A Secret Place

We may forget with whom we laughed, but not with whom we shared tears.   ~Tansanian proverb

My eyes were glued on life
and they were full of tears.  ~ Jack Kerouac
 
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.   ~ Charles Dickens
 
Tears are the noble language of eyes, and when true love of words is destitute. The eye by tears speak, while the tongue is mute.   ~ Robert Herrick
 
It is such a secret place, the land of tears.   ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Quotes about tears, life

That's How the Light Gets In

As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.  ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.  ~ Ezra Pound

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.  ~ Leonard Cohen

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.  ~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Love is not consolation. It is light.  ~ Simone Weil

Quotes about light, life

Will Not Appreciate Your Neutrality

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.  ~ Archibald MacLeish

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.  ~ William Faulkner

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.  ~ Leonardo da Vinci

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.  ~ Benjamin Franklin

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

Quotes about dissent, life

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A Race to Be Worthy

Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity (happiness).   ~ Mahatma Gandhi
 
I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.   ~ Herman Hesse

One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.   ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.  ~ Walt Whitman

A lot of my life happened in great, wonderful bursts of good fortune, and then I would race to be worthy of it.   ~ Julie Andrews

Quotes about good fortune, life

Not All Who Wander

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. - Bertrand Russell

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion. - Charles Kuralt

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain

You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note. - Doug Floyd

 Not all those who wander are lost. - J.R.R. Tolkien

Quotes about nonconformity, life

Work Joyfully and Peacefully

Establishing goals is all right if you don't let them deprive you of interesting detours.  ~ Doug Larson

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.  ~ Winston Churchill

We should work on our process, not the outcome of our processes.  ~ W. Edwards Deming

Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will inevitably bring about right results.  ~ James Allen

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.  ~ Golda Meir 

Quotes about outcome, life

Back into Integration

We seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves... We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own . . . We demand windows.  ~ C.S. Lewis

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.  ~ Oscar Wilde

One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on.  ~ D.H. Lawrence

In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.  ~ Anthony Robbins

There is only one story - going out into disunity and coming back into integration.  ~ Joseph Campbell 


Quotes about doing, life

Purpose and Passion

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.  ~ Carl Jung
 
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.  ~ Helen Keller

This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.  ~ Oswald Spengler

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.  ~ William Cowper 

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.  ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Quotes about purpose, life

An Attitude of the Heart

It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear. ~ H.D. Thoreau

If you spend more time asking appropriate questions rather than giving answers or opinions, your listening skills will increase. ~ Brian Koslow

Listening is the only way to entertain some folks. ~ Kin Hubbard

The older I grow the more I listen to people who don’t talk much. ~ Germain G. Glien

Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. ~ Dr. Joyce Brothers

Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals.  ~ J. Isham 

Quotes about listening, life

Life is Fun or Suffering?

Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better.  ~ George Santayana

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.  ~ Katharine Hepburn

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.  ~ Dale Carnegie

The world is a funny paper read backwards. And that way it isn't so funny.  ~ Tennessee Williams

The making of fun where no real occasion for fun exists is essentially what comedy is about.  ~ David L. Hall

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.  ~ George Orwell 

Quotes about fun, life

The Best of Our Nature

Intimacy is being seen and known as the person you truly are.  ~ Amy Bloom

Man's life would be wretched and confined if it were to miss the candid intimacy developed by mutual trust and esteem.  ~ Edwin Dummer

Our most intimate friend is not the one to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.  ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets.   ~ Dorothy Parker

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.   ~ Thomas Jefferson

Communication leads to community, that is, understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.  ~ Rollo May


Quotes about intimacy, life

That's All that Matters

Laughter has no foreign accent.  ~ Paul B. Lowney

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.  ~ Erma Bombeck

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

Tell the truth. Sing with passion. Work with laughter. Love with heart. 'Cause that's all that matters in the end.  ~ Kris Kristofferson

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell
Of saddest thought.  ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Quotes about laughter, life

A Bizarre Sensation

It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.  ~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.  ~ William Hazlitt

Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?  ~ Dame Edith Sitwell

Appearances are often deceiving.  ~ Aesop

A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.  ~ Maya Angelou 

Quotes about pretense, life

Believe in Yourself

Just keep coming home to yourself. You are the one you’ve been waiting for.  ~ Byron Katie

