
/“Everybody comes to a point in their life when they want to quit, but it’s what you do at that moment that determines who you are.”
Photo by Fabian Irsara on Unsplash
Sick society
/Photo by Andrew Buchanan on Unsplash
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Life is discovery
/“We cannot teach people anything. We can only help them discover it within themselves.”
Photo by Eidy Bambang-Sunaryo on Unsplash
Self-respect
/Photo by Alex Wigan on Unsplash
This particular lesson took too long to finally sink in.
“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.”
– Robert Tew
Simply profound
/What you seek is seeking you.
– Rumi
Photo by Laurent Naville on Unsplash
Change
/Photo by Jason Wong on Unsplash
We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.
– Sheryl Sandberg
Infinities
/Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
– Albert Einstein
Photo by Xavier Coiffic on Unsplash
Painfully beautiful
/Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash
I'm a fan of C.S. Lewis, even though I've read very little of his work. Truly I'm a fan of anyone who can take a crude amalgam of thoughts, feelings and experience, and, with a few simple words, crystalize them into something painfully beautiful.
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
– C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Always
/When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it—always.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Photo by Sarah Doffman on Unsplash
Joy, truth, love
/I just started reading a book I got as a gift from my mom, Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. I'm literally just a few pages in, but I wanted to post this quote.
I love finding these little treasures in things—thoughts so tightly strung together you can touch them. Well, they touch you.
The Highest Thought is always that thought which contains joy. The Clearest Words are those words which contain truth. The Grandest Feeling is that feeling which you call love.
Commitment
/Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash
Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality. It is the words that speak boldly of your intentions, and the actions which speak louder than the words. It is making the time when there is none—coming through time after time after time, year after year after year. Commitment is the stuff character is made of; the power to change the face of things. It is the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism.
– commonly attributed to Abraham Lincoln,
Shearson Lehman or anon
Love differently
/
When one paints, one loves in a different way.
– Séraphine,
from the 2008 film
by the same name
Food lovers
/Photo by Julian Hanslmaier on Unsplash
Food is the food of the body; love is the food of the soul.
– Vasant Lad