Justin Brown
Finding inner peace is the one of the most important goals for most people on Earth, even though it can be quite difficult.
However, we are all capable of cultivating a calm spirit. All it takes a change in attitude and a willingness to push through tough times.
Sometimes reading quotes from some of the wisest people who have ever lived can provide us with the motivation we need to calm our spirit and tackle our challenges face on.
Below I’ve selected quotes from wise philosophers and Zen Masters that will provide you with the guidance you need to develop your inner peace.
303 quotes to bring you inner peace right now
1. “Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance.” – Osho
2. “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” – Dalai Lama
3. “Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.” – Wayne W. Dyer
4. “You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.” – Eckhart Tolle
5. “Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions.” – Gerald G. Jampolsky
6. “Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.” – Meister Eckhart
7. “Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.” – Eckhart Tolle
8. “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” – Lao Tzu
9. “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” – Bruce Lee
10. “Not being tense but ready. Not thinking but not dreaming. Not being set but flexible. Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement. It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.” – Bruce Lee
11. “If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.” – Socrates
12. “Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” – Aristotle
13. “Listen to your being. It is continuously giving you hints; it is a still, small voice. It does not shout at you, that is true. And if you are a little silent you will start feeling your way. Be the person you are. Never try to be another, and you will become mature. Maturity is accepting the responsibility of being oneself, whatsoever the cost. Risking all to be oneself, that’s what maturity is all about.” – Osho
14. “Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.” – Alan W. Watts
15. “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don’t try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
16. “Love and peace of mind do protect us. They allow us to overcome the problems that life hands us. They teach us to survive… to live now… to have the courage to confront each day.” – Bernie Siegel
17. “Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.” – Saint Francis de Sales
18. “Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
19. “Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.” – Lao Tzu
20. “Be still. it takes no effort to be still; it is utterly simple. When your mind is still, you have no name, you have no past, you have no relationships, you have no country, you have no spiritual attainment, you have no lack of spiritual attainment. There is just the presence of beingness with itself.” – Gangaji
21. “Just slow down. Slow down your speech. Slow down your breathing. Slow down your walking. Slow down your eating. And let this slower, steadier pace perfume your mind. Just slow down.” – Doko
22. “Freedom from desire leads to inner peace.” – Lao Tse
23. “The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
24. “But the self-controlled man, moving among objects, with his senses under restraint, and free from both attraction and repulsion, attains peace.” – Chinmayananda Saraswati
25. “Don’t try to force anything. Let life be a deep let-go. God opens millions of flowers every day without forcing their buds.” – Osho
26. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
27. “Keep your face always toward the sunshine—and shadows will fall behind you.” -Walt Whitman
28. “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James
29. “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” – Coco Chanel
30. “The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” – Bertrand Russell
31. “Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” – E.E. Cummings
32. “When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.” – Fred Rogers
33. “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” – The Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama
34. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
35. “Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.” – Maya Angelou
36. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt
37. “The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.” – Black Elk
38. “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein
39. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something–your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” – Steve Jobs
40. “Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible!'” – Audrey Hepburn
41. “When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
– Wendell Berry
42. “There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.” – Shannon Alder
43. “Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.” – John F. Kennedy
44. “It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters.” – Amit Ray
45. “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” – Helen Keller
46. “The power of imagination makes us infinite.” – John Muir
47. “No person, no place, and no thing has any power over us, for ‘we’ are the only thinkers in our mind. When we create peace and harmony and balance in our minds, we will find it in our lives.” -Louise L. Hay
48. “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” – Maya Angelou
49. “A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.” – Leo Tolstoy
50. “When the sun is shining I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome.” – Wilma Rudolph
51. “Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.” –
52. “Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf.” – Rabindranath Tagore
53. “Mama told me to make a special point to remember the best times of my life. There are so many hard things to live through, and latching on to the good things will give you strength to endure, she says. So I must remember this day. It is beautiful and this seems like the best time to live and the best place.” – Nancy Turner
54. “Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.” – Joseph Campbell
55. “Satiety depends not at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat. It’s the same with happiness, the very same…happiness doesn’t depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. There’s a saying about it in the Taoist ethic: ‘Whoever is capable of contentment will always be satisfied.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
56. “Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
57. “A cat knows how to be comfortable, how to get the people around it to serve it. In a tranquil domestic situation, the cat is a veritable manipulative genius. It seeks the soft, it seeks the warm, it prefers the quiet and it loves to be full. It displays, when it gets its own way in these matters, a degree of contentment we would all like to emulate.” – Roger A. Caras
58. “Even if things don’t unfold the way you expected, don’t be disheartened or give up. One who continues to advance will win in the end.” – Daisaku Ikeda
59. “When you become responsive to the solicitations of silence, you may be called to explore the invitation. This exploration is a kind of laboratory. You may sit and observe the coming and going of perceptions. You remain present to them but do not follow them. Following a thought is what maintains it. If you remain present without becoming an accomplice, agitation slows down through lack of fuel. In the absence of agitation you are taken by the resonance of stillness.” – Jean Klein
60. “Learning to distance yourself from all the negativity is one of the greatest lessons to achieve inner peace.” – Roy T. Bennett
