Benji > Benji's Quotes

“Never compromise yourself. You are all you've got.”
― Janis Joplin

“Somewhere beyond right and wrong, there is a garden. I will meet you there.”
― Rumi

“grieve. so that you can be free to feel something else.”
― Nayyirah Waheed, nejma

“do not choose the lesser life. do you hear me. do you hear me. choose the life that is. yours. the life that is seducing your lungs. that is dripping down your chin.”
― Nayyirah Waheed, nejma

“creativity keeps the world alive, yet, everyday we are asked to be ashamed of honoring it, wanting to live our lives as artists. i’ve carried the shame of being a ‘creative’ since i came to the planet; have been asked to be something different, more, less my whole life. thank spirit, my wisdom is deeper than my shame, and i listened to who i was. i want to say to all the creatives who have been taught to believe who you are is not enough for this world, taught that a life of art will amount to nothing, know that who we are, and what we do is life. when we create, we are creating the world. remember this, and commit.”
― Nayyirah Waheed

“be easy. take your time. you are coming home. to yourself. — the becoming”
― Nayyirah Waheed, nejma

“i think one of the most pathological things i have ever seen is stabbing someone and then telling them that their pain and anger over being stabbed is making you sad. – white guilt”
― Nayyirah Waheed, salt.

“Someone sent me a letter that had one of the best quotes I've ever read. It said "What is to give light must endure burning." It's by a writer named Viktor Frankl. I've been turning that quote over and over in my head. The truth of it is absolutely awe-inspiring. In the end, I believe it's why we all suffer. It's the meaning we all look for behind the tragedies in our lives. The pain deepens us, burns away our impurities and petty selfishness. It makes us capable of empathy and sympathy. It makes us capable of love. The pain is the fire that allows us to rise from the ashes of what we were, and more fully realize what we can become. When you can step back and see the beauty of the process, it's amazing beyond words.”
― Damien Echols, Life After Death

“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.”
― Neil Gaiman

“For what it’s worth... it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start over again.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“When you loved me I gave you the whole sun and stars to play with. I gave you eternity in a single moment, strength of the mountains in one clasp of your arms, and the volume of all the seas in one impulse of your soul.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Beware of organizations that proclaim their devotion to the light without embracing, bowing to the dark; for when they idealize half the world they must devalue the rest.”
― Starhawk

“It’s stranger than every strangeness
And the dreams of all the poets
And the thoughts of all the philosophers,
That things are really what they seem to be
And there’s nothing to understand.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“If I could take a bite of the whole world
And feel it on my palate
I’d be more happy for a minute or so...
But I don’t always want to be happy.
Sometimes you have to be
Unhappy to be natural...

Not every day is sunny.
When there’s been no rain for a while, you pray for it to come.
So I take unhappiness with happiness
Naturally, like someone who doesn’t find it strange
That there are mountains and plains
And that there are cliffs and grass...

What you need is to be natural and calm
In happiness and in unhappiness,
To feel like someone seeing,
To think like someone walking,
And when it’s time to die, remember the day dies,
And the sunset is beautiful, and the endless night is beautiful...
That’s how it is and that’s how it should be...”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

“I don’t regret anything I was before because I still am.
I only regret not having loved you.
Put your hands in mine
And let’s be quiet, surrounded by life.”
― Alberto Caeiro, O Pastor Amoroso

“I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live - if what others are doing is called living - but to express myself.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answers. —Rainer Maria Rilke, LETTER TO A YOUNG POET T”
― Joan Anderson, A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman

“Why am I more cautious as I age instead of the other way around? I wonder if it’s all tied in to failure. I tend to forget my gains and remember only the losses. The failures have piled up, wreaking havoc with my confidence until, as an adult, I’ve become afraid to take chances.”
― Joan Anderson, A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman

“I sing along, uplifted by the words, reminded of the way my favorite minister taught me how to pray, or rather, yield my thoughts: “Offer praise first,” she said, “then thanksgiving. Follow it with petition, asking for your need to be met, and then conclude by relinquishing control.” I find that once I do the first part, the reason for my prayer usually diminishes.”
― Joan Anderson, A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman

“Someone asked Robert Frost toward the end of his life if he had hope for the future; I was so taken by his answer that I memorized it: “Yes,” he replied, “and even for the past . . . that it will turn out to have been all right for what it was—something I can accept—mistakes made by the self I had to be or was not able to be.”
― Joan Anderson, The Second Journey: The Road Back to Yourself

“I’ve come to see that personal changes of any sort, big or small, can put our bodies and spirits in a state of shock. Left unprocessed, this shock sets down roots that wrap themselves around our souls and inevitably leave us with the ache.”
― Joan Anderson, A Weekend to Change Your Life: Find Your Authentic Self After a Lifetime of Being All Things to All People

“When one is freshly informed, has a serendipitous experience, one’s mood is changed, one’s heart is changed. That is why taking time to see, hear, be present to images and language that arise from new experiences have the power to change one from one way to another. —Clarissa Pinkola Estés, WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES I”
― Joan Anderson, A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman

“I steady my nerves, knowing the moment of high tide is just that, a brief time that will always reverse itself and diminish.”
― Joan Anderson, A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman

“too often I’ve used up precious time preparing for experiences rather than just having them.”
― Joan Anderson, A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman

“Real connection seems to happen that way—two like-minded souls meet and sniff around one another like puppy dogs, then whoosh, a moment of fission occurs, pleasantries are dropped, closely twined feelings surface, and a relationship is born.”
― Joan Anderson, A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman