Shalin > Shalin's Quotes

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
― Helen Keller

“The point of life is not to get anywhere—it is to notice that you are, and have always been, already there. You are always and forever in the moment of pure creation. The point of life therefore is to create—who and what you are, and then to experience that.”
― Neale Donald Walsch

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

“How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.”
― Paulo Coelho, Brida

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
― Søren Kierkegaard , The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin

“Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.”
― François de La Rochefoucauld

“You’re wishin’ too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

“Operation Self-Esteem--Day Fucking One.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“Look for God, suggests my Guru. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

“Prayer is a relationship; half the job is mine. If I want transformation, but can't even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I'm aiming for, how will it ever occur? Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention. If you don't have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

“Dear me, how I love a library.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

“As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff is bad for you.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

“I am a better person when I have less on my plate.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

“There is a reason they call God a presence - because God is right here, right now. In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“I have good idea, for if you meet some person from different religion and he want to make argument about God. My idea is, you listen to everything this man say about God. Never argue about God with him. Best thing to say is, 'I agree with you.' Then you go home, pray what you want. This is my idea for people to have peace about religion.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

“There's no trouble in this world so serious that it can't be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whiskey, and the Book of Common Prayer.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“I crossed the street to walk in the sunshine.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“What do I believe that I deserve in this life?”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love