Ruchi Gupta > Ruchi's Quotes

“Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.”
― Mary Oliver

“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”
― Rumi

“You start dying slowly
if you do not travel,
if you do not read,
If you do not listen to the sounds of life,
If you do not appreciate yourself.

You start dying slowly
When you kill your self-esteem;
When you do not let others help you.

You start dying slowly
If you become a slave of your habits,
Walking everyday on the same paths…
If you do not change your routine,
If you do not wear different colours
Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.

You start dying slowly
If you avoid to feel passion
And their turbulent emotions;
Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.

You start dying slowly
If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job, or with your love,
If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,
If you do not go after a dream,
If you do not allow yourself,
At least once in your lifetime,
To run away from sensible advice.”
― Martha Medeiros

“There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.”
― Robert Lynd, The Blue Lion; And Other Essays

“The days on which one has been the most inquisitive are among the days on which one has been happiest.”
― Robert Lynd

“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
― Jane Austen, Pride And Prejudice

“I have not the pleasure of understanding you.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“Even as I hold you, I am letting you go.”
― Alice Walker

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
― Lao Tzu

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.”
― Immanuel Kant

“Look closely. The beautiful may be small.”
― Immanuel Kant

“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“In difficult times carry something beautiful in your heart.”
― Blaise Pascal

“You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.”
― John O'Donohue

“Unfinished Poem
I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”
― John O'Donohue

“Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of the wolf.”
― Aldo Leopold

“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.

(from, “What Can I Say”)”
― Mary Oliver

“I was not prepared: sunset, end of summer. Demonstrations
of time as a continuum, as something coming to an end,

not a suspension: the senses wouldn’t protect me.
I caution you as I was never cautioned:

you will never let go, you will never be satiated.
You will be damaged and scarred, you will continue to hunger.

Your body will age, you will continue to need.
You will want the earth, then more of the earth–

Sublime, indifferent, it is present, it will not respond.
It is encompassing, it will not minister.

Meaning, it will feed you, it will ravish you,
it will not keep you alive.”
― Louise Glück, The Seven Ages: Bold and Masterful Poems on Death, Metamorphosis, and Embracing the Inevitable

“Even before you touched me, I belonged to you; all you had to do was look at me.”
― Louise Glück

“From the beginning of time, in childhood, I thought that pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved.”
― Louise Gluck

“At first I saw you everywhere.
Now only in certain things,
at longer intervals.”
― Louise Glück

“I think here I will leave you. It has come to seem
there is no perfect ending.
Indeed, there are infinite endings.
Or perhaps, once one begins,
there are only endings.”
― Louise Glück, Faithful and Virtuous Night