61. “Find clarity in the stillness. New ideas and new understandings will come to you. As inner peace begins to wash over you, you will find that many of the things you have been so concerned with, don’t even matter at all. Problems will literally dissolve into non-problems.” – Akiroq Brost
62. “A quiet conscience makes one strong!” – Anne Frank
63. “Patience with other people and oneself is a prized quality. I must control fits of restlessness and impulsivity. I need to exhibit imperturbability. I am inpatient because I resist suffering. I vehemently resist the tedium and tragedies that befall humankind. It is useless to seek to escape from the fate of all humanity. I acknowledge that humankind is fated – inexorably, inevitably, irrevocably – by birth to suffer. Every person must endure the arduous toil and grating monotony of working for a living, as well undergo the physical pain and emotional exhaustion that comes from leading a dreary life of industry. The greater a person’s anxiety and resistance to the ordinary troubles in life the greater their personal suffering. I can only ease the mind and live a heightened existence by stoically accepting fate. I aspire to embrace a path of nonresistance and cultivate a state of mental quietude. I will find inner peace only by demonstrating the courage to face the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones. Courage, patience, and fortitude will eliminate an ingrained personal propensity to engage in self-sabotage. When my resistance to the inevitable fate of humanity ceases, I will no longer berate myself for past lapses, avoid fretting over the present, and feeling anxious about the future.” –
64. “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” – Marianne Williamson
65. “Each wave that rolls onto the shore must release back to the ocean. You are the same. Each wave of action you take must release back to the peace within you. Stress is what happens when you resist this natural process. Everyone needs breaks. Denying this necessity does not remove it. Let yourself go. Realize that, sometimes, the best thing to do is absolutely nothing.” –
66. “World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion.” – Dali Lama
67. “Perfection’ is an illusion and we all make mistakes; you must allow yourself the freedom to make mistakes and bad judgements and glimmer wiser through them. We are not meant to live in insulation, within the confines of a box, or beneath a protective shell, so this means that errors are all a part of the human experience, and you strengthen yourself through it all and finding your own peace in forgiveness.” – Christine Evangelou,
68. “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars… Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
69. “Mindset is everything. Like the eye of a storm -find the sunshine and calm within you, even if there is chaos outside of you.” – Brittany Burgunder
70. “To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
71. “Never worry what others say when you walk away from all the drama. Be grateful you had the strength and courage to stay out of the conflict and be at peace with your choices.” –
72. “Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.” – Thomas Huxley
73.“I highly recommended running through grassy trails in the rain. There is a haven of serenity out in nature, the sound of raindrops and the scent of flowers, the feeling of the water along my skin. Even in the middle of a busy city and an insane world, there is beauty everywhere. All we have to do is pause long enough to notice.” – Jacqueline Simon Gunn
74. “If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.” – Marvin Gaye
75. “All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won’t succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.” – Wayne Dyer
76. “Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.” – Buddha
77. “You may wonder why so many of my quotes – and all my work – is about love, compassion and inner peace? Because life is nothing, empty, bereft without these things.” –
78. “Everyone has inside them a piece of good news. The good news is you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is.” – Anne Frank
79. “A champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.” – Serena Williams
80. “It’s true that many overly negative people actually fear letting go of their negativity, and it’s because it has become a part of their identity. If this is the case, make it a smoother transition by releasing and replacing one negative opinion at a time. It certainly is an identity shift, but it’s one that brings greater fulfillment and life satisfaction.” – Alaric Hutchinson
81. “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” – Robin Williams
82. “If you have strength of character, you can use that as fuel to not only be a survivor but to transcend simply being a survivor, use an internal alchemy to turn something rotten and horrible into gold.” – Zeena Schreck
83. “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell
84. “Many people have failing relationships because they have not really fallen in love with each other, but they have fallen for the mental images they have created of one another. We assume we know our partner, we think about them nonstop, creating many different ideas of who they are, what they like, and how we will be together, then as soon as our partner does something that doesn’t fit with our mental image of them, we become sad, upset, confused, or heart broken. Our partner did not cause our suffering; we caused it, through our false perceptions and mental images.” – Joseph P. Kauffman
85. “When the choice is to be right or to be kind, always make the choice that brings peace.” – Wayne Dyer
86. “Enlightenment is transcending the limits of the Selfish gene. It is mastering the pain, pleasure and reward circuits of the brain by radiating peace, love and harmony from every cell of the body.” – Amit Ray
87. “It isn’t where you came from. It’s where you’re going that counts.” – Ella Fitzgerald
88. “I wake up in the morning and I see that flower, with the dew on its petals, and at the way it’s folding out, and it makes me happy, she said. It’s important to focus on the things in the here and now, I think. In a month, the flower will be shriveled and you will miss its beauty if you don’t make the effort to do it now. Your life, eventually, is the same way.” – Dan Buettner
89. “Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful.” – Hazrat Khan
90. “There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, ‘Wait and Hope.” – Alexandre Dumas
91. “Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.” – John Barrymore
92. “Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the trance of unworthiness. The moment we believe something is wrong, our world shrinks and we lose ourselves in the effort to combat the pain.” – Tara Brach
93. “Always keep your eyes open. Keep watching. Because whatever you see can inspire you.” – Grace Coddington
94. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” – Steve Jobs
95. “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” – Seth Godin
96. “Even when walking in the company of two other men, I am bound to be able to learn from them. The good points of the one I copy, the bad points of the other I correct in myself.” – Confucius
97. “Never apologize for having high standards. People who really want to be in your life will rise up to meet them.” – Ziad K. Abdelnour
98. “The more you kick and scream, bite, scratch and try to run away, the darker the skies will get. You cannot run away from your pain and you cannot outrun the storm. By embracing your pain and bringing it within to heal, you empower your own growth. Accept what is, what was, and what is yet to come. This is the path to inner peace.” –
99. “The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence.” – Norman Vincent Peale.
