Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I look for the moment(s) in the story where the writer risked abandoning the glory of the self in favor of the possible relationship with an other. I don't ever let the market tell me what a memoir is. The first best memoir I ever read was Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.
The quintessential feminine Self stands at the center of the psyche and it is wild, meaning natural and free, and utterly wise. It is not 'something' we must strive to create. This Self is already fully present, burning strong and waiting for us to come into its presence.
The overall commentary on what I'm doing is saying, 'Hey look! I get to create whatever persona I want to, and it's all up to me. And the truth is, we are all - basically the universe - pretending to be humans for a brief moment of time. With a little self-induced amnesia.
Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.
The dignity of self is greatly enhanced by looking upward in the search for holiness. Like the giant trees, we should reach up for the light. The most important source of light we can come to know is the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is the source of inner strength and peace.
If any want to become my followers," Jesus says. Following him is not something that is self-evident, even among the disciples. No one can be forced, no one can be expected to follow him. ... "If any want to follow me, they must deny themselves ... and take up their cross.
I think I'm much less self confident today. I actually went through a quite painful period because of that thinking that I was completely hopeless. But I think that's something that we all go through at various times of our lives and it was quite a sustained thing with me.
Actors, who should pride themselves on their singularity, are forever trying to be someone else. It isn’t necessary for you, the actor, to like yourself— self-love isn’t easy to come by for most of us— but you must learn to trust who you are. There is no one else like you.
I would like to write you so simply, so simply, so simply. Without having anything ever catch the eye, excepting yours alone, ... so that above all the language remains self-evidently secret, as if it were being invented at every step, and as if it were burning immediately
It is an incredibly difficult task to lead people from self-centered consumerism to being servant-hearted Christians. It is not a task for fainthearted ministers or those who don't like to get their religious robes wrinkled. But it is what the Great Commission is all about
My heart goes out to the Lindsay Lohans and Britneys who have really had childhood taken from them and probably missed important developmental steps. They have become sort of "public domain" and something to be made money on. There's no sense of self there, I'm sure of it.
It is true that the poet does not directly address his neighbors; but he does address a great congress of persons who dwell at the back of his mind, a congress of all those who have taught him and whom he has admired; they constitute his ideal audience and his better self.
I started acting long before I decided to pursue it. I started acting as an amateur when I was a kid, but I wanted to become a diplomat. It was self-centered and weird, but I had this idea of going out in the world and solving conflicts and making the world a better place.
Our age is pre-eminently the age of sympathy, as the eighteenth century was the age of reason. Our ideal men and women are they, whose sympathies have had the widest culture, whose aims do not end with self, whose philanthropy, though centrifugal, reaches around the globe.
First of all, "no self" doesn't mean there is no self, haha. So the "no problem" is jumped at a little too fast I'm afraid. Especially in American culture where people tend to be materialistic philosophically. I don't mean running to the mall, but philosophically, you see?
He's [Louis Brandais] so suspicious of bigness in government as well as business that he mistrusts even really top-down reforms at the state level. The most inspiring part of his legacy to me is his belief in the imperative and duty of self-education on behalf of citizens.
To be ourselves we must have ourselves – possess, if need be re-possess, our life-stories. We must “recollect” ourselves, recollect the inner drama, the narrative, of ourselves. A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self.
To be infatuated with the power of one's own intellect is an accident which seldom happens but to those who are remarkable for the want of intellectual power. Whenever Nature leaves a hole in a person's mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.
So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.
I walked inside Macy’s and faced the pathetic spectacle of a department store full of shoppers, none of whom were shopping for themselves. Without the instant gratification of a self-aimed purchase, everyone walked around in the tactical stupor of the financially obligated.
Gluttony might be innocuous were it not for the fact that gluttons tend to disregard whether their self-serving behaviors harm anyone else. We don’t need to look far and wide to find examples of gluttonous behavior, as they are numerous throughout the history of capitalism.
We all know that the theater and every play that comes to Broadway have within themselves, like the human being, the seed of self-destruction and the certainty of death. The thing is to see how long the theater, the play, and the human being can last in spite of themselves.
There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.
Our stories arise from our hearts and our souls. In this sense, telling our stories becomes a sacred gesture, opening a clear way to that deep, ecstatic center where we are most uniquely our selves, individual and unique, and yet are ourselves, joined together at the heart.
If anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses' madness, he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds.
The best thing that ever happened to me is that nothing happened in writing. I ended up working for engineering companies, and that's where I found my material, in the everyday struggle between capitalism and grace. Being broke and tired, you don't come home your best self.
