Anon

"I owe no explanations for my flaws. I don't have to justify my mistakes, my past, or my insecurities. I am growing and learning. Let me live."

Gilda Radner

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity."

Deborah Wiles {Each Little Bird that Sings}

"It takes courage to look life in the eye and say yes to the messy glory."

Steve Maraboli

"Your life begins to change the day you take responsibility for it."

"Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't."

"You are beautiful. Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness, and success is immeasurable. Day after day, countless people across the globe get on a scale in search of validation of beauty and social acceptance.

Get off the scale! I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humor, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life. 

It's true, the scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That's it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength, or love. Don't give the scale more power than it has earned. Take note of the number, then get off the scale and live your life. You are beautiful!"

Jules Zimmer

"We all like to stay on the little crutches that are familiar."

Marianne Williamson

"Maturity includes the recognition that no one is going to see anything in us that we don't see in ourselves. Stop waiting for a producer. Produce yourself."

"Our past is a story existing only in our minds. Look, analyze, understand, and forgive. Then, as quickly as possible, chuck it."

"The goal of spiritual practice is full recovery, and the only thing you need to recover from is a fractured sense of self."

Incubus

"If not now, when?"

Lao Tzu

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; to do so only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like."

"Not seeking, not expecting, she is present, and can welcome all things."

Eric Micha'el Leventhal

"Every 'no' is a 'yes' to something."

"No matter how strange things get, know that with every breath, you are becoming that which you have always been."

"In our need to be somebody, we often forget that we are somebody."

"It doesn't matter how you conceive of divinity. It only matters that you see it in everything, including yourself."

Ernest Hemingway

"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."

"The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it."

William Arthur Ward

"When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves."

Rebecca West

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.” 

Lauren Oliver [Before I Fall]

"I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people - to see one tiny part of them and confuse it with the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa."

William Shakespeare [Henry V]

"All things are ready, if our mind be so."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

"That is part of the beauty of literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely or isolated from anyone. You belong."

Stephen Covey

"You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage - pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically - to say 'no' to other things. And the way to do that is to have a bigger 'yes' burning inside."

Anais Nin

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

Greg Behrendt [He's Just Not That Into You]

"I'm about to make a wild, extreme, and severe relationship rule: the word 'busy' is a load of crap and is most often used by assholes. The word 'busy' is the relationship Weapon of Mass Destruction. It seems like a good excuse, but in fact in every silo you uncover, all you're going to find is a man who didn't care enough to call. Remember, men are never too busy to get what they want."

Vincent Van Gogh

"Let's not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it."

Allen Ginsberg

"Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness"

"I don't think there is any truth. There are only points of view."

"To gain voice, forget about having it heard. Become a saint of your own province and your own consciousness."

Galway Kinnell

"We're all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you've been through enough relationships, you being to suspect there is no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn't until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems - the ones that make you truly who you are - that we're ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you're looking for. You're looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person - someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, 'This is a problem I want to have.'"

Gina Lake

“What a surprise it is to discover that you have never needed to strive to survive and be happy after all. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, who discovered that she always had the means for going home, you already have what you need to be happy and safe. You have never really left Home. However, if you don't believe you already have what you need to be happy and safe, it is as if it isn't true: If we don't know the ruby slippers will take us home, it's like not having them. The ego keeps us from seeing the truth about those ruby slippers- it keeps us from seeing the truth about life. Home is right here, right now, but we may not realize it and therefore not experience Home, or Essence as much as we might.”

Allegra Goodman [The Cookbook Collector]

"People ask every day, "Why was I put on earth?" As if there is perhaps one reason. The truth is that there are too many reasons to count, and each reason and each soul connects to every other."

Mandy Hale

"If you learn to really sit with loneliness and embrace it for the gift that it is...an opportunity to get to know you, to learn how strong you really are, to depend on no one but you for your happiness...you will realize that a little loneliness goes a long way in creating a richer, deeper, more vibrant and colorful you."

the perks of being a wallflower

"So, this is my life. And I want you to know I'm both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

Muse [panic station]

"Do what the fuck you want to, there's no one to appease."

Charlie Chaplin

"Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles."

Edmund Lee

"Surround yourself with the dreamers and the doers, the believers and the thinkers, but most of all, surround yourself with those who see the greatness within you, even when you don't see it in yourself."

Khaled Hosseini

"It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime..."

Bertrand Russell

"Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness."

Marcus Aurelius

"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."

"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart."

"Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears."

Aristotle

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing."

M. Scott Peck

"But whether or not we are willing to entertain seriously the possibility of some kind of rebirth occurring simultaneously with our physical death, it is abundantly clear that this lifetime is a series of simultaneous deaths and births. 'Throughout the whole of life one must continue to learn to live,' said Seneca two millennia ago, 'and what will amaze you even more, throughout life one must learn to die.' It is also clear that the farther one travels on the journey of life, the more births one will experience, and therefore the more deaths - the more joy and the more pain."

"Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else the remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit."

Jane Austin

"I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation....I was in the middle before I knew I had begun."

"I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature."

Elbert Hubbard

"Do not take life too seriously. You'll never get out alive."

"We work to become, not acquire."

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."

Pedro Calderon de la Barca

"When love is not madness, it is not love."

Audre Lorde

"I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival."

Victor Hugo

"Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent."

Dalai Lama

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."

"This is my simple religion: There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."

"Be kind whenever possible -- it is always possible."

Francois LeLord

"Knowing and feeling are two different things, and feeling is what counts."

Antoine de Sainte Exupery

"A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born."

Terry Goodkind

"When the whole world is crazy, it doesn't pay to be sane."

Johnny Depp

"Just keep moving forward and don't give a shit about what anybody thinks. Do what you have to do, for you."

Mark Twain

"Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today."

"A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself as a liar."

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

Barbara Kingsolver

"To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another, that is surely the basic instinct - crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is!"

Dexter Morgan

"They make it look so easy...connecting to another human being. It's like no one told them it's the hardest thing in the world."

Marilyn Monroe

"I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world, trying to find someone to love."

Snow Patrol

"I don't want to run. Just overwhelm me."

Jean-Paul Sartre

"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.  It is up to you to give life meaning."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better."

Sylvia Plath

"Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I've taken for granted."

Albert Einstein

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by how well it can climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

Oscar Wilde

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."

Catriona MacGregor

"We can learn to live lives of greater meaning by living closer to nature and understanding that the sacred exists at our fingertips."

Anon

"It's not the future that you're afraid of. It's repeating the past that makes you anxious."

Eleanor Roosevelt

"You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if realized how seldom they do."

Alison Croggon

“We are all mistaken sometimes; sometimes we do wrong things, things that have bad consequences. But it does not mean we are evil, or that we cannot be trusted ever afterward.”

Thomas Jefferson

"He who knows best knows how little he knows."

New Year Inspiration

"Start wherever you are and start small." -Rita Baily 

"There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth...not going all the way, and not starting." -Buddha

"Start by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." -Saint Francis of Assisi