I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone. —Rainer Maria Rilke More about this quote Tags: solitude alone spirituality Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had." —F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby More about this quote Tags: empathy privilege advantage advice Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. —F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby More about this quote Tags: future effort desire striving yearning want Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. —William Hazlitt More about this quote Tags: reality hope laughter crying how things are imagination Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. —Jon Kabat-Zinn in Wherever You Go, There You Are More about this quote Tags: attention mindfulness now Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. —Carl Sagan More about this quote Tags: wonder humanity inspiration kindness space vastness Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email