Once you are present in the Energyfield of Self-discovery, it's like you are a piece of ice in warm water. The warm water is the Self. The ice is the mind. The warm water is not fighting with the ice. The ice can not resist the melting. It is a natural and fatal attraction.
I had been self-publishing for a number of years at that stage and selling my books at markets around Melbourne - little pocket books. I'd make them for 10 cents and sell them for a dollar. But I knew there was an audience who loved silly stuff so I just kept plugging away.
The fight for justice against corruption is never easy. It never has been and never will be. It exacts a toll on our self, our families, our friends, and especially our children. In the end, I believe, as in my case, the price we pay is well worth holding on to our dignity.
All our suffering is associated with this pre-occupation. All loss and gain, pleasure and pain arise because we identify so closely with this vague feeling of selfness that we have. We are so emotionally involved with and attached to this "self" that we take it for granted.
Everything that happens to you is self-created. Whenever you're responding to any situation, whether it's a sip of coffee, or a traffic jam, or a love note, or criticism from a boss, or rainy weather, you're in fact responding to a signal that you generated within yourself.
Being home schooled is awesome because you can make your own schedule, so as far as time management, its up to you how much you get done and when you get it done. Its all got to get done; how you do it is up to you. You need a lot of self-discipline, but luckily, I have it.
If a man's innate self-respect will not save him from habitual, disgusting intoxication, all the female influences in the universe would not avail. Man's will, like woman's, is stronger than the affection, and, once subjugated by vice, all eternal influences will be futile.
The only difficulty is that I'm playing to two audiences, and it's too bad the noise detracts from the show, because it's a great show. I've seen my own self out there, and it's a very good musical show. Sometimes the show gets lost in the hysteria and sometimes it doesn't.
After a while, we start really believing these things are true. People who have had self-defeating behaviors for a long time, such as people who have been overweight since they were children or people with longtime addictions, actually believe there is no other alternative.
However, when we shift our awareness or "frequency" from self-consciousness - where fear, impossibility or feelings of separation reside - to cosmic consciousness, which is in total harmony with the universe and where none of those feelings exist, then anything is possible.
Each of us is here to discover our true selves; that essentially we are spiritual beings who have taken manifestation in physical form; that we're not human beings that have occasional spiritual experiences, that we're spiritual beings that have occasional human experiences
I would confront the thieves, I thought, and the self-evident justice of my case would cause them to crumble before me. I don't know why I expected such extravagant results from the application of mere justice. That kind of calculation is seldom borne out by worldly events.
If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.
I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.
There is a time in our life when we need to strut our stuff and groove on grandiosity, when we need to be viewed as remarkable and rare, when we need to exhibit ourself in front of a mirror that reflects our self-admiration, when we need a parent to function as that mirror.
My dogs, the only creatures on the planet marked by my singular nurturing imprint, have all turned out to be rude and self-absorbed. In all likelihood, if they were children instead of dogs, I would have foisted more Charlie Sheens or Kardashians onto our crumbling culture.
Greed for enlightenment and immortality is no different than greed for material wealth. It is self-centered and dualistic, and thus an obstacle to true attainment. Therefore these states are never achieved by those who covet them; rather, they are the reward of the virtuous.
It is never the thing but the version of the thing: The fragrance of the woman not her self, Her self in her manner not the solid block, The day in its color not perpending time, Time in its weather, our most sovereign lord, The weather in words and words in sounds of sound.
You have to be a whole, dignified, self-respecting person in order to be an English teacher or whatever kind of job your education would prepare you for, and I just knew that segregation was wrong, and I knew that I should not be going along with it. That I should resist it.
The factors that contributed to my growth were many - finding someone who understood me, exploring the unconscious, awakening my latent love . . . but one star is brightest among all: the self. I found the source of livingness inside me, something I didn't even know existed.
Like flowers and plants, we too need ground under our feet, warmth and sunshine and food for our spirit, protective boundaries, tending and care, freedom to grow unencumbered and without limitation, and complete support from the Universe to become our greatest possible self.
We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.
It doth make a man better,' quoth Robin Hood, 'to bear of those noble men so long ago. When one doth list to such tales, his soul doth say, 'put by thy poor little likings and seek to do likewise.' Truly, one may not do as nobly one's self, but in the striving one is better.
To be the authentic is to be detached and stand aside from oneself and the work so that the working process can take on an untrammeled life of its own. Labored self-involvement, contrivance, ulterior motives, even the extraordinary facility that one may have, must be let go.