Our society has become a conspiracy against joy. It has put too much emphasis on the individuating part of our consciousness —individual reason— and too little emphasis on the bounding parts of our consciousness, the heart, and soul.
– David Brooks
Category: Quotable
Quotable
Elan Gale
I’m going to keep this short and sweet. Every day you’re alive is unearned. Every day you exist on Earth is a fucking miracle. Your parents made you and raised you (or didn’t) without your permission. But now you’re here. You’ll be dead soon. But you’re not dead yet.
That truly won’t last forever. Every time you drive down the freeway you’re trusting that all those other people out there won’t just cross that median and kill you. Every time you eat at a restaurant you’re trusting that the chef won’t accidentally poison you. Every time you close your eyes you’re trusting that a psychotic stranger won’t stab you in the fucking face and make a mask out of your skin.
This life is temporary. Death is permanent. You will do very few things while you are here on Earth, but you will do NOTHING forever. Don’t waste your time here doing nothing. There is plenty of time for that while you chill in the ground until the cemetery you ended up in gets turned into a Walmart.
Life is glorious. Life is full of adventure. Life is full of limitless opportunity.
Don’t waste it. Don’t wait. There is no promise of tomorrow.
Sheenagh Pugh
What if this road, that has no held surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin
were like a long, supple bolt of cloth,
that is shaken and rolled out, and takes
a new shape from the contours beneath?
And if it chose to lay itself down
in a new way; around a blind corner,
across hills you must climb without knowing
what’s on the other side; who would not hanker
to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know
a story’s end, or where a road will go?
José Micard Teixeira
I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.
Danna Faulds
Let go of the ways you thought life would unfold; the holding of plans or dreams or expectations – Let it all go. Save your strength to swim with the tide. The choice to fight what is here before you now will only result in struggle, fear, an desperate attempts to flee from the very energy you long for. Let go.
Let it all go and flow with the grace that washes through your days whether you receive it gently or with all your quills raised to defend against invaders. Take this on faith; the mind may never find the explanations that it seeks, but you will move forward nonetheless.
Let go, and the wave’s crest will carry you to unknown shores, beyond your wildest dreams or destinations. Let it all go and find the place of rest and peace, and certain transformation.
Danna Faulds – from Go In and In
Emily McDowell
“Finding Yourself” is not really how it works. You aren’t a ten-dollar bill in last winter’s coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. “Finding Yourself” is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.
Rania Naim
I’m slowly learning that even if I react, it won’t change anything, it won’t make people suddenly love and respect me, it won’t magically change their minds. Sometimes it’s better to just let things be, let people go, don’t fight for closure, don’t ask for explanations, don’t chase answers and don’t expect people to understand where you’re coming from. I’m slowly learning that life is better lived when you don’t center it on what’s happening around you and center it on what’s happening inside you instead. Work on yourself and your inner peace and you’ll come to realize that not reacting to every little thing that bothers you is the first ingredient to living a happy and healthy life.
Maurice Goudeket
I get up before anyone else in my household, not because sleep has deserted me in my advancing years, but because an intense eagerness to live draws me from my bed. In the same way, I drop off every night with a kind of secret satisfaction as I think of the day to come, even if it is likely to be a dark one; for tomorrow is the future and tomorrow contains the whole of that which is possible.
-Maurice Goudeket