Authentic Quotes

It's only when we are authentic to who we are that we are going to be truly happy. It's so important that we follow what our own heart is telling us, what our own intuition is telling us, what our passion is, where our heart wants to go. When we can truly explore who we are, that's when the world just explodes with possibilities. ~ Caroline A. Shearer

Our "in tune with my feelings" era believes that to be true to myself, to be authentic, means I need to act on my feelings. But the opposite is true. In fact, true authenticity means I maintain a trust through thick and thin. ~ Paul E. Miller

Antique art has come down to us in a fragmentary condition, and we have virtuously adapted our taste to this necessity. Almost all our favorite specimens of Greek sculpture, from the sixth century onward, were originally parts of compositions, and if we were faced with the complete group in which the Charioteer of Delphi was once a subsidiary figure, we might well experience a moment of revulsion. We have come to think of the fragment as more vivid, more concentrated, and more authentic. ~ Kenneth Clark

Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible ... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship. ~ Ismail Kadare

Bekka treated her role has Frankenstein's bride more like an audition to be Brett's bride. Every part of her body had been colored bright kelly green - even parts that her mother had stressed were 'not to be seen by anyone except God and the inside of a toilet bowl.' Instead of wearing a wig, Bekka had teased and then shellacked her own hair into a windblown cone and she'd used female-mustache bleach to create white streaks. Her seams, made of real suture thread, had been attached to her neck and wrists with clear double-sided costume tape because drawing them on with kohl would not have been 'honoring the character.' Her Costume Castle dress had been exchanged for something 'more authentic' from the Bridal Barn. If Brett didn't see his future in her heavily black-shadowed eyes tonight, he never would. Or so she believed. ~ Lisi Harrison

The closer you come to your authentic self, the simpler everything becomes. Listen to your intuition. It will tell you who you are. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

We all dream of being exactly what we are – powerful, beautiful, and worthy. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

.....I'm certain I asked for a cowboy one December past--
For I wanted the excitement of pioneers to last;
I ached to sing with a fiddle, speak with a drawl and twang;
I surely requested John Wayne to be part of my gang.

Of course I dreamed of a cowboy in those Yuletides of yore--
For I wanted that ace, that corral fighter, that scout roar;
I ached for the authentic frontier hero of the West;
I surely requested the sacred battleground's finest.

I did pray Santa'd give me a cowboy some time ago--
For I wanted a legend in denim wrangler for beau;
I ached to be rounded up safely by my saddled knight;
I surely requested I be prospected, mined, settled right...


-----excerpted from the poem 'A Cowboy For Christmas' in the book FROM GUAM TO CROWN CITY CORONADO (THANKS TO HERMANN, MISSOURI): A JOURNEY IN POESY, by Mariecor Ruediger ~ Mariecor Ruediger

To understand how natural it is to feel everything wholeheartedly, think back to a time in your life when you were an emotional "mess" and you allowed yourself to cry. Then, after you cried your last tear, you felt a wonderful sense of relief, release and freedom. You allowed yourself to be real and authentic; that felt so good. ~ Carol Reynolds

HAGGIS The U.S. Department of Agriculture prohibits Americans from eating the authentic Scottish dish because it contains sheep lungs, which legally "shall not be saved for use as human food. ~ Anonymous

Childlike surrender and trust, I believe, is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship. ~ Brennan Manning

I've always tried to stay true to my authentic self. ~ Katie Couric

Cultures are made of continuities and changes, and the identity of a society can survive through these changes. Societies without change aren't authentic; they're just dead ~ Kwame Anthony Appiah

Most of the time we're persecuted not because we love Jesus, but because we're prideful, arrogant jerks who don't love the real Jesus. We're often judgmental, hypocritical, and legalistic while claiming to follow a Jesus who is forgiving, authentic, and loving. Sometimes people will hate us because we preach the same gospel Jesus preached, and sometimes people will hate us because we're jerks. Let's not do the second one and blame it on the first. ~ Jefferson Bethke

