#person

I'm an elephant today. I will need to have lots of room and also a bowl of water on the floor. ↗

— Jesse Ball

#elephant #humor #personal-space #silly #humor

I remembered learning from my favorite professor at Belmont to “surround yourself with people who are better than you,” and I was now living that mantra. ↗

— Kimberly Novosel

#good-people #growing-up #inspirational #learning #lessons

How often, you wonder, has the direction of your life been shaped by such misunderstandings? How many opportunities have you been denied--or, for that matter, awarded--because someone failed to see you properly? How many friends have you lost, how many have you gained, because they glimpsed some element of your personality that shone through for only an instant, and in circumstances you could never reproduce? An illusion of water shimmering at the far bend of a highway. ↗

— Kevin Brockmeier

#illusion #life #misunderstanding #personality #life

I was always an unusual girl. My mother told me I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean. ↗

— Lana Del Rey

#chameleon #elizabeth-woolridge-grant #life #lyrics #moral-compass

For I am—or I was—one of those people who pride themselves in on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all—a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named—but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not. This is certainly what my decision, made so long ago in Joey’s bed, came to. I had decided to allow no room in the universe for something which shamed and frightened me. I succeeded very well—by not looking at the universe, by not looking at myself, by remaining, in effect, in constant motion. ↗

— James Baldwin

#life #personality #pride #virtue #world

It may actually be more healthy to be disturbed, confused, or searching than confident, certain, and secure. ↗

— Mark Scandrette

#spirituality #life

Nothing can be delicious when you are holding your breath. ↗

— Anne Lamott

#love #personal-growth #spirituality #life

Remember: The answers are in the questions. ↗

— John G. Miller

#life

Miri once told me that there were only four important ques­tions you could ask about any human being: How does he fill up his time? How does he feel about how he fills up his time? What does he love? How does he react to those he perceives as either inferior or superior to him? If you make people feel inferior, even unintentionally," she had said, her dark eyes intense, "they will be uncomfortable around you. In that situation, some people will attack. Some will ridicule, to 'cut you down to size.' But some will admire, and learn from you. If you make people feel superior, some will react by dis­missing you. Some by wielding power — just because they can — in greater or lesser ways. But some will be moved to protect and help. All this is just as true of a junior lodge clique as of a group of governments. ↗

— Nancy Kress

#love

love is just a further impetus, not something that will prevent us going forward. We do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on that journey. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#personal-legend #progress #love