Stefana > Stefana 's Quotes

“What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“You are not supposed to be happy all the time. Life hurts and it's hard. Not because you're doing it wrong, but because it hurts for everybody. Don't avoid the pain. You need it. It's meant for you. Be still with it, let it come, let it go, let it leave you with the fuel you'll burn to get your work done on this earth.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton

“What if pain - like love - is just a place brave people visit?”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“What if in skipping the pain, I was missing my lessons?”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“the world as it was could never be more than a fraction of the world, for the real also consisted of what could have happened but didn’t, that one road was no better or worse than any other road, but the torment of being alive in a single body was that at any given moment you had to be on one road only, even though you could have been on another, traveling toward an altogether different place.”
― Paul Auster, 4 3 2 1

“...and while all people were bound together by the common space they shared, their journeys through time were all different, which meant that each person lived in a slightly different world from everyone else.”
― Paul Auster, 4 3 2 1

“an exercise in the art of paying attention, and paying attention, Ferguson discovered, was the first step in learning how to be alive.”
― Paul Auster, 4 3 2 1

“Anything was possible, and just because things happened in one way didn't mean they couldn' t happen in another.”
― Paul Auster, 4 3 2 1

“So in the end maybe that’s the challenge: to look inside your own heart as perceptively and seriously as you can, and to make peace with what you find there. If we hope to truly see another person, we have to start by looking within ourselves.” Takatsuki”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women

“If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self—himself—he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.”
― Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

“We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.”
― Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices

“IT IS WITH OUR FACES that we face the world, from the moment of birth to the moment of death. Our age and our sex are printed on our faces. Our emotions, the open and instinctive emotions which Darwin wrote about, as well as the hidden or repressed ones which Freud wrote about, are displayed on our faces, along with our thoughts and intentions. Though we may admire arms and legs, breasts and buttocks, it is the face, first and last, which is judged “beautiful” in an aesthetic sense, “fine” or “distinguished” in a moral or intellectual sense. And, crucially, it is by our faces that we can be recognized as individuals. Our faces bear the stamp of our experiences and character; at forty, it is said, a man has the face he deserves. At”
― Oliver Sacks, The Mind's Eye

“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 enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. 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.”
― Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”
― Brene Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

“If you want to make a difference, the next time you see someone being cruel to another human being, take it personally. Take it personally because it is personal!”
― Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

“Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.”
― Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

“why is it
that when the story ends
we begin to feel all of it”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“You do not just wake up and become the butterfly"
-Growth is a process.”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“i could be anything in the world but i wanted to be his”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“Some people say, How can you live without knowing? I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. That is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know.”
― Richard Feynman, The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“Experience life in all possible ways --
good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light,
summer-winter. Experience all the dualities.
Don't be afraid of experience, because
the more experience you have, the more
mature you become.”
― Osho

“Be — don't try to become”
― Osho

“Life begins where fear ends.”
― Osho Bhagwam Shree Rajneesh

“Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it.”
― Osho

“there are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love