Clarity

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"Do you know where you're lucky? You know who you want. I'd trade places with you any day."

--Simon As Good As It Gets

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Rilke Poem

It is possible I am pushing through solid rock
in flintlike layers, as the ore lies, alone;
I am such a long way in I can see no way through,
and no space; everything is close to my face,
and everything close to my face is stone.

I don't have much knowledge yet in grief --
so this darkness makes me feel small.
You, be the master; make yourself fierce, break in:
then your great transforming will happen to me,
and my great grief cry will happen to you.

Appreciation

I'm not in a romantic relationship of any kind right now, but still, I love this quotation.



"One of the great joys of falling in love is the feeling that the most extraordinary person in the entire world has chosen you." --Gretchen Rubin

The Thing About Relocating Is It Makes All Too Clear What Is Truly Important

"Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend." --Plautus


"The only way to have a friend is to be one." --Ralph Waldo Emerson


"Friends are needed both for joy and for sorrow." --Samuel Paterson


"We do not so much need the help of our friends as the confidence of their help in need." --Epicurus

"But it is natural that such friendship should be infrequent, for such people are rare." --Aristotle


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Quotation

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world." --Margaret Mead

Living

"Every week i get together with people, sometimes wine friends, sometimes non-wine friends and i cook for hours, drink too much and wake up feeling bad. It’s how it should be and it’s such a shame that this has been lost by so many."

--Cory, from the Wine (and more recently food) blog Saignée

Sophistication

"Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future."
--Coco Chanel

Balance

"The dual substance of Christ--the yearning, so human, so superhuman, of man to attain to God or, more exactly, to return to God and identify himself with him--has always been a deep inscrutable mystery to me. This nostalgia for God, at once so mysterious and so real, has opened in me large wounds and also large flowing springs.

"My principal anguish and the source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh.

"Within me are the dark immemorial forces of the Evil One, human and pre-human; within me too are the luminous forces, human and pre-human, of God--and my soul is the arena where these two armies have clashed and met.

"The anguish has been intense. I loved my body and did not want it to perish; I loved my soul and did not want it to decay. I have fought to reconcile these two primordial forces which are so contrary to each other, to make them realize that they are not enemies but, rather, fellow workers, so that they might rejoice in their harmony--and so that I might rejoice with them."

--Nikos Kazantzakis

Irony

At times like these I really wish I had the pictures to illustrate this point:


"I've been married three times, and each time I married the right person."
--Margaret Mead

Thanks, Melanie!

Quotation

"Pushing myself to appear to be perfect is unnecessary. I don't have to have all the answers to solve others problems, and I don't have to be constantly available for others. I just have to be real."
--Jane Austen

Conviction

"Values shouldn't be easy things to hold, and if we can't hold onto ours when they come into conflict with others, then we ought to let them go. But we can't maintain any meaningful sense in the phrase "I believe x to be true" if we also allow not-x to be equally true. Not to get all law-of-noncontradiction on you or anything, but rules are rules. I prefer interlocutors with whom I totally and completely disagree, but who will own the passion of their convictions and translate those into discourse and action, over interlocutors who don't want to disturb the peace of parlor conversation."
--Dr. J
from the blog http://readmorewritemorethinkmorebemore.blogspot.com/

First Lady

I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.


-Martha Washington