Drew > Drew's Quotes

“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”
― Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Vol. 3: American Statesmen

“What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within the span of his little life by him who interests his heart in everything.”
― Laurence Sterne

“When a person knows and can't
make the others understand, what does he do?”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“A man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.”
― Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

“The truly faithless one is the one who makes love to only a fraction of you. And denies the rest.”
― Anais Nin

“I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Your strength will be found when you stop struggling with yourself, instead of thinking everyone is a struggle worth overcoming. Every obstacle in life is a lesson that teaches us, not others.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“What preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way?”
― Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

“To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do. ”
― Hermann Hesse

“We come to life in the middle of stories that are not ours.”
― Paul Elie

“Don’t be difficult, Denys,” Nell chided. “All women like a little flattery from time to time.” “What if they didn’t? What if they simply liked themselves and no one needed to bend backwards to flatter them? Wouldn’t it all be simpler then?”
― Paula McLain, Circling the Sun

“Knowledge has entertained me and it has shaped me and it has failed me. Something in me still starves.”
― Mary Oliver

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“The things that we love tell us what we are.”
― St. Thomas Aquinas

“There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire.”
― Jules Renard

“Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.”
― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems

“They say: sufferings are misfortunes," said Pierre. 'But if at once this minute, I was asked, would I remain what I was before I was taken prisoner, or go through it all again, I should say, for God's sake let me rather be a prisoner and eat horseflesh again. We imagine that as soon as we are torn out of our habitual path all is over, but it is only the beginning of something new and good. As long as there is life, there is happiness. There is a great deal, a great deal before us.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.”
― Thomas Merton

“It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.”
― James Baldwin, Collected Essays: Notes of a Native Son / Nobody Knows My Name / The Fire Next Time / No Name in the Street / The Devil Finds Work / Other Essays

“Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the best of intentions a spiritual man finds himself exhausted and deadened and debased by the constant noise of machines and loudspeakers, the dead air and the glaring lights of offices and shops, the everlasting suggestion of advertising and propaganda.

The whole mechanism of modern life is geared for a flight from God and from the spirit into the wilderness of neurosis.”
― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

“Society was built on a foundation of fear, not authenticity. I get too numb when I join the world. I lose my openness, my access to the divine.”
― Jeff Brown, An Uncommon Bond

“The multiplicity of forms! The hummingbird, the fox, the raven, the sparrow hawk, the otter, the dragonfly, the water lily! And on and on. It must be a great disappointment to God if we are not dazzled at least ten times a day.”
― Mary Oliver

“It’s a gift to joyfully recognize and accept our own smallness and ordinariness. Then you are free with nothing to live up to, nothing to prove, and nothing to protect. Such freedom is my best description of Christian maturity, because once you know that your “I” is great and one with God, you can ironically be quite content with a small and ordinary “I.” No grandstanding is necessary. Any question of your own importance or dignity has already been resolved once and for all and forever.”
― Richard Rohr

“Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true. ”
― Thomas Merton

“I must pack my short lifer full of interesting events and creative activity. Philosophy and aesthetic contemplation are not enough. I intend to do everything possible to broaden my experiences and allow myself to reach the fullest development. Then, and before physical deterioration obtrudes, I shall go on some last wilderness trip to a place I have known and loved. I shall not return.”
― Everett Ruess, Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty

“I'll never stop wandering. And when the time comes to die, I'll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is.”
― Everett Ruess

“I suppose a great and soul filling love is perhaps the greatest experience a man may have, but it is such a rarity as to be almost negligible.”
― Everett Ruess

“If I had a message to my contemporaries it is surely this: Be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success . . . If you are too obsessed with success, you will forget to live. If you have learned only how to be a success, your life has probably been wasted.”
― Thomas Merton, Love and Living