Drew Thorn > Drew's Quotes

“Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.”
― Washington Irving

“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.”
― Washington Irving

“There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in traveling in a stage coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place.”
― Washington Irving, Tales of a Traveller

“A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.”
― Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle

“There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations.”
― Washington Irving

“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“To do nothing is the way to be nothing.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."

[Notebook, Oct. 10, 1842]”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks: The Centenary Edition

“Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“She could no longer borrow from the future to ease her present grief.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“She wanted—what some people want throughout life—a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rappaccini's Daughter

“It is a good lesson - though it may often be a hard one - for a man... to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.”
― Ram Dass

“We're fascinated by the words--but where we meet is in the silence behind them.”
― ram dass

“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
― Ram Dass

“The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can't have it. The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible.”
― ram dass

“In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.”
― ram dass

“Be here now.”
― Ram Dass, Be Here Now

“As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is.”
― ram dass

“Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.”
― ram dass

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
― Mary Oliver

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
― Mary Oliver

“The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.”
― Mary Oliver

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
― Mary Oliver

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”
― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems