“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, amazon.com
“And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country, where you live, where no wars are fought and no wars are won, but where the future is. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that no…”— Ursula K. Le Guin, ursulakleguin.com
“People who described others as enthusiastic, happy, kind-hearted, courteous, emotionally stable, and capable were most likely to possess those characteristics themselves.”— Amy Morin, inc.com
“The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible. We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”— Charles R. Swindoll, amazon.com
“This ruptured syllogism — If I understand myself, I’ll get better — made me question the way I’d come to worship self-awareness itself, a brand of secular humanism: Know thyself, and act accordingly. What if you reversed this? Act, and know thyself differently. Showing up for a meeting, for a ritual…”— Leslie Jamison, time.com
“Years later, recovery turned this notion upside-down — it made me start to believe that I could do things until I believed in them, that intentionality was just as authentic as unwilled desire. Action could coax belief rather than testifying to it. 'I used to think you had to believe to pray,' David…”— Leslie Jamison, time.com
“This awareness, so unnerving against the backdrop of our irrepressible yearning for constancy and permanence, was first unlatched when the ancients began suspecting that the Earth, rather than being the static center of the heavens it was long thought to be, is in motion, right beneath our feet. But…”— Maria Popova, brainpickings.org
“The more negatively I reacted to my negative feelings, the greater the likelihood I would be starting to set the stage for a neurotic pattern. Imagine, for example, if I hated the feelings and the event so much that I hated myself for causing them. Or if I hated the girls with thoughts like, 'All gi…”— Gregg Henriques, psychologytoday.com
“Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz grew up in a tough housing project. Oprah Winfrey faced horrifying abuse as a girl. Eleanor Roosevelt's father drank himself to death. These aren't isolated incidents. According to a fascinating recent Wall Street Journal article by clinical psychologist Meg Jay, ch…”— Jessica Stillman, inc.com
“The first of these insights is that when cues are available, people tend to conform to expected behaviors and implicit rules. This is why we’re less likely to order a stiff drink at dinner when the rest of the table ordered water. But donations are often kept private. Fortunately, good design could…”— Omar Parbhoo, behavioralscientist.org
“In a classic experiment from the 1970s, seminary students were instructed to go to a specific location. On the way there, they walked past a slouched-over man who was groaning audibly. Although all the students passed the man, they were each given a varying sense of urgency by the researchers before…”— Omar Parbhoo, behavioralscientist.org
“These moments — of being present and open to the cosmos and to humanity — are precious ones. It’s like a lightning bolt that comes down and brightens up everything. The lightning bolt doesn’t last for a minute, but oh for one breath — to see life, humanity, our own selves as perfectly one, whole, in…”— Omid Safi, onbeing.org
“Go, be your best self. Be your most beautiful self. Be your luminous self. Be your most generous self. Be your most radically loving self. And when you fall short of that — as we all do, as we all have — bounce back and return. And return again. There is a grace in this returning to your luminous se…”— Omid Safi, onbeing.org
“Unfurl your own story. It is true that we do have to wait to see “who lives, who dies, who tells your story.” Tell your own story — do it now. There is a power in owning your own story. If you don’t tell your own story, someone else will. And if you are willing to do the hard work of polishing the j…”— Omid Safi, onbeing.org
“Students should not be expected to cure the ills of our genuinely troubled classmates, or even our friends, because we first and foremost go to school to learn.”— Isabelle Robinson, nytimes.com
“What, then, is the real relationship between art and trade? Agonistic? Complementary? The question, suggesting something like a creative sanctum shimmering a few meters above the room in which you punch a clock or schedule a meeting, supposes that aesthetic experience is categorically different from…”— Katy Waldman, nytimes.com
“Once upon a time, artists had jobs. And not 'advising the Library of Congress on its newest Verdi acquisition' jobs, but job jobs, the kind you hear about in stump speeches. Think of T.S. Eliot, conjuring 'The Waste Land' (1922) by night and overseeing foreign accounts at Lloyds Bank during the day,…”— Katy Waldman, nytimes.com
“The size of a body was never just the size of a body. Thinness was a door that opened to a world of happy marriages, perfect children, enviable careers, meteoric ascents. It was a divine healing fantasy: all the wrongs in their lives would be righted by endless self-flagellation, and the mantra of t…”— Your Fat Friend, medium.com
“That meeting is where I first learned magical thinking. Through sheer force of will, these women intended to break their bodies like wild horses, starve them into submission, and, in so doing, attain the dazzling lives of thin women. They stayed hungry, forever famished, but were never quite thin en…”— Your Fat Friend, medium.com
“I hope that in the future they invent a small golden light that follows you everywhere and when something is about to end, it shines brightly so you know it's about to end. And if you're never going to see someone again, it'll shine brightly and both of you can be polite and say, 'It was nice to hav…”— Iain Thomas, iwrotethisforyou.me