#ness

The devil's happy when the critics run you off. ↗

— Criss Jami

#certainty #confidence #criticism #critics #determination

A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope. ↗

— Philip K. Dick

#existentialism #future #hopelessness #weird

Why would we want fame, when God promises us glory? Why would we be seeking the wealth of the world when the wealth of heaven is ours? Why would we run for a crown that will perish with time, when we're called to win a crown that is imperishable? ↗

— Paul Washer

#godly #holiness #fame

There is a fragrance in the air, a certain passage of a song, an old photograph falling out from the pages of a book, the sound of somebody's voice in the hall that makes your heart leap and fills your eyes with tears. Who can say when or how it will be that something easters up out of the dimness to remind us of a time before we were born and after we will die? ↗

— Frederick Buechner

#dimness #easter #fragrance #photograph #song

It was like sawdust, the unhappiness: it infiltrated everything, everything was a problem, everything made her cry -- school, homework, boyfriends, the future, the lack of future, the uncertainty of future, fear of future, fear in general -- but it was so hard to say exactly what the problem was in the first place. ↗

— Melanie Thernstrom

#uncertainty

Happiness is not only a hope, but also in some strange manner a memory ... we are all kings in exile. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#exile #happiness #home #manners

In the end, the number of prayers we say may contribute to our happiness, but the number of prayers we answer may be of even greater importance. ↗

— Dieter F. Uchtdorf

#happiness #prayer #service #service

What! Would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or any person I may say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I have made it. ↗

— Jane Austen

#empowerment #independence #interference #judgment #persuasion

Some people think mental illness is a matter of mood, a matter of personality. They think depression is simply a form of being sad, that OCD is a form of being uptight. They think the soul is sick, not the body. It is, they believe, something that you have some choice over. I know how wrong this is. When I was a child, I didn't understand. I would wake up in a new body and wouldn't comprehend why things felt muted, dimmer. Or the opposite--I'd be supercharged, unfocused, like a radio at top volume flipping quickly from station to station. Since I didn't have access to the body's emotions, I assumed the ones I was feeling were my own. Eventually, though, I realized these inclinations, these compulsions, were as much a part of the body as its eye color or its voice. Yes, the feelings themselves were intangible, amorphous, but the cause of the feelings was a matter of chemistry, biology. It is a hard cycle to conquer. The body is working against you. And because of this, you feel even more despair. Which only amplifies the imbalance. It takes uncommon strength to live with these things. But I have seen that strength over and over again. ↗

— David Levithan

#mental-illness #biology

Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize? ↗

— Marcus Aurelius

#honesty #self-awareness #meditation