100. “Each experience in your life was absolutely necessary in order to have gotten you to the next place, and the next place, up to this very moment.” – Wayne Dyer
101. Debasish Mridha “Be like a mountain; do not let anything disturb your inner peace.” – Debasish Mridha
102. “Turn your wounds into wisdom” – Oprah
103. “On the surface, reality may appear the same each day, but in essence, we are new every moment of our lives. The potential for change and growth is unlimited if we allow ourselves to surrender to the flow.” –
104. “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”- Rumi
105. “I have heard that he who knows what is enough will not let himself be entangled by thoughts of gain; that he who really understands how to find satisfaction will not be afraid of other kinds of loss; and that he who practices the cultivation of what is within him will not be ashamed because he holds no position in society.” – Zhuangzi
106. “Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there.” – Will Smith
107. “Much of our suffering is caused by our false perceptions and attachment to mental images. We assume things to be true without really knowing whether they are true or not, then create a world of hurt for ourselves and others.” – Joseph P. Kauffman,
108. “Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.” – Kobe Bryant
109. “Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward & learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.”
–
110. “Live for each second without hesitation.” – Elton John
111. “It was being a runner that mattered, not how fast or how far I could run. The joy was in the act of running and in the journey, not in the destination. We have a better chance of seeing where we are when we stop trying to get somewhere else. We can enjoy every moment of movement, as long as where we are is as good as where we’d like to be. That’s not to say that you need to be satisfied forever with where you are today. But you need to honor what you’ve accomplished, rather than thinking of what’s left to be done.” – John Bingham
112. “Life is a flower of which love is the honey.” – Victor Hugo
113. “It’s a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.” – Germany Kent
114. “Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.” – Pearl S. Buck
115. “All I know is that I’ve wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I’d get only if I really, really did enough to deserve it. But I don’t want it anymore, I want something else now, something warm and sheltering, something I can turn to, regardless of what I do, regardless of who I become. Something that will just be there, always, like tomorrow’s sky. That’s what I want now, and I think it’s what you should want too. But it will be too late soon. We’ll become too set to change. If we don’t take our chance now, another may never come for either of us.” – Kazuo Ishiguro
116. “I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more.” – Henry Fielding
117. “If you lack open communication and honesty in your life – It’s time to look within. Are you someone who handles heavy, emotional, or tough information well or do you often get excessively agitated, upset, or depressed? My rule of thumb is that no topic ‘should’ ever be off limits with a loved one. That is the goal to work towards. The point being, if you’re easy to talk to, people will talk to you! If you’re not, then they won’t!” – Alaric Hutchinson
118. “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
119. “Peace is life. Love is life. No river holds a grudge against a rock in its path. No leaf refuses to blow in the breeze. No plant denies water or sunshine. We, as human beings, have the gift of self-awareness, but this gift quickly turns to self-destruction if we do not learn to use it. We must learn to turn our minds towards the peace and love that we are flowing within at any given moment. This is the key to serenity. This is the love mindset.” – Vironika Tugaleva
120. “Take the time to slow down, relax, meditate, and contemplate the wonders within. You will discover an inner calm and balance that previously eluded you.” – Joanne Madeline Moore
121. “Never surrender your hopes and dreams to the fateful limitations others have placed on their own lives. The vision of your true destiny does not reside within the blinkered outlook of the naysayers and the doom prophets. Judge not by their words, but accept advice based on the evidence of actual results. Do not be surprised should you find a complete absence of anything mystical or miraculous in the manifested reality of those who are so eager to advise you. Friends and family who suffer the lack of abundance, joy, love, fulfillment and prosperity in their own lives really have no business imposing their self-limiting beliefs on your reality experience.” – Anthon St. Maarten
122. “It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.” – Marcus Aurelius
123. “When we give freely, we feel full and complete; when we withhold, we feel small, petty, impotent, and lacking. We are meant to learn this great truth, that giving fulfills us, while withholding and trying to get causes us to feel empty and even more needy. This truth runs counter to our programming, which drives us to try to get something from others to fulfill our neediness, only to end up even more needy, grasping, lacking, and unfulfilled.” –
124. “When even one virtue becomes our nature, the mind becomes clean and tranquil. Then there is no need to practice meditation; we will automatically be meditating always.” –
125. “Erase from your vocabulary the word “someday.” Do not save things for “special occasions.” Take into account the fact that every day is special. Every day is a gift that we must appreciate and be thankful for. Wear your attractive clothes, wear your nice perfume, use your fine silverware and dishes, and drink from your expensive crystal glasses … just because. Live every day to the fullest and savor every minute of it.” –
126. “Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.” –
127. “Your words, thoughts, intentions and actions today are your best hope, comfort, building blocks and insurance for tomorrow. But it is now alone that is guaranteed – tomorrow is a dream, a maybe a potential gift. It’s now – not tomorrow – where happiness and fulfilment live…awaiting your discovery. It’s all this that will make each extra day that may arrive extra special and rich.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru
128. “Our physical, emotional, and spiritual health requires rest. We need to take a break. We need to nurture ourselves. To take a time out to refuel, rejuvenate, and revive ourselves.” –