Sometimes all it takes is a little watering everyday and a sunny day to follow, that's how weeds become flowers and new dawns rise - why would it be any less then for a human life? ~ Nikki Rowe

It makes it fun. When an actor plays a character, you want what that character wants. Otherwise it doesn't look authentic. So I really want to defeat Jimmy - I mean Jimmy as the character. ~ Alan Alda

If you are feeling constrained by a group that you belong to, ask yourself,
"How can I participate in this community and still be who I am? ~ Gina Greenlee

The more you create authentic power, the more the characteristics of authentic power become yours, and the more meaning, purpose and joy enter your life. ~ Gary Zukav

The mix of soft-focus glamour,Mills and Boon romance and the inevitable feel-good ending is here, but what marks these films is an authentic core.Genuine, unaffected moments, long absent from 70mm movie content, are back. ~ Anupama Chopra

My work has always been about authentic feeling, and I think we live in a time where we need that. ~ Ann Demeulemeester

I am committing suicide by cigarette, I replied. She thought that was reasonably funny. I didn't. I thought it was hideous that I should scorn life that much, sucking away on cancer sticks. My brand is Pall Mall. The authentic suicides ask for Pall Malls. The dilettantes ask for Pell Mells. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

My early self-portraits appeared effortlessly and seemed like equivalents for my deeper emotions. Many critics remarked that the images had an almost other-worldly haunting presence. For me, they were simply my own reality at that point in my life. What I was trying to reveal was my inner soul in all its fragile complexity. Without knowing it, I was trying to peel back the layers that shroud and bind us all as we struggle to reveal our own authentic selves. ~ Joyce Tenneson

The best way to deal in a transparent world is just be transparent. Let your life be authentic and let people look in. Because if they want to find out, they're gonna find out. And so to me it's given me a greater sense of accountability as a CEO. It's given me a greater opportunity to lead. ~ Michael Hyatt

The Church's roots are in the teaching of the apostles, the authentic witnesses of Christ, but she looks to the future, she has the firm consciousness of being sent - sent by Jesus - of being missionary, bearing the name of Jesus by her prayer, proclaiming it and testifying to it. A Church that is closed in on herself and in the past, a Church that only sees the little rules of behavior, of attitude, is a Church that betrays her own identity; a closed Church betrays her own identity! Then, let us rediscover today all the beauty and responsibility of being the Church apostolic! And remember this: the Church is apostolic because we pray - our first duty - and because we proclaim the Gospel by our life and by our words. ~ Pope Francis

The problem of architecture has always been the same throughout time. Its authentic quality is reached through its proportions, and the proportions cost nothing. In fact, most of them are proportions among things, not the things themselves. Art is almost always a question of proportions. ~ Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

Being your authentic self exudes a quiet confidence. ~ Sam Owen

Accepting your shadow side is an essential part of being authentic. ~ Bill George

I don't regard the real and true and authentic as something to claim as a moral high ground. ~ Rachel Kushner

Then if it is denied that the unity at that level is the interconnection of the plurality or dissimilarity of religions as of parts constituting a whole, rather that every one of the religions at the level of ordinary existence is not part of a whole, but is a whole in itself-then the 'unity' that is meant is 'oneness' or 'sameness' not really of religions, but of the God of religions at the level of transcendence (i.e. esoteric), implying thereby that at the level of ordinary existence (i.e. exoteric), and despite the plurality and diversity of religions, each religion is adequate and valid in its own limited way, each authentic and conveying limited though equal truth. The notion of a plurality of truth of equal validity in the plurality and diversity of religion is perhaps aligned to the statements and general conclusions of modern philosophy and science arising from the discovery of a pluraity and diversity of laws governing the universe having equal validity each in its own cosmological system. The trend to align modern scientific discovery concerning the systems of the universe with corresponding statements applied to human society, cultural traditions,and values is one of the characteristic features of modernity.

