#de

If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or desperation. In order to complete our amazing life journey successfully, it is vital that we turn each and every dark tear into a pearl of wisdom, and find the blessing in every curse. ↗

— Anthon St. Maarten

#blessing #blessings #blessings-in-disguise #curse #dark-night-of-the-soul

Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies. (from "Loving Your Enemies") ↗

— Martin Luther King Jr.

#destruction #enemies #hate #love #redemption

A genius is someone who takes a complex thing and makes it look simple. An academic does the opposite. ↗

— Robert Fanney

#genius #thought #genius

When you are secure in yourself, know what turns you on, and enjoy watching your partner watch you experience sexual pleasure, you have a highly novel relationship grounded in love. The experience of seeing and being seen fuels lust and desire. This is exactly the way you integrate healthy lust and love into your sex life. It’s relational sex, not the old pornographic sex of past addictions. ↗

— Alexandra Katehakis

#desire #love #lust #pornography #sex

While the impostor draws his identity from past achievements and the adulation of others, the true self claims identity in its belovedness. We encounter God in the ordinariness of life: not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary, mystical experiences but in our simple presence in life. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#christianity #god #identity #impostor #simplicity

Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth. ↗

— Malcolm X

#intelligence #knowledge #open-mindedness #truth #experience

Who can resist this handsome mug?” He stroked his broad jaw and I tried my hardest not to nod along. “Complete with rapist facial hair,” I added. ↗

— Karina Halle

#perry-palomino #experience

Your desire is your prayer. Picture the fulfillment of your desire now and feel its reality and you will experience the joy of the answered. Dr. Joseph Murphy ↗

— Joseph Murphy

#joseph-murphy #prayer #experience

Surrender your own poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and compassion which are like nothing you have ever found in a book or heard in a sermon. ↗

— Thomas Merton

#god #love #poverty #presence #spiritual-poverty

Now? I'm just another female faking orgasms to make a man not feel so inadequate. ↗

— Jess C. Scott

#experience-mistakes-wisdom #experiences #gender #love #men-and-women