129. “Extensive as the ‘external’ world is, with all its sidereal distances it hardly bears comparison with the dimensions, the depth-dimensions, of our inner being, which does not even need the spaciousness of the universe to be, in itself, almost unlimited… It seems to me more and more as though our ordinary consciousness inhabited the apex of a pyramid whose base in us (and, as it were, beneath us) broadens out to such an extent that the farther we are able to let ourselves down into it, the more completely do we appear to be included in the realities of earthly and, in the widest sense, worldly, existence, which are not dependent on time and space. From my earliest youth I have felt the intuition (and have also, as far as I could, lived by it) that at some deeper cross-section of this pyramid of consciousness, mere being could become an event, the inviolable presence and simultaneity of everything that we, on the upper, “normal,” apex of self-consciousness, are permitted to experience only as entropy.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
130. “A little tranquil lake is more significant to my life than any big city in the world” – Munia Khan
131. “This life is what you make it. No matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you’re going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends – they’ll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything – they’re your true best friends. Don’t let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they’ll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them – actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can’t give up because if you give up, you’ll never find your soulmate. You’ll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn’t mean you’re gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don’t, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life’s a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.” – Marilyn Monroe
132. “Creativity is a way of life: It is freedom. A confidence. A tranquility. A surrender. A natural state of living that expands everything.” – Robert Sturman
133. “Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.” – Viktor E. Frankl
134. “Happiness is part of who we are. Joy is the feeling” – Tony DeLiso
135. “Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?” – Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
136. “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.” – Jim Carrey
137. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson
138. “Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
139. “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” – Marilyn Monroe
140. “To have humility is to experience reality, not in relation to ourselves, but in its sacred independence. It is to see, judge, and act from the point of rest in ourselves. Then, how much disappears, and all that remains falls into place.
In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.” –
141.“Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.” –
142. “I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” –
143. “I seek to use the tools of the mind to overcome a narcissistic self and attain self-mastery. I aspire to engage in self-cultivation by making practical usage of the process of enduring privations, overcoming challenges, and rejecting illicit temptations in order to gain fortitude, courage, and wisdom. I shall reflect upon grievous personal mistakes and embrace the concept of repentance as a lifelong growth process through which humankind conscientiously learns to make better choices by forsaking vice, immorality, and wickedness. I must also unreservedly embrace fate by perceiving everything that happens in life including suffering and loss as good, and affirm a life filled with indignity, sorrow, and tragedy. I can only discover happiness – a meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, and essential value of existence – by living with dignity in the face of absurdity. When we affirm all aspects of being, we enjoy a tranquil existence.” –
144. “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” – Elie Wiesel
145. “To be happy, we must fulfil our individual innate potential. Otherwise, we will feel frustrated at some level. In fulfilling ourselves, we will naturally contribute something of worth to the world. Selfish ambition, whether blatant or secret, destroys many a friendship and many a career. Selfish ambition cannot help but see others as competition. If someone else is succeeding, we think that means that we are not or perhaps not as well as them. Dedication to the good of all, including ourselves, takes the ill-will out of competitive thinking and makes the way to success smoother than we could otherwise orchestrate. We will have God/good on our team.” – Donna Goddard
146. “We are all butterflies. Earth is our chrysalis.” – LeeAnn Taylor
147. “When you do good things for people, you’ve created something to cherish and bank on the memory wall. But if there are no good deeds, later in life when you reflect on the past, the halls will be dreary and fruitless.” – Anthony Liccione
148. “Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.” – Hunter S. Thompson
149. “The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” – Paulo Coelho
150. “He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.” – Bob Marley
151. “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.” – Alice Walker
152. “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” – Henri Nouwen
153. “My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.” – Stephen Hawking
154. “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it – always.” – Mahatma Gandhi
155. “There is a yearning that is as spiritual as it is sensual. Even when it degenerates into addiction, there is something salvageable from the original impulse that can only be described as sacred. Something in the person (dare we call it a soul?) wants to be free, and it seeks its freedom any way it can. … There is a drive for transcendence that is implicit in even the most sensual of desires.” – Mark Epstein
156. “People will find transformation and transcendence in a McDonald’s hash brown if it’s all they’ve got.” – Patton Oswalt
157. “We awaken by asking the right questions. We awaken when we see knowledge being spread that goes against our own personal experiences. We awaken when we see popular opinion being wrong but accepted as being right, and what is right being pushed as being wrong. We awaken by seeking answers in corners that are not popular. And we awaken by turning on the light inside when everything outside feels dark.” – Suzy Kassem
158. “The question is not what you look at, but what you see. It is only necessary to behold the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance.” – Henry David Thoreau
159. “Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” – Voltaire
