“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” —Mary Oliver
Quotes
Ask Yourself
“Ask yourself what is really important and then have the courage to build your life around your answer.” –Unknown
Don’t Let…
“Don’t let a bad day make you feel like you have a bad life.” –Unknown
I’m guilty of this. Anyone else?
Don’t Cheat The World
“Don’t cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you’ve got.” –Steven Pressfield
The Greatest And Most Important Problems
“The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This ‘outgrowing’, as I formerly called it, on further experience was seen to consist in a new level of consciousness.” ―Carl Jung
The Moment You’re Ready To Quit
“The moment you’re ready to quit is usually the moment right before the miracle happens.” –Unknown
Follow Your Hopes
“Follow your hopes and not your fears.” –Unknown
Something, Somewhere
“Something, somewhere, knows what’s best for me and promises to keep sending me people and experiences to light my way as long as I live in gratitude and keep paying attention to the signs.” ―Jennifer Elisabeth
If You Want A Great Life
“If you want a great life try being kind. It is astounding what power being kind, mannered, polite, and considerate has in transforming your life. Be careful with people’s feelings. Elevate your thinking and comportment. Many people live in an induced spiritual coma; they are inherently vicious, and are completely unaware of their malady. They exist in an unconscious, mean-spirited, and competitive state of being — always ready to pounce on their next victim. There is a coarse and ugly temperament and tenor observable in the common, unconscious person. This piggish coarseness looks like impatience, intolerance, rudeness, vulgarity, selfishness, self-righteousness, ignorance, condescension, and mockery. I know what it looks like because it was once in me. Maybe you are a pig and don’t even know it. Have you ever considered it? Maybe you don’t just have “bad luck” — maybe you are caught-up in a stampede of ugliness. The vile are trampled beneath the feet of other pigs. Maybe you’re not a pig, but you know someone who is, and you want them to awaken to virtue and righteousness so they can have an incredible life instead of suffering unnecessarily. If you want an incredible life and you have a bad attitude, and are mean to people — you can just forget about it. If you are cynical, pessimistic, judgmental, shallow, and petty, you don’t deserve success, because success is empowering, and petty people should never be given power. You have to earn the right to an incredible life by being an incredible person.” —Bryant McGill
Gone Baby Gone
“I have lived with you and loved you, and now you are gone. Gone where I cannot follow, until I have finished all of my days.” ―Victoria Hanley
In memory of my sweet angel: 1995-2013