The position of those who advocate the theory of the transcendent unity of religions is based upon the assumption that all religions, or the major religions of mankind, are revealed religions. They assume that the universality and transcendence of e ~ Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

It is not the pursuit of greater and greater states of happiness and bliss that leads to enlightenment, but the yearning for Reality and the rabid dissatisfaction with living anything less than a fully authentic life. ~ Adyashanti

Our work is not to become unique. We are unique. Our work is to unleash our sense of adventure and to allow the inner whisper that says "come hither" to be reason enough to go. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

It's easier to be authentic if you don't say you are authentic. ~ B. Joseph Pine II

Our self-respect tracks our choices. Every time we act in harmony with our authentic self and our heart, we earn our respect. It is that simple. Every choice matters. ~ Don Coppersmith

Second, the Church itself is going to have to become more authentic morally, for the greatness of the Gospel is now seen to have become quite trivial and inconsequential in its life. If the Gospel means so little to the Church, if it changes so little, why then should unbelievers believe it? ~ David F. Wells

LOVE LETTERS TO YOURSELF This is taken from a love letter (a gentle reminder) I wrote to myself recently. Live in your joy today. Be authentic. Love yourself. First. Love others from your own abundance. Life Changes. Circumstances change. Sometimes you try to fit your old way of being into new circumstances rather than becoming new yourself. Embrace transformation as an opportunity. And keep on writing love letters to yourself. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

Don't be afraid to be authentic, show up in the world as you truly are.
Be as you mean to be, but be light with it. Love it, give it, share it, laugh at it, walk everywhere with it.
Be in the world but not OF it. ~ Jay Woodman

It is discovered an extraordinary similarity between Nietzsche and the Hindu-Aryan Rishi, visionary poets of the Vedas.

They also thought the ideas from outside to inside: they 'appeared' to them. Rishi means 'he who sees'. See an Idea, express it, or try to express it. The job of the Rishis has been fulfilled for millennia and the vision of the Vedas was revised, elaborated, in subsequent visions, in scholastics, in doctrinal buildings and sophisticated verifications, through centuries.

In any case, he, who preached not to subtract anything that life offers as Will of Power, as possession, increasing its power, lived chaste, like a yoga, always looking for the highest tensions of the soul, climbing always, more and more lonely, to be able to open up to that style of thinking, where the Ideas could possess him as the most authentic expression of life, as his 'pulse', hitting him in the center of the personal being, or of the existence there accumulated, and that he called, long before Jung and any other psychologist, the Self, to differentiate it from the conscious and limited self, from the rational self.

Let's clarify, then. What Nietzsche called thinking is something else, Nietzsche did not think with his head (because 'synchronistically' hurt) but with the Self, with all of life and, especially, 'with the feet'. 'I think with my feet,' he said, 'because I think walking, climbing. ~ Miguel Serrano

For both men and women, Good Men can be somewhat disturbing to be around because they usually do not act in ways associated with typical men; they listen more than they talk; they self-reflect on their behavior and motives, they actively educate themselves about women's reality by seeking out women's culture and listening to women…. They avoid using women for vicarious emotional expression…. When they err - and they do err - they look to women for guidance, and receive criticism with gratitude. They practice enduring uncertainty while waiting for a new way of being to reveal previously unconsidered alternatives to controlling and abusive behavior. They intervene in other men's misogynist behavior, even when women are not present, and they work hard to recognize and challenge their own. Perhaps most amazingly, Good Men perceive the value of a feminist practice for themselves, and they advocate it not because it's politically correct, or because they want women to like them, or even because they want women to have equality, but because they understand that male privilege prevents them not only from becoming whole, authentic human beings but also from knowing the truth about the world…. They offer proof that men can change. ~ Bell Hooks

