#iv

...thinking all this maximalism would somehow generate happiness? ↗

— Isaac Marion

#life-and-living #maximalism #life

It was always the same for her when she arrived to meet the body. After she unbuckled her seat belt, after she pulled a stick pen from the rubber band on the sun visor, after her long fingers brushed her hip to feel the comfort of her service piece, what she always did was pause. Not long. Just the length of a slow deep breath. That's all it took for her to remember the one thing she will never forget. Another body waited. She drew the breath. And when she could feel the raw edges of the hole that had been blown in her life, Detective Nikki Heat was ready. She opened the car door and went to work . . . Heat could have made it easier on herself by parking closer, but this was another of her rituals: the walk up. Every crime scene was a flavor of chaos, and these two hundred feet afforded the detective her only chance to fill the clean slate with her own impressions. ↗

— Richard Castle

#detective #detective-fiction #life

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness—not pain or mindless self-indulgence—is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#individualism #life #morals #objectivism #purpose

The life most of us live are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures. ↗

— Walter Mosley

#life

Your heart's voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore it, for sometimes it says what we'd rather it did not - and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don't live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living it is not the true you. ↗

— Susan Fletcher

#heart #life #living #life

If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life And you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots Remember That on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms And my roots will set off to seek another land ↗

— Pablo Neruda

#life-and-living #life

Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore it if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#inspirational-life #inspirational

No motive is pure. No one is good or bad-but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away. ↗

— Carrie Fisher

#life

The Rest of Our Life Is Going To Be The Best of Our Life! ↗

— Darrell Yarbrough

#hope #motivation #life

It's good to have an end in mind but in the end what counts is how you travel. ↗

— Orna Ross

#mindfulness #life