favorite quotes
As I read books, articles or scroll through instagram, these are some quotes that have stuck with me and that have made an impact in my life.
"The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."
“We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. It needs a divine man to express anything divine."
“Else if you would be a man speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.” I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
- Maya Angelou
“Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget, truly forget, how much you have always loved to swim.”
- Tyler Knott Gregson
“Sometimes you have to stop being scared and just go for it. Either it'll work or it won't. That's life.”
“She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”
“For what it’s worth: It’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
“When you're a deep thinker, with a sensitive soul, you tend to overanalyze and overthink and you're always too hard on yourself.
You see the world in black and white because you can’t be in the middle, you can’t settle for grey, you don’t know how to half-feel, half-love or half-live. You’re either all in or all out. You either give your all or you feel empty all the time.
You’ve been called too many things; too sensitive, too deep, too emotional, too serious, non-chill, crazy, indecisive and my all-time favorite, an idealist. But when you’re both a deep thinker and a sensitive soul, you have something special, you have art, you have magic within you, something about this unique pairing fuels the fire within you to be someone worth remembering, to do something extraordinary for the world, to use all the madness inside you and turn it into wisdom. You become an alchemist, transforming your pain and darkness into gold.”
- Rania Naim
“The bad news is, people are crueler, meaner and more evil than you've ever imagined. The good news is, people are kinder, gentler and more loving than you’ve ever dreamed.”
“It does not count if you believe in yourself when it’s easy to believe in yourself. It does not count if you believe the world can be a better place when the future looks bright. It does not count if you think you’re going to make it when the finish line is right in front of you. It counts when it’s hard to believe in yourself, when it looks like the world’s going to end and you’ve still got a long way to go.
That’s when it counts. That’s when it matters the most.”
“You were not put here to impress others, to be better than others or to beat others at all costs. You were not put here to compare yourself to others and your success is not dependent on someone else's failure. You were not put here to put others in their place, to teach them a lesson or lecture them about who they are. You can and should help others but don't treat others like they're broken just because they're not who you think they should be - You were not put here to fix others. You were not put here to rise above others. You are unique but not special and that's not a bad thing because it means all of us can achieve some kind of greatness. You were not put here to be against others. You were put here with others.”
- Ian S. Thomas
“How could you think you are weak, when every time you fall you come back stronger than before. How could you think you are not enough when every night you discover you are more. How could you think you’re not special, when every time you create something, it touches people in ways they could have never imagined. How cold you think you’re not loved, when there are so many people that need you, that call out for you when you are not around. So tell me why you doubt yourself? Tell me what it is that is holding you back from being who you want to become? Is it fear? Is it the feeling of people expecting too much from you? I know what that’s like. I know what it’s like to carry a dream, to carry a love, perhaps even too big for your heart. I know what it’s like to not have enough words to tell the people you care bout how much they mean to you. All these things can leave you submerged, they really can. So please, don’t be so hard on yourself. Self- doubt is a slow killer but there is nothing deadlier than not believing in yourself.”
- R.M Drake
“Maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything. Maybe it's about un-becoming everything that isn't really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”
- Paul Coelho
“So often we try to make other people feel better by minimizing their pain, by telling them that it will get better (which it will) or that there are worse things in the world (which there are). But that's not what I actually needed. What I actually needed was for someone to tell me that it hurt because it mattered. I have found this very useful to think about over the years, and I find that it is a lot easier and more bearable to be sad when you aren't constantly berating yourself for being sad.”
- John Green
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
- Stephen Chbosky
“If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them - you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, "All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.”
“It’s very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.”
“Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”
- Mitch Albom
“Life becomes more meaningful when you realize the simple fact that you’ll never get the same moment twice.”
“Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
- N.H. Kleinbaum
"The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."
“We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. It needs a divine man to express anything divine."
“Else if you would be a man speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.” I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
- Maya Angelou
“Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget, truly forget, how much you have always loved to swim.”
- Tyler Knott Gregson
“Sometimes you have to stop being scared and just go for it. Either it'll work or it won't. That's life.”
“She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”
“For what it’s worth: It’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
“When you're a deep thinker, with a sensitive soul, you tend to overanalyze and overthink and you're always too hard on yourself.
You see the world in black and white because you can’t be in the middle, you can’t settle for grey, you don’t know how to half-feel, half-love or half-live. You’re either all in or all out. You either give your all or you feel empty all the time.
You’ve been called too many things; too sensitive, too deep, too emotional, too serious, non-chill, crazy, indecisive and my all-time favorite, an idealist. But when you’re both a deep thinker and a sensitive soul, you have something special, you have art, you have magic within you, something about this unique pairing fuels the fire within you to be someone worth remembering, to do something extraordinary for the world, to use all the madness inside you and turn it into wisdom. You become an alchemist, transforming your pain and darkness into gold.”
- Rania Naim
“The bad news is, people are crueler, meaner and more evil than you've ever imagined. The good news is, people are kinder, gentler and more loving than you’ve ever dreamed.”
“It does not count if you believe in yourself when it’s easy to believe in yourself. It does not count if you believe the world can be a better place when the future looks bright. It does not count if you think you’re going to make it when the finish line is right in front of you. It counts when it’s hard to believe in yourself, when it looks like the world’s going to end and you’ve still got a long way to go.
That’s when it counts. That’s when it matters the most.”
“You were not put here to impress others, to be better than others or to beat others at all costs. You were not put here to compare yourself to others and your success is not dependent on someone else's failure. You were not put here to put others in their place, to teach them a lesson or lecture them about who they are. You can and should help others but don't treat others like they're broken just because they're not who you think they should be - You were not put here to fix others. You were not put here to rise above others. You are unique but not special and that's not a bad thing because it means all of us can achieve some kind of greatness. You were not put here to be against others. You were put here with others.”
- Ian S. Thomas
“How could you think you are weak, when every time you fall you come back stronger than before. How could you think you are not enough when every night you discover you are more. How could you think you’re not special, when every time you create something, it touches people in ways they could have never imagined. How cold you think you’re not loved, when there are so many people that need you, that call out for you when you are not around. So tell me why you doubt yourself? Tell me what it is that is holding you back from being who you want to become? Is it fear? Is it the feeling of people expecting too much from you? I know what that’s like. I know what it’s like to carry a dream, to carry a love, perhaps even too big for your heart. I know what it’s like to not have enough words to tell the people you care bout how much they mean to you. All these things can leave you submerged, they really can. So please, don’t be so hard on yourself. Self- doubt is a slow killer but there is nothing deadlier than not believing in yourself.”
- R.M Drake
“Maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything. Maybe it's about un-becoming everything that isn't really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”
- Paul Coelho
“So often we try to make other people feel better by minimizing their pain, by telling them that it will get better (which it will) or that there are worse things in the world (which there are). But that's not what I actually needed. What I actually needed was for someone to tell me that it hurt because it mattered. I have found this very useful to think about over the years, and I find that it is a lot easier and more bearable to be sad when you aren't constantly berating yourself for being sad.”
- John Green
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
- Stephen Chbosky
“If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them - you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, "All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.”
“It’s very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.”
“Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”
- Mitch Albom
“Life becomes more meaningful when you realize the simple fact that you’ll never get the same moment twice.”
“Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
- N.H. Kleinbaum