When someone comes to a pastor or a close friend and says "I think I'm gay", rest assured 99% are. How we respond creates light or darkness.
Please be aware that when you've never heard anything positive about being gay and you've laboured secretly over this for ages, you don't make a declaration like that lightly. It takes an enormous amount of courage to eventually tell someone. This is not an empowering coming out though or finally finding a place of self-acceptance; the statement is cloaked in fear and shame. The statement "I think I'm gay" is not really about doubt or confusion it's more likely they are saying "I'm gay, but it scares the shit out of me and I don't want to be. Help!"
At that point the pastor or friend has the privileged opportunity to provide a place of safety and compassion that will lead them on into self-acceptance and an authentic life. Handled unwisely could lead them into years of internal torment. ~ Anthony Venn-Brown

I don't think anyone's sexuality needs to be a public issue other than to give others the confidence to love themselves wholeheartedly and to be their true, authentic self without any shame. ~ Crystal Bowersox

Authenticity requires us to slow down. Fast times require us to slow down. To be effective, we need to slow down our pace of thought and action and focus on managing our attention. To be authentic leaders we need to act from intention and choice rather than from habit and impulse. ~ Henna Inam

The precise metaphysical procedures by which a book goes about writing another book need not concern us here. Suffice to say that our human scribes remain entirely ignorant of their possession by bibliographic forces; the agent in question never doubts that his authorship is authentic. ~ James K. Morrow

Slowly, slowly, his soul was filled with bitterness at the fact that he had stood a step away from enlightenment, from the most real enlightenment, but he hadn't been resolute, he hadn't dare give himself to the flow of the tunnel's ether, and now he would be left to wander in the darkness for his whole life because he was once too afraid of the light of authentic knowledge. ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky

As a mother you have thoughts. You get interrupted. You forget.
You are distracted. Your thoughts and ideas become fragmented,
diluted, or simply evaporate. You must have faith that you will
again have a thought. Creativity is the string upon
which you hang the pearls of your identity,
your authentic presence.
- Suzi Banks Baum ~ Suzi Banks Baum

Wittgenstein could not avoid recognizing that "an experience is such that when I prove it to myself I marvel at the existence of the world. And here I am inclined to use phrases such as 'how extraordinary it is that something exists' or 'how extraordinary it is that the world exists.'" This wonder at existence is the condition for an authentic encounter with things and opens up the possibility of knowledge. ~ Marco Bersanelli

You can't make anything authentic by asking people what they want because they don't know what they want. That's what they're looking at you for. ~ Thom Mayne

I was very, very shy when I was little. Acting lets you access all those different parts of yourself to make the character authentic. ~ Rose Byrne

Authentic joy is not a euphoric state or a feeling of being high. Rather, it is a state of appreciation that allows us to participate full in our lives. We train in the rejoicing in the good fortune of self and others. ~ Pema Chodron

Aloneness and all-oneness is our authentic nature. We are always alone and all-one. We came into this planet alone and all-one. We will leave alone and all-one. And also during our whole staying in this world, no matter how we engage in relationships, we continue to be alone and all-one, though we may forget about it or pretend it is not the case.
True love has nothing to do with the idea that someone is the other half of my soul and that I need him or her in order to be whole and feel complete. Only when we can be alone and all-one with someone there is true love, regardless of whether that someone is still with us or not.
And yet ... I miss you ... ~ Franco Santoro

Just now one of the significant historical roles of the primal people of the world is not simply to sustain their own traditions, but call the entire civilized world back to a more authentic mode of being. ~ Thomas Berry

Embrace your individuality by embracing your authentic self. Go deeper to develop a relationship with yourself. Accept who you are; because self-love requires discipline. Create a life that you know is yours - the key to a better you is perseverance. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

She's good to common folk. They make her feel authentic. She covets their approval in small doses. ~ James Ellroy

You can ask others for directions about your life's path...But remember, then you're on someone else's journey and may get lost. Search for your path within. ~ Nanette Mathews

I am blessed, personally, beyond measure, and yet oddly enough, I, too, struggle to feel His love for me every day. When I stack my obstacles against others' they seem to frivolous to be authentic. And yet, this mortal existence is designed by a genius, so that we all will, no matter our circumstances or parentage or gifts, have to exercise our agency to come to Him. And so though my problems may seem small to an outsider, they are big enough for me to desperately need Him. ~ Virginia H. Pearce