160. “Difficult roads can lead you to beautiful destinations; and the beauty of humanity is in our shared mutuality and intrinsic reciprocity, you are never alone in your difficulty, we are all made of the same stardust! The essence of spirituality and the bigger picture is to uncover who you truly are and share in that hard-won individuality; to be a force of good aligning with your gifts, talents and special qualities that we all grow from. We can transmute and transition every seemingly negative thought, emotion, and circumstance for our greater good and those around us.” – Christine Evangelou
161. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
162. “I was suddenly made aware of another world of beauty and mystery such as I had never imagined to exist, except in poetry. It was as though I had begun to see and smell and hear for the first time. The world appeared to me as Wordsworth describes with “the glory and freshness of a dream.” The sight of a wild rose growing on a hedge, the scent of lime-tree blossoms caught suddenly as I rode down a hill on a bicycle, came to me like visitations from another world. But it was not only my senses that were awakened. I experienced an overwhelming emotion in the presence of nature, especially at evening. It began to have a kind of sacramental character for me. I approached it with a sense of almost religious awe and , in a hush that comes before sunset, I felt again the presence of an almost unfathomable mystery. The song of the birds, the shape of the trees, the colors of the sunset, were so many signs of the presence, which seemed to be drawing me to itself.” – Bede Griffiths
163. “We spend our lives complicating what we would do better to accept. Because in acceptance, we put our energies into transcendence.” –
164. “What obligation is more binding than to protect the cherished, to defend whoever or whatever cannot defend itself, and to nurture in turn that which has given nourishment? I’m reminded of words written by John Seed, an Australian environmentalist. When he began considering these questions, he believed, ‘I am protecting the rain forest.’ But as his thought evolved, he realized, ‘I am part of the rain forest protecting myself.’ – Richard Nelson
165. “Those who have the ability to be grateful are the ones who have the ability to achieve greatness.” – Steve Maraboli
166. “I still remember that moment, years ago, when someone I dearly loved had to die a tragic death. And I thought about all the beloved people in my life and sensed a feeling of fear, of losing them one day, because, in the end, we’ll lose everyone we have ever loved, no matter how. And I thought that nothing in this world is meant to last and that nothing is going to stay forever. But then I also realized that … it doesn’t need to stay. It’s here now. It’s felt now. And drifting apart and breaking up and having to die are such things that belong to life. And without death, no living thing can exist. It is our fate to one day crumble into dust … and it is and always will be a painful and cruel experience, to lose someone you loved with the whole of your heart. But this is also what makes life so unique. This is what makes it meaningful. This is what makes it so unbelievably precious. This is why you should live every day as if it was your last one. This is why you shouldn’t hide away your feelings from those people your heart belongs to. This is why you should tell them what you feel. Always. This is why you should listen to your heart and never stop listening. This is why you should give your all and love and love and love and love.” – Dahi Tamara Koch
167. “A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.” – Walt Whitman
168. “And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” – Haruki Murakami
169. “Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
170. “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon
171. “Everywhere transience is plunging into the depths of Being . . . . It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its essence can rise again, ‘invisibly,’ inside us. We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible.” –
172. “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art … It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” – C.S. Lewis
173. “Sometimes we fight who we are, struggling against ourselves and our natures. But we must learn to accept who we are and appreciate who we become. We must love ourselves for what and who we are, and believe in our talents.” – Harley King
174. “How would your life be different if…you began each day by thanking someone who has helped you? Let today be the day…You make it a point to show your gratitude to others. Send a letter or card, make a call, send a text or email, tell them in person…do whatever you have to do to let them know you appreciate them.” – Steve Maraboli
175. “Here powers failed my high imagination: / But by now my desire and will were turned, / Like a balanced wheel rotated evenly, / By the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.” -Dante Alighieri
176. “If we are taken over by craving, no matter who or what is before us, all we can see is how it might satisfy our needs. This kind of thirst contracts our body and mind into a profound trance. We move through the world with a kind of tunnel vision that prevents us from enjoying what is in front of us. The color of an autumn leaves or a passage of poetry merely amplifies the feeling that there is a gaping hole in our life. The smile of a child only reminds us that we are painfully childless. We turn away from simple pleasures because our craving compels us to seek more intense stimulation or numbing relief.” –
177. “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
178. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
179. “The quest for enlightenment illustrates the paradox of desire—the fact that you must have desire to be motivated to transcend being ruled by desire.” – Paul O’Brien
180. “The great gift of a spiritual path is coming to trust that you can find a way to true refuge. You realize that you can start right where you are, in the midst of your life, and find peace in any circumstance. Even at those moments when the ground shakes terribly beneath you—when there’s a loss that will alter your life forever—you can still trust that you will find your way home. This is possible because you’ve touched the timeless love and awareness that are intrinsic to who you are.” – Tara Brach
181. “Transcendence transfigures; it does not reconcile, but rather transmutes opposites into something surpassing them that effaces their oppositions.” – Sri Aurobindo
182. “Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.” – Kakuzō Okakura
183. “Be thankful for your allotment in an imperfect world. Though better circumstances can be imagined, far worse are nearer misses than you probably care to realize.” – Richelle E. Goodrich