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.  ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.  ~ Harvey Fierstein

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.  ~ Dalai Lama

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.  ~ Tecumseh

Quotes about yourself, life

Your Better Days

Imagine that yes is the only living thing.  ~ e. e. cummings

Forever is composed of nows.  ~ Emily Dickinson

The future is no place to place your better days.  ~ Dave Matthews

We steal if we touch tomorrow.  It is God's.  ~ Henry Ward Beecher

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.  ~ Abraham Lincoln

Quotes about living, life

What Sets Us Apart

Existence is a party. You join after it's started and you leave before it's finished.  ~ Elsa Maxwell

It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawn on you.  ~ Phillips Brooks

I believe that we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.  ~ Rosa Parks

Wonder is what sets us apart from other life forms. No other species wonders about the meaning of existence or the complexity of the universe or themselves.  ~ Herbert W. Boyer

When one has great gifts, what answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise them?  ~ W. H. Auden


Quotes about existence, life

Into Fullness of Being

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.  ~ Oscar Wilde

Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, an integrated wholeness.  ~ Stephen R. Covey

There are some people who have the quality of richness and joy in them and they communicate it to everything they touch. It is first of all a physical quality; then it is a quality of the spirit.  ~ Thomas Wolfe

The living self has one purpose only: to come into its own fullness of being, as a tree comes into full blossom, or a bird into spring beauty, or a tiger into luster.  ~ D.H. Lawrence

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.  ~ Melody Beattie 

Quotes about wholeness, life

This Grotesque Folly

Folly is the direct pursuit of happiness and beauty .  ~ George Bernard Shaw

The most exquisite folly is made of wisdom too fine spun.  ~ Benjamin Franklin

I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.   ~ Anatole France

There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair.   ~ Miguel de Cervantes

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.  ~ Winston Churchill
 
Why was the human race created? Or at least why wasn't something creditable created in place of it? God had His opportunity. He could have made a reputation. But no, He must commit this grotesque folly -- a lark which must have cost Him a regret or two when He came to think it over and observe effects.  ~ Mark Twain 

Quotes about folly, life

Must Pass Through Fire

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.  ~ Mahatma Gandhi

One must marry one's feelings to one's beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one's life.  ~ Etty Hilsum

Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.  ~ Barbara De Angelis 

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.  ~ Pablo Picasso
 
What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes. Take fifty of our current proverbial sayings-- they are so trite, so threadbare. None the less they embody the concentrated experience of the race, and the man who orders his life according to their teachings cannot be far wrong. Has any man ever attained to inner harmony by pondering the experience of others? Not since the world began! He must pass through fire.    ~ Norman Douglas


Quotes about harmony, life

Teaching My Blood Whispers

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

Instinct is the nose of the mind.  ~ Madame De Girardin

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.  ~ Michael Burke

There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.  ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.  ~ Hermann Hesse

Quotes about instinct, life

Something Incredible is Waiting

We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.  ~ Voltaire

Waiting is a form of passive persistence.  ~ Ogwo David Emenike

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.  ~ Carl Sagan

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.  ~ E. M. Forster

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.  ~ Bertrand Russell

Quotes about waiting, life

If We Opened Our Hearts More

Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.  ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Trouble creates a capacity to handle it....meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.   ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen.   Keep in the sunlight.  ~ Benjamin Franklin

I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.  ~ Montesquieu

I believe much trouble would be saved if we opened our hearts more.  ~ Chief Joseph

Quotes about trouble, life

Get Up and Do Something

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.  ~ Abraham Lincoln

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.  ~ Barack Obama

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.  ~ Mother Teresa

The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can't are both right. Which one are you?  ~ Henry Ford

If plan A doesn't work, the alphabet has 25 more letters - 204 if you're in Japan.  ~ Claire Cook

Quotes about determination, life

Let It Produce Joy

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.  ~ Mark Twain

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.  ~ Anton Chekhov

Go forth into the busy world and love it. Interest yourself in its life, mingle kindly with its joys and sorrows.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man dies. Not every man lives.  ~ William Ross Wallace

-Do anything, but let it produce joy.
-The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.  ~ Walt Whitman

Quotes about living, life