Being authentic will get you where you need and want to go, and it will be your path to building the most meaningful and enriching connections with others. ~ Michelle Tillis Lederman

When that day comes, I want to remember that the questions, frustrations, and believe that I am lost are all signs that I chose an authentic path, not a stagnant finish line. ~ Jackie Viramontez

Bad art is maintained by the neurotic, who is deadly afraid of authentic art because it inspires him to go on living, and he is terrified of life. ~ Rebecca West

My first job is to write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can. ~ Sara Zarr

Do your fears warn of external dangers? Or, are they the kind that keep you from becoming more of your true self? ~ Gina Greenlee

Sending out the Disciples

Luke 10

1: AFTER THESE THINGS THE LORD APPOINTED OTHER SEVENTY DISCIPLES AND HE SENT THEM TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE INTO EVERY CITY AND PLACE; WHITHER HE HIMSELF WOULD COME

God is here and now.

God is not something outside you, God is within you.

God is the innermost core of existence.

That is what Jesus means with: "Repent, for the kingdom of God is near".

God is not separate from the creation. He is one with the creation.

When you understand this, your life becomes a prayer.

When you understand this, you will understand that existence is a family. You will understand that life is togetherness.

When we discover our authentic inner being, the kingdom of God, we understand that everybody is a messenger. We discover that the divine source expands, and we spread love to all with whom we interact.

Jesus sent out his disciples two and two, so that they did not have to go alone. They went two and two in friendship, in love, in trust, so that they could help each other.


THEREFORE SAID HE UNTO THEM, THE HARVEST TRULY IS GREAT, BUT THE LABORERS ARE FEW

The harvest is great, but there are not many laborers.

People are deaf and blind.

Somebody like Jesus comes, and you do not want to listen.

It has always been like this.

Rather than listening to Jesus, ~ Swami Dhyan Giten

Abandoning who people think you are and becoming who you really are is a simple concept, but sometimes it is very hard to do. It isn't easy to give up others' ideas of who you are. Yet the key to success is to discover your uniqueness and to exploit it. Your authentic persona, either personal or corporate, is the key to your prosperity. ~ Larry Winget

Just because you become a mother, doesn't mean you stop being a woman. ~ Nicole A. Walker

The very fact that the planet is probably unsustainable with all that we've done to it and are doing to it, it's an appalling piece of evidence. It shows our complacency, our lack of passion or inclination to be authentic and really understand our true values. It's consistently depressing, but nevertheless, we carry on. ~ Annie Lennox

May the God of peace arouse in all an authentic desire for dialogue and reconciliation. Violence cannot be overcome with violence. Violence is overcome with peace. ~ Pope Francis

I like the dynamic of PBS. They're very honest and authentic. ~ Eric Ripert

Life is not a test administered by ourselves or a higher authority, and we're not in form to learn lessons. We're here to thrive, to celebrate being our authentic selves until it literally kills us. ~ S. Kelley Harrell

A queen is wise. She has earned her serenity, not having had it bestowed on her but having passer her tests. She has suffered and grown more beautiful because of it. She has proved she can hold her kingdom together. She has become its vision. She cares deeply about something bigger than herself. She rules with authentic power. ~ Marianne Williamson

Once you reach people on an authentic emotional level, they will reward your faith in them with their belief in you, and they will mobilize to get the job done. ~ Kevin Allen

Audacious faith is the raw material that authentic Christianity is made of. It's the stuff that triggers ordinarily level-headed people like you and me to start living with unusual boldness. ~ Steven Furtick

When wholeheartedly we help someone, when in a natural and spontaneous way we care for the tree and water the flowers in the garden even though no one required us, there is authentic generosity, genuine sympathy, true love. ~ Samael Aun Weor

