Self-respect
/This particular lesson took too long to finally sink in.
– Robert Tew
Simply profound
/What you seek is seeking you.
– Rumi
Change
/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
Painfully beautiful
/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
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
/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
/Food is the food of the body; love is the food of the soul.
– Vasant Lad
I hope
/I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.
– Red (narrating), The Shawshank Redemption
Within
/When you look at a beautiful picture, where do you feel pleasure, in the picture or in yourself? When you eat a delicious meal, do you experience satisfaction in the food or in yourself? When you meet a friend and feel joy, is that joy in your friend or in yourself?
– Swami Muktananda
On freedom of speech
/Freedom of speech is currently on my radar. I'm writing a little something on it, but in the meantime I thought I'd share a quote—a teaser, if you will—from Soren Kierkegaard.
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought, which they seldom use.
Lover of leaving
/Come, come, whoever you are
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving,
It doesn't matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Even if you have broken your vows
A thousand times it doesn’t matter
Come, yet again, come
– Rumi
Do the maths
/I saw this on a bumpersticker a couple of days ago, except it had the line "You do the math" right underneath it. It's such a simple statement, yet so easy to forget. I liked this artist's rendition of it, JustGage.
Although, if I had my way with it, I'd change it to this: Love > Fear
On friendship
/Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.
– Dinah Craik
On character
/Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
– Abraham Lincoln