QUOTES

You come to this place, midlife. You don't know how you got here, but suddenly you're staring fifty in the face. When you turn and look back down the years, you glimpse the ghosts of other lives you might have led. All your houses are haunted  by the person you might have been.
Hilary Mantel

What is unlived life? It includes all those essential aspects of you that have not been adequately integrated into your experience. We can hear the distant drumbeat of unlived life in the mutterings that go on in the back of our heads: “Woulda-coulda-shoulda.” Or in second-guessing our life choices. Or those late-night longings. The unexpected grief that arises seemingly out of nowhere. A sense that somehow we have missed the mark or failed to do something we were so sure we were supposed to do. Where did we go wrong, and what is this life that we find ourselves living, so different from what we set out to do?
Robert Johnson & Jerry Ruhl

Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.
Parker Palmer

You have to listen inwardly to who you are, how you are wired, and where you thrive. There's nothing more exhausting than being pushed from the outside to reach higher and live bigger. Your calling is not imposed from the outside. It must be cultivated from the inside out. ...You will shift from listening to outside orders to inside intuitions. Because they are who you are. The more we listen, explore, and discover, the more likely we are to hear our call.
Belle Liang & Timothy Klein

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.
Lao Tzu

I listen to strangers, I listen to random invitations, I listen to criticisms, I listen to my body, I listen to my creativity and to the artists who inspire me, I listen to elders, I listen to my dreams and the books I’m reading. I notice that the more I pay attention, the more I see order, clear messages, patterns, and invitations in the small or seemingly random things that happen in my life. …What comes forth, as lessons and realizations and beliefs…feels like spirit leading me to the truth. Nothing is required of me more than being, and creating. Simultaneously being present with who I am…and who I must become.
adrienne maree brown

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.
Martha Graham

If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.
Joseph Campbell

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson

People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou

Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness. It takes strength to acknowledge our anger, and sometimes more strength yet to curb the aggressive urges that anger may bring, and channel them into nonviolent outlets. It takes strength to face our sadness and to grieve and to let our grief and anger flow in tears when they need to. It takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it.
Fred Rogers, aka Mr. Rogers

Be the person you needed when you were younger.
Ayesha Siddiqi

You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather.
Pema Chodron

My experience is what I agree to attend to.
William James

If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present…. Gratefully.  
Maya Angelou

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination.
John Schaar

You'll learn as you live a bit longer that there are very few people who are really interested in who you are and what you're doing: That handful who do care and who do want to see you do well are treasures. Hold them very dear and very close to you. Forgive them almost anything. Be there for them. But most of life is solitary and hard—you work and you study and you fail and you do the damned things over and over again. And this is your responsibility. Most people…are stupid and lazy and really only concerned with getting through the next couple of hours with silliness and stimulation and something to eat. Be polite. Look ahead. Ignore them. Do the work. Move forward.
Katharine Hepburn

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
Helen Keller

Every painful event contains in itself a seed of growth and liberation.
Anthony de Mello

Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks—we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.
Parker Palmer

The lesson that life constantly enforces is 'Look underfoot.' You are always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Don't despise your own place and hour. Every place is the center of the world. 
John Burroughs

[A]t its core, human thought is storytelling. Some stories allows people to have greater control over their lives, whereas other stories picture people as pawns to other powerful forces in their lives. In believing that one cannot self-determine, a person actually brings about (or creates) the reality that he or she cannot self-determine…some stories are simply more hopeful than others.
George Howard

 

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