Writing with Spirit

Quotes for Heart, Mind & Soul

I love learning from the wisdom of the ages, and as I run across thought-provoking quotes, I jot them down with the intention of blogging about them.

So much inspiration, so little time!

Since I’ve got quite a backlog already and I don’t want to keep these gems to myself, I decided to set up this page. Let’s call it food for blogging. From time to time, I’ll pull out one of these quotes and give it the attention it deserves.

They are all profound, I think, but the two that I really live by are Einstein’s and Liberty Hyde Bailey’s (the father of modern horticulture).

Please share some favorite quotes of your own in the comments.

Enjoy!

Albert Einstein

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle…The other is as though everything is.”

Liberty Hyde Bailey

“The happiest life has the greatest number of points of contact with the world, and it has the deepest feeling and sympathy with everything that is.”

My Friend’s Five-Year Old Son, Lukas:

“God is a boy AND a girl. Like worms.”

Julian of Norwich

“My, how busy we become when we
lose sight of how God loves us.”

George Eliot

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”

Howard Thurman

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Pema Chödrön

“True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.”

Eddie Cantor

“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The Nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”

Viktor Frankl

“What is to give light must endure burning.”

Father Richard Rohr

“Christianity is a lifestyle – a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established “religion” (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one’s “personal Lord and Savior” . . . The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.”

Stanislav Grof

For any culture which is primarily concerned with meaning, the study of death – the only certainty that life holds for us – must be central, for an understanding of death is the key to liberation in life.

(See my post:  He Was Dead, Right There in the Left Lane « melanielynngriffin. )

St. Bernard (1090-1153) said that there are four degrees of love:

1) Love of self for self’s sake.

2) Love of God for self’s sake.

3) Love of God for God’s own sake.

4) Love of self for God’s sake.

Barbara Kingsolver:

“Here’s what I’ve decided: the very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibilty that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That’s about it. Right now I’m living in that hope, running down its hallways and touching the walls on both sides. I can’t tell you how good it feels.”

Source: Animal Dreams

C.S. Lewis (always attributed to Lewis, he was actually paraphrasing a mentor)

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

Naomi Shihab Nye

“I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do.” 

Martha Graham (to Agnes DeMille)

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and (will) be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”