#ss

To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit,l from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play. ↗

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

#change

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness. ↗

— Brené Brown

#truth #vulnerability #weakness #courage

When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose. ↗

— Brené Brown

#narcissism #self-worth #shame #courage

No reflection was to be allowed now, not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet, so deadly sad, that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank, something like then world when the deluge was gone by. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#future #heartbreak #hopelessness #past #sadness

I want to possess enough courage to fill a Campbell’s soup can. And then I want to use my courage to feed the homeless. Isn’t courage not only filling, but delicious? ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#delicious #funny #homeless #courage

Why should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn? ↗

— W.B. Yeats

#love #obsession #troy #age

What makes a hero? Courage, strength, morality, withstanding adversity? Are these the traits that truly show and create a hero? Is the light truly the source of darkness or vice versa? Is the soul a source of hope or despair? Who are these so called heroes and where do they come from? Are their origins in obscurity or in plain sight? ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#darkness #despair #fall #heroes #hope

I think that if we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#loving #courage

The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always. ↗

— Arthur Miller

#bravery #courage #embarassment #fear #fury

Numb the dark and you numb the light. ↗

— Brené Brown

#fear #feelings #joy #light #numbness