Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. —Rainer Maria Rilke More about this quote Tags: life patience questions ignorance Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
“Living it up” has become the leitmotif of modern man—a compulsive hyperactivity without any downtimes, no gap of unscheduled time, lest we end up alone with ourselves. The meaning doesn’t matter, so long as it’s intense. We feel that without constant activity, life would be fatally insipid. Friends of mine who lead cultural tours in Asia have told me how their clients can’t bear the least gap in their itinerary. “Is there really nothing scheduled between five and seven?” they ask anxiously. We are, it seems, afraid to turn our gaze in in upon ourselves. We are fully focused on the exterior world, as experienced through our five senses. It seems naive to believe that such a feverish search for intense experience can lead to a lasting enriched quality of life. If we do take the time to explore our inner world, it’s in the form of daydreaming and imagination, dwelling on the past of fantasizing endlessly about the future. A genuine sense of fulfillment, associated with inner freedom, can also offer intensity to every living moment, but of an altogether different sort. It is a sparkling experience of inner well-being, in which the beauty of each thing shines through. It is knowing how to enjoy the present moment, the willingness to nurture altruism and serenity and bring the best part of ourselves to mature—transforming oneself to better transform the world. —Matthieu Ricard in Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill More about this quote Tags: life fear beauty time focus transformation activity aloneness slowing down anxiety serenity Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
You want to be loved because you do not love; but the moment you love, it is finished, you are no longer inquiring whether or not somebody loves you. As long as you demand to be loved, there is no love in you; and if you feel no love, you are ugly, brutish, so why should you be loved? Without love you are a dead thing; and when the dead thing asks for love, it is still dead. Whereas, if your heart is full of love, then you never ask to be loved, you never put out your begging bowl for someone to fill it. —Jiddu Krishnamurti in Think on These Things More about this quote Tags: love life heart death fullness wanting demands ugliness Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Every life, properly understood, is compelling. Anyone aspiring to be an artist knows there’s no such thing as why-bother or nothing-to-see. —David Shields More about this quote Tags: understanding empathy importance life Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
It is easy to live for others; everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves. —Ralph Waldo Emerson More about this quote Tags: life others self-care easy Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. —Mae West More about this quote Tags: life living enough Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. —Robert Frost More about this quote Tags: life continuity brevity Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. —Kurt Vonnegut in The Sirens of Titan More about this quote Tags: love life purpose Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind. —Kurt Vonnegut in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater More about this quote Tags: life kindness rules Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us. —Oscar Wilde More about this quote Tags: life memory diary Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
You cannot find peace by avoiding life. —Virginia Woolf More about this quote Tags: life fear peace risk Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. —Flannery O'Connor More about this quote Tags: understanding life childhood Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us. —Samuel Butler More about this quote Tags: life God enjoyment Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
We are, perhaps uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still. —Lewis Thomas More about this quote Tags: humanity life fear worrying discontent Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people. —Thích Nhất Hạnh More about this quote Tags: life family connection Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email