184. “When Van Gogh painted The Starry Night as a swirling mass of cosmic energy, he may have been painting what he saw with neurotic eyes, but he was also painting what he saw with transcendent eyes. The first gave his painting mere form, the second gave it formless, universal emotion that connects directly to the viewer.” – Amit Goswami
185. “Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.” – Roy T. Bennett
186. “When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out.” – John Green
187. “The soul essence is a timeless imprint of eternity.” – Ingmar Veeck
188. “He did not want to play. He wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld. He did not know where to seek it or how, but a premonition which led him on told him that this image would, without any overt act of his, encounter him. They would meet quietly as if they had known each other and had made their tryst, perhaps at one of the gates or in some more secret place. They would be alone, surrounded by darkness and silence: and in that moment of supreme tenderness he would be transfigured. He would fade into something impalpable under her eyes and then in a moment he would be transfigured. Weakness and timidity and inexperience would fall from him in that magic moment.” – James Joyce
189. “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
190. “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger – but recognize the opportunity.” – John F. Kennedy
191. “None but ourselves can free our minds.” – Bob Marley
192. “Here is little habit that can make a big difference. Send sunbeams. Intentionally send a word of encouragement or appreciation every day to one person.” – Steve Goodier
193. “This is for girls who have the tendency to stay up at night listening to music that reminds them of their current situation. Who hide their fears, hurt, pain and tears under the smiles, laughs and giggles on a daily basis. The girls who wear their heart on their sleeve. The girls who pray that things will work out just once and they’ll be satisfied. The girls who sceam and cry to their pillows because everyone else fails to listen. The girls who have so many secrets but wont tell a soul. The girls who have mistakes and regrets as a daily moral. The girls that never win. The girls that stay up all night thinking about that one boy and hoping that he’ll notice her one day. The girls who take life as it comes, to the girls who are hoping that it’ll get better somewhere down the road. For the girls who love with all their heart although it always gets broken. To girls who think it’s over. To real girls, to all girls: You’re beautiful.” – Zayn Malik
194. “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” – Lao Tzu
195. “Gain strength. Suck up energy. Make a point of appreciating the fragrance of the flowers and the beauty of the sunset. It is like armor. When you take a moment to practice my message you can then be armed with an ability to be detached. One is meant to forgive, to forgive and be compassionate.” – Kuan Yin”
196. “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.” – Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai
197. “The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.” – John Green
198. “I have been finding treasures in places I did not want to search. I have been hearing wisdom from tongues I did not want to listen. I have been finding beauty where I did not want to look. And I have learned so much from journeys I did not want to take. Forgive me, O Gracious One; for I have been closing my ears and eyes for too long. I have learned that miracles are only called miracles because they are often witnessed by only those who can can see through all of life’s illusions. I am ready to see what really exists on other side, what exists behind the blinds, and taste all the ugly fruit instead of all that looks right, plump and ripe.” – Suzy Kassem
199. “A sincere attitude of gratitude is a beatitude for secured altitudes. Appreciate what you have been given and you will be promoted higher.” – Israelmore Ayivor
200. “Clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind and loving heart, is what I call Radical Acceptance. If we are holding back from any part of our experience, if our heart shuts out any part of who we are and what we feel, we are fueling the fears and feelings of separation that sustain the trance of unworthiness. Radical Acceptance directly dismantles the very foundations of this trance.” – Tara Brach
201. “The best way is not to fight it, just go. Don’t be trying all the time to fix things. What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger.” – Chuck Palahniuk
202. “Sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. We can’t always understand them, but we have to trust in them. I know you want to question everything, but sometimes it pays to just have a little faith.” – Lauren Kate
203. “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.” – St. Francis Of Assisi
204. “Work. Good, honest work, whether it’s working with your hands to create an artwork, or manual labour, brings forth a sense of divinity at play. The only prerequisite is that whatever the work is, it is done sincerely and in congruence with the soul’s true origin and intent, then, without any effort, one experiences a flow, wherein one feels a part of the plan of the entire universe.” –
205. “If she’s amazing, she won’t be easy. If she’s easy, she won’t be amazing. If she’s worth it, you wont give up. If you give up, you’re not worthy. … Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.” –
206. “As a friend of mine put it, “Feeling that something is wrong with me is the invisible and toxic gas I am always breathing.” When we experience our lives through this lens of personal insufficiency, we are imprisoned in what I call the trance of unworthiness. Trapped in this trance, we are unable to perceive the truth of who we really are.” – Tara Brach
207. “Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” – Voltaire
208. “It’s not the face, but the expressions on it. It’s not the voice, but what you say. It’s not how you look in that body, but the thing you do with it. You are beautiful.” –
209. “It was as if I finally understood what being present meant. I had heard it so many times in yoga classes but I had never experienced it. It was like a protective film that someone had forgotten to take off was peeled back from my brain, and I could finally see things clearly. How I wasn’t truly stuck.” – Jennifer Pastiloff
210. “Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.” – Rumi
211. “And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” – C.S. Lewis
212. “If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.” – Masaru Emoto
213. “Any sense of privilege that we have to possess something seems to vanish once we are actually able to possess it. Therefore, in how many cases would it better ‘not’ to possess something?” – Craig D. Lounsbrough
