#ness

Hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it's dangerous, that it's painful and risky, that it's making a dare in the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare? ↗

— Patrick Ness

#hope #patrick-ness #the-knife-of-never-letting-go #winning

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#achievement

Every story has already been told. Once you've read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had." [Commencement Speech; Mount Holyoke College, May 23, 1999] ↗

— Anna Quindlen

#creativity #originality #point-of-view #uniqueness #writing

I keep remembering one of my Guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't you will eat away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. ↗

— Elizabeth Gilbert

#happiness #love

There is no disappointment so numbing...as someone no better than you achieving more. ↗

— Joseph Heller

#envy #achievement

It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement. ↗

— Abraham Harold Maslow

#psychology #self-awareness #understanding #achievement

If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart... ↗

— Pema Chödrön

#buddhism #mindfulness #attention

If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. (Get Out or Get in Line, 1928) ↗

— Elbert Hubbard

#loyalty #loyalty

I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#chaos #cooperation #organization #persuasion #pets

Doubt … is an illness that comes from knowledge and leads to madness. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#knowledge #madness #doubt