Prejudice and Bias The gospel presents the contrasting images of the log versus the splinter (v. 41). Any truly wise teacher or preacher must beware of personal prejudices, namely, the log in his or her own eye that can limit or even twist the message. Sometimes catechists and preachers simply expound their own prejudices rather than the truth of the Gospel or the authentic teaching of the church. Sometimes scholars teach what is in their eyelashes rather than what is in the text! Anytime we find ourselves surprised in a new situation, we should look inward because the very fact of surprise may indicate a prejudice or at least a presumption in the face of something unexpected. The "expected" could be the prejudice. ~ Richard Sklba

I was starting to fall for him,
He didn't say it but the way
He looked at me,
Told me he felt the same. ~ Nikki Rowe

I don't record (any type of genre of music) that I didn't hear in my family's living room by the time I was 10. It just is my rule that I don't break because ... I can't do it authentically ... I really think that you're just hard-wiring (synapses) in your brain up until the age of maybe 12 or 10, and there are certain things you can't learn in an authentic way after that. ~ Linda Ronstadt

Sometimes it's only in the ecstasy of unrepressed movement that we may enter the stillness of our authentic selves. In such sacred moments, the world seems to be in step. This is why the idea of finding love across the dance floor endure - symbolizing that, when we know the true rhythm of our heart, we know the other. ~ Alexandra Katehakis

There is no need to justify what we are. there is no need to work hard to become what we are not. we just need to return to our intergrity, to the way we were before we learned to speak. perfect. as little children, we are authentic. only the present time is real for us; wo don't care about the past, and we aren't worried about the future. we enjoy life; we want to explore and have fun. nobody teaches us to be that way; we are born that way. ~ Miguel Ruiz

My whole childhood, that made my skin curl. I was looking for something authentic. I think that drove me into the arts, I really do. That really did it. The only other thing that made me survive, as a human being, was getting into the arts. I was surrounded by people that were very bright and they invited you in. They were gracious. So, it gave me a great education. ~ Lance Henriksen

Meditation is about mindfulness and learning to strip away the illusion, revealing your authentic self and connectedness to everything and everyone. ~ Nanette Mathews

The authentic religion teaches you to discover your immortality, to discover the god within you. ~ Rajneesh

First, the moment INTPs stop sharing certain thoughts with their partners is the moment they begin to detach from and devalue them. At that moment, the INTP is no longer relating to his or her partner, but has chosen to become a free agent.

Second, when INTPs fail to share their thoughts, the relationship immediately becomes less interesting to them. Remember, the most honest and authentic reason for INTPs to be in a relationship is to learn and explore with their partner. So as soon as they turn down an independent path and start moving away from their partner, they have forsaken the primary purpose of the relationship. ~ A.J. Drenth

If the heart of Christian spirituality is to increasingly become like our founder, then an authentic comprehension of Jesus becomes critical. ~ Michael Frost

It's not easy being yourself because it can invite envy and attention. But if you hide your authentic self from the rest of the world, a unique life will pass you by. There is splendor in being true to yourself. ~ Margot Datz

Indeed, some "revolutionaries" brand as "innocents," "dreamers," or even "reactionaries"; those who would challenge this educational practice. But one does not liberate people by alienating them. Authentic liberation - the process of humanization - is not another deposit to be made in men. ~ Paulo Freire

Act as if you're a writer. Sit down and begin. Act as if you might just create something beautiful, and by beautiful I mean something authentic and universal. Don't wait for anybody to tell you it's okay. ~ Dani Shapiro

You're growing and that scares people, it frightens the shit out of them because they know if they don't step up within themselves you'll move forward with out them. When this happens, don't you dare settle to suit the mould - have courage to live without one. ~ Nikki Rowe

Why be trapped in time? Why count the days?
Why worry if you are getting older or looking younger?
When authentic beauty is timeless and true love is eternal;
And the fond memories in your heart are for ever. ~ Hrishikesh Agnihotri