214. “You see things; you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?” – George Bernard Shaw
215. “Our most intense joy comes not from personal feats, but from helping other persons achieve their goals. We become suppler human beings when we find true joy in witnessing other people’s successes and unabashedly share in their joyful accomplishments.” –
216. “Though nobody can go back and make a new beginning… Anyone can start over and make a new ending.” – Chico Xavier
217. “The ideas, ideals, ideologies that we hold are learned, taught or sometimes indoctrinated. Some are temporary ….some linger indefinitely. Some are found along our path; adopted through desire, desperation, nativity, through hurt, epiphany or realized under a tree. But do not hate the person ….instead shift through loving action and transform our deeds.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru
218. “It is beautiful to express love and even more beautiful to feel it.” – Dejan Stojanovic
219. “There is no excuse good enough to ever be out of alignment with love. You’re going to get hurt, and you will feel pain. Yet your purpose is to keep loving, anyway. Keep moving forward with an open heart. Love is a Divine gift given to humanity. Wasting it is no longer an option. Love is what brings light to a dark place. Love is what transforms a dying world into a thriving planet.” – Alaric Hutchinson
220. “And like an epiphany just landed on my shoulder, everything feels right. A calming acceptance settles over me, and I know, that even through the twists and uncertainty of time, it’s okay if my heart sometimes leads me.” – P.K. Hrezo
221. “The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” – Maya Angelou
222. “When they have contemplated the world, human beings have always experienced a transcendence and mystery at the heart of existence. They have felt that it is deeply connected with themselves and with the natural world, but that it also goes beyond. However we choose to define it – it has been called God, Brahman, or Nirvana – this transcendence has been a fact of human life. We have all experienced something similar, whatever our theological opinions, when we listen to a great piece of music or hear a beautiful poem and feel touched within and lifted, momentarily, beyond ourselves. We tend to seek out this experience, and if we do not find it in one setting – in a church or synagogue, for example – we would look elsewhere.” – Karen Armstrong
223. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker
224. “When the sound and wholesome nature of man acts as an entirety, when he feels himself in the world as in a grand, beautiful, worthy and worthwhile whole, when this harmonious comfort affords him a pure, untrammeled delight: then the universe, if it could be sensible of itself, would shout for joy at having attained its goal and wonder at the pinnacle of its own essence and evolution. For what end is served by all the expenditure of suns and planets and moons, of stars and Milky Ways, of comets and nebula, of worlds evolving and passing away, if at last a happy man does not involuntarily rejoice in his existence?” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
225. “Write it on your heart you are the most beautiful soul of the Universe. Realize it, honor it and celebrate the life.” – Amit Ray
226. “I will tell you one thing that will make you rich for life. There are two struggles: an Inner-world struggle and an Outer-world struggle…you must make an intentional contact between these two worlds; then you can crystallize data for the Third World, the World of the Soul.” – George Gurdjieff
227. “No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn’t know it.” – Paulo Coelho
228. “It is therefore of supreme importance that we consent to live not for ourselves but for others. When we do this we will be able first of all to face and accept our own limitations. As long as we secretly adore ourselves, our own deficiencies will remain to torture us with an apparent defilement. But if we live for others, we will gradually discover that no expects us to be ‘as gods’. We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.” – Thomas Merton
229. “Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of ‘not knowing.” – Mark Danielewski
230. “When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.” – Herman Hesse
231. “Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, So what. That’s one of my favorite things to say. So what.” – Andy Warhol
232. “Your suffering needs to be respected. Don’t try to ignore the hurt, because it is real. Just let the hurt soften you instead of hardening you. Let the hurt open you instead of closing you. Let the hurt send you looking for those who will accept you instead of hiding from those who reject you.” – Bryant McGill
233. “All theory is gray, my friend. But forever green is the tree of life.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
234. “Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.” – Herman Hesse
235. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl
236. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mahatma Gandhi
237. “Perhaps the journey towards epiphany is an unseen, steady process towards understanding. Likened to a combination safe, as you scroll the dial towards the inevitable correct combination you cannot tangibly see your progress.” – Chris Matakas
238. “Most of our lives we spend dreaming about all the things that we don’t have, or where we want to go. We forget to focus on the present, the now, who and what we are today. But why? Life might not be what you want, but it is what you have, and you need to embrace it.” – D.D. Larsen
239. “What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.” – Confucius
240. “If I can see pain in your eyes then share with me your tears. If I can see joy in your eyes then share with me your smile.” – Santosh Kalwar
241. “Wherever you are, it’s the place you need to be.” – Maxime Lagacé
242. “There are random moments – tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children’s rooms – when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead.” – Elizabeth Berg
243. “Hate is a lack of imagination.” – Graham Greene
244. “When you are joyful, when you say yes to life and have fun and project positivity all around you, you become a sun in the center of every constellation, and people want to be near you.” –
245. “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” – Pema Chödrön
246. “Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” – Mahatma Gandhi
247. “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.” – Eric Hoffer
248. “Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” – Rumi
249. “One loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them.” Masanobu Fukuoka
250. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: We all want everything to be okay. We don’t even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.” – David Levithan
251. “The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.” – Robert Pirsig
252. “I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.” – John Lennon
253. “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
254. “Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again. That is why every man’s story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of consideration.” – Herman Hesse
255. “Keep true to the dreams of your youth.” – Friedrich Schiller
256. “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu
257. “The way out of our cage begins with accepting absolutely everything about ourselves and our lives, by embracing with wakefulness and care our moment-to-moment experience. By accepting absolutely everything, what I mean is that we are aware of what is happening within our body and mind in any given moment, without trying to control or judge or pull away. I do not mean that we are putting up with harmful behavior—our own or another’s. This is an inner process of accepting our actual, present-moment experience. It means feeling sorrow and pain without resisting. It means feeling desire or dislike for someone or something without judging ourselves for the feeling or being driven to act on it.” – Tara Brach
258. “Remember you come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself — only with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.” – George Gurdjieff
259. “You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.” – Jon Krakauer
260. “Laughter is wine for the soul – laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness – the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.” – Sean O’Casey
261. “Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.” – Yamamoto Tsunetomo
262. “A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” – Roald Dahl
263. “The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.” – Eckhart Tolle
264. “Too many of us are hung up on what we don’t have, can’t have, or won’t ever have. We spend too much energy being down, when we could use that same energy – if not less of it – doing, or at least trying to do, some of the things we really want to do.” – Terry McMillan
265. “I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” – Anne Frank
266. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
267. “You must learn not what people round you consider good or bad, but to act in life as your conscience bids you. An untrammelled conscience will always know more than all the books and teachers put together.” – George Gurdjieff
268. “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” – Ernest Hemingway
269. “I am not interested in being original. I am interested in being true.” – Agostinho da Silva
270. “The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.” – Aaron Lauritsen
271. “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” – Maya Angelou
272. “The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.” – Neil Gaiman
273. “Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.” – Herman Hesse
274. “Remember: the more you expect things to be a certain way, the more disappointed you’ll be. Accept life as it is. You’ll be free.” – Maxime Lagacé
275. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
276. “I love deadlines, I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” – Douglas Adams
277. “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.” – Joseph Campbell
278. “I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.” – Bob Dylan
279. “As Nietzsche put it, if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how. A meaningful life can be extremely satisfying even in the midst of hardship whereas a meaningless life is a terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is.” – Yuval Noah Harari
280. “There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast, withers as rapidly. That which grows slowly, endures.” – Josiah Holland
281. “Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one. Don’t hope for a life without problems. There’s no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems.” – Mark Manson
282. “Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don’t let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory.” – Jim Carrey
283. “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.” – Steve Jobs
284. “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” – Albert Camus
285. “When you catch yourself slipping into a pool of negativity, notice how it derives from nothing other than resistance to the current situation.” – Donna Quesada
286. “Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.” – Tony Schwartz
287. “Be noble minded! Our own heart, and not other men’s opinions of us, forms our true honor.” – Friedrich Schiller
289. “To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.” – Herman Hesse
290. “In the highest level a man has the look of knowing nothing.” – Yamamoto Tsunetomo
291. “Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk — real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.” – Jack Kerouac
292. “The three elements of creativity are thus: loving, knowing, and doing – or heart, mind, and hands – or, as Zen Buddhist teaching has it; great faith, great question, and great courage.” – Eric Maisel
293. “A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.” – George Gurdjieff
294. “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen
295. “Happy. Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running—that’s the way to live. All alone and free in the soft sands of the beach by the sigh of the sea out there, with the Ma-Wink fallopian virgin warm stars reflecting on the outer channel fluid belly waters.” – Jack Kerouac
296. “How does the saying go? ‘Earning less and sleeping well is earning best.'” – Sholom Aleichem (Solomon Rabinovich)
297. “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” – Mark Twain
298. “Don’t look for peace. Don’t look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.” – Eckhart Tolle
299. “Act without expectation.” – Lao Tzu
300. “In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most wakan, most holy. There’s a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help. You might recall what it’s like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person’s eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom.” – Tara Brach
301. “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” – Dalai Lama
302. “Happiness only comes when you let go of who you think you are. If you think you’re wealthy and powerful and noble and truthful or horrible and demonic, whatever it may be, it’s all a waste of time.” – Frederick Lenz
303. “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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