Quotes:  Food for Thought 


         I've been collecting quotes for over thirty years, things people have said that are wise,         inspiring, thought-provoking, or humorous that have had a nurturing and sustaining 
        effect on my life and at times helped make it seem like it's worth the effort, or at least 
        got me through the day. Don't assume I live up to them, but they remind me of how I 
        want to try to think and live, giving me a direction I want to move toward. This page is                  dedicated to those little bon mots with the hope that some may serve others the way 
        they have me.


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        There are so many ways to change the sentences we have 
        been given.
                                                                Terry Tempest Williams

        The stories we tell, the ways we think about the world have 
        huge consequences, and so do our actions. Ideas shape 
        reality and they can change the world. 

                                                                            Rebecca Solnit

        They do and they have throughout history.   BN


        In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the         expert’s mind there are few. 
                                                                           Shunryu Suzuki


        “When the evidence shows a conspiracy theory is wrong, 
        then the evidence, by definition, must also be wrong —         because the conspiracy theory must be right.” Quote from         article detailing Trump’s six attempts to hire people to find         evidence he won the 2020 election, author unknown

        “I was very impressed with myself to have the head of 
        Apple calling to ‘kiss my ass.’ " (Interesting interpretation)

                                   President  Donald Trump re Tim Cook

        The emerging fissure was of a different order. It brought 
        an increase in violence. A brutality that didn’t ask if it 
        was necessary or not.

                  Henning Mankell, The Man with the Mask (novel)




        It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that 
        you carried on the human heritage. 

                                                                     George Orwell, 1984

        What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters         compared to what lies within us. 

                                                                   Ralph Waldo Emerson

       
        I don’t want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself 
        if some people did. 

                                                                                Henry James 




        Self-importance is our greatest enemy. What weakens                us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of 
        our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we 
        spend most of our lives offended by someone. 

                                                                Carlos Castaneda 


        Power is strength and the ability to see yourself through              your own eyes and not through the eyes of another. It 
        is being able to place a circle of power at your own feet 
        and not take power from someone else’s circle.

                                                                  Agnes Whistling Elk 


        All sorts of persons, and every individual, has a place to fill  
        in the world, and is important in some respects, whether he 
        chooses to be so or not.

                                                                   Nathaniel Hawthorne


        Do not allow people to dim your shine because they are 
        blinded. Tell them to put some sunglasses on. 

                                                                                Lady Gaga


        Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be
        looking for it.

                                                               Henry David Thoreau



​        The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no 
        tears.
                                                               Indian proverb   



        If living is a practice, and I think it is, then saving 
        grief for the death of a loved one is like climbing Mt. 
        Everest before walking up the hill behind the house. 

                                                     Larry Ribnik, Man Alive!


        Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes 
        from never being satisfied. 

                                                                  Zadie Smith 



            [The] beauty of the world is an accusation that you are withholding your own beauty by being good as opposed to being yourself. 

                                                                                                                                                    Stephen Colbert re Mary Oliver's poetry

            We’ve never been so self-conscious about our selves as we seem to be these days. The popular magazines are filled with advice 
            on things to do with a self: how to find it, identify it, nurture it, protect it, even, for special occasions, weekends, how to lose it 
            transiently. There are instructive books, best sellers on self-realization, self-help, self-development. Groups of self-respecting 
            people pay large fees for three-day sessions together, learning self-awareness. Self-enlightenment can be taught in college 
            electives.

            You’d think, to read about it, that we’d only just now discovered selves. Having long suspected that there was something alive in 
            there, running the place, separate from everything else, absolutely individual and independent, we’ve celebrated by giving it a real 
            name, [my] self. . .
                                                                                                             Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell - Notes of a Biology Watcher