Stories can help save our lives by giving us something to hold on to--I talked about that in my May 13 post. Quotations, in a sense, are stories in miniature. We come to a quotation with our various conflicts and dilemmas, just as a story describes conflict at its beginning. Then the right quote at the right time can offer some hope, some resolution, some tool to help us find our way in the world again, as stories often do.
I have been collecting quotes for many years now, and have shared some of them on my website and my blog. Here are a few of my current favorites—a few you might recognize from recent posts.
I’ve divided them up more or less by topic, and sorted them alphabetically by author last name.
I’d love to hear your favorites.
GRIEF…and HOPE
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of...unspeakable love.
Washington Irving
* * * * * * * * * *
The world indeed is 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.
JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
* * * * * * * * * *
When sorrow leaves your spoken words behind,
When only silence ponders in your mind,
When neither thought nor voice nor touching hand
Can find an image or a language for your pain...
Then do be brave and let your tears explain.
Sascha Wagner, Compassionate Friends
GUIDANCE
If I lose my direction,
I have to look for the North Star, and I go north. That does not mean that I expect to
arrive at the North Star.
I just want to go in that direction.
Thich Nhat Hanh
* * * * * * * * * *
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive,
and go out and do it.
Because what the world needs
is people who have come alive.
Howard Thurman
* * * * * * * * * *
HOPE
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
Richard Bach
* * * * * * * * * *
Planting seeds
inevitably changes
my feelings about rain.
Luci Shaw
* * * * * * * * * *
Stars over snow, and in the West, a planet
Swinging below a star.
Look for a lovely thing, and you will find it.
It isn’t far—it never will be far.
Sara Teasdale
* * * * * * * * * *
IMPERFECTION
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
* * * * * * * * * *
KINDNESS
A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
Isaiah 42:3
* * * * * * * * * *
LIVING IN THE WORLD
When we try to pick out anything by itself,
we find it hitched to
everything else in the universe.
John Muir
* * * * * * * * * *
Using hatred to fight hatred is the surest way to create more hatred.
Thich Nhat Hanh
* * * * * * * * * *
If I worked hard it was not because I had any illusion about my ability to change the situation. It would be very much like trying to extinguish a forest fire with cups of water. But I did have faith, and still do have faith now, that our work was of some value because it began to sow the seeds of tolerance and love in men’s hearts.
Thich Nhat Hanh
* * * * * * * * * *
MEDITATION and some MEDITATIONS
To meditate, only you must smile.
Smile with face, smile with mind,
and good energy will come to you
and clean away dirty energy.
Even smile in your liver.
Ketut Biyer to Liz Gilbert
Eat, Pray, Love
* * * * * * * * * *
What does God do all day long?
God gives birth.
From all eternity
God lies on a maternity bed
giving birth.
Meister Eckhart
* * * * * * * * * *
Body rests like a mountain,
Breath moves like the sea,
heart like the sky.
Julie Henderson
* * * * * * * * * *
In this body, in this town of Spirit, there is a little house shaped like a lotus, and in that house there is a little space. There is as much in that little space within the heart as there is in the whole world outside.
The Upanishads, quoted by Madeleine L’Engle in A House Like a Lotus
* * * * * * * * * *
So that's it!
Until next time,
Dawn
Photo credits:
Woman with child, Austin Wade, unSplash
Woman weeping, anonymous
Stars, moon & mountain, Benjamin Voros, unSplash
Butterfly, anonymous
Rain on grass, anonymous
Bells, Larry Costales, unSplash
Spiderweb, Vicienne Nieuwenhuizen, unSplash
Mountain, sky, sea, Alvaro Reyes, unSplash