Victoria > Victoria's Quotes

“Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.

Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.
At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

“It’s precisely because of the pain, the we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive—or at least a partial sense of it.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“During times of physical separation, when touching and caressing is impossible, a deep, longing, almost a hunger, for the beloved can set in. We are used to thinking of this longing as only psychological, but it's actually physical. The brain is virtually in a drug-withdrawal state. During a separation, motivation for reunion can reach a fever pitch in the brain. Activities such as caressing, kissing, gazing, hugging, and orgasm can replenish the chemical bond of love and trust in the brain. The oxytocin-dopamine rush once again suppresses anxiety and skepticism and reinforces the love circuits in the brain. From an experiment we also know that oxytocin is naturally released in the brain after a twenty-second hug from a partner- sealing the bond between huggers and triggering the brain's trust circuits.”
― Louann Brizendine, The Female Brain

“By then running had entered the realm of the metaphysical. First there came the action of running, and accompanying it there was this entity known as me. I run; therefore I am.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.”
― Viktor Emil Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Anything you can aquire is only another thing you'll lose.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

“In most cases learning something essential in life requires physical pain.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“Male love circuits get an extra kick when stress levels are high. After an intense physical challenge, for instance, males will bond quickly and sexually with the first willing female they lay eyes on.
Women, by contrast, will rebuff advances or expressions of affection and desire when under stress. The reason may be that the stress hormone cortisol blocks oxytocin's action in the female brain, abruptly shutting off a woman's desire for sex and physical touch.”
― Louann Brizendine, The Female Brain

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“You can have it all. Just not all at once.”
― Oprah Winfrey

“Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort.”
― Jane Austen

“It’s pretty thin, the wall separating healthy confidence and unhealthy Pride.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“Love is the absence of judgment.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control. ”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“To suffer unecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

“One if the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.”
― Oprah Winfrey

“It will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure too to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities that she has, and not by the qualities she may not have.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another!”
― Douglas McGrath

“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.”
― Pema Chodron

“For the first time, she did want more. She did not know what she wanted, knew that it was dangerous and that she should rest content with what she had, but she knew an emptiness deep inside her, which began to ache.”
― Iain Pears, The Dream of Scipio

“The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.”
― Pema Chodron

“In life one has a choice to take one of two paths: to wait for some special day - or to celebrate each special day.”
― Rasheed Ogunlaru

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”
― Pema Chodron

“We're merely one tree with various types, shapes and sizes of leaves that all wave differently in the breeze”
― Rasheed Ogunlaru

“Abandon hope.”
― Pema Chodron

“The secret of contentment is never to allow yourself to want anything which reason tells you you haven't a chance of getting.”
― P.D. James