Voice is one of the most elusive qualities in any story. We recognize it when we hear it, but it's hard consciously to create an authentic voice. Somehow voice seems to be the natural manifestation of all the narrative decisions we've made so far. We discover it more than we fabricate it. ~ Philip Gerard

If you pretend abundance when in fact you are in need, those who would aid you will not because they will either believe you to be abundant or recognize your pretense and consider you to be unworthy. ~ Wu Wei

No oak trees without acorns' may be a formally true proposition, but that this acorn did in fact produce this oak tree, there and then, is not a teleological necessity; it is a circumstantial occurrence" (OH 104-5). Because history is what happened, not what must have happened, there is no room in an authentic historical explanation for teleological causes. ~ Terry Nardin

I want to be myself. I want to be as authentic as possible. ~ Cory Booker

The most celebrated American author of the twentieth century, Bellow objected during the first part of his career to being designated a "Jewish writer, " but it was he who demonstrated how a Jewish voice could speak for an integrated America. With Bellow, Jewishness moved in from the immigrant margins to become a new form of American regionalism. Yet he did not have to write about Jews in order to write as a Jew. Bellow's curious mingling of laughter and trembling is particularly manifest in his novel Henderson the Rain King, that follows an archetypal Protestant American into mythic Africa. Bellow not only influenced and paved the way for other American Jewish writers like Philip Roth and Cynthia Ozick, but naturalized the immigrant voice: the American novel came to seem freshly authentic when it spoke in the voice of one of its discernible minorities. ~ Hana Wirth-Nesher

My reading has been lamentably desultory and immedthodical. Odd, out of the way, old English plays, and treatises, have supplied me with most of my notions, and ways of feeling. In everything that relates to science, I am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world. I should have scarcely cut a figure among the franklins, or country gentlemen, in King John's days. I know less geography than a schoolboy of six weeks standing. To me a map of old Ortelius is as authentic as Arrowsmith. I do not know whereabout Africa merges into Asia, whether Ethiopia lie in one or other of those great divisions, nor can form the remotest, conjecture of the position of New South Wales, or Van Diemen's Land. Yet do I hold a correspondence with a very dear friend in the first named of these two Terrae Incognitae. I have no astronomy. I do not know where to look for the Bear or Charles' Wain, the place of any star, or the name of any of them at sight. I guess at Venus only by her brightness - and if the sun on some portentous morn were to make his first appearance in the west, I verily believe, that, while all the world were grasping in apprehension about me, I alone should stand unterrified, from sheer incuriosity and want of observation. Of history and chronology I possess some vague points, such as one cannot help picking up in the course of miscellaneous study, but I never deliberately sat down to a chronicle, even of my own country. I have most dim apprehensions of the four great monarc ~ Charles Lamb

We all see very clearly in others tendencies which we, ourselves, have overcome. The older and wiser we grow, the more we can see the arrogance of youth. The more authentic we become, the more we can see the lies of insecurity. The more vulnerable we allow ourselves to be, the more we see the dangerous symptoms of unexpressed emotions.

There is no finish line to learning.

There is no point where we're done growing, and all we will ever do is look down upon others who are behind us. No one is ever at the top. We are all growing at our own rates, and no matter how terrible or how enlightened we fancy ourselves to be today, the future will be sure to give us a different perspective.

There is really no use in comparing yourself to others. There will always be someone ahead and someone behind, and there will be dozens (if not hundreds) of different scales and gradients to be behind and ahead on.

To be number one is never final. It is and always will be a momentary, fleeting instant. But to be a growing version of yourself? That, you can be. You can be that every single day. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

I need to be startlingly clear. This thing of finding your authentic voice, expressing your blessed weirdness and revealing your soul isn't an elegant process. You don't do it to be cool. You don't do it to get laid or get rich. It's only real when it is ruthless, relentless and inevitable. But it is also a matter of personal and collective survival. Yes, it's that important. You are that critical. ~ Jacob Nordby

PRETTY LITTLE LIARS works as a metaphor for our central human experience: we have no way to objectively know about anything, no way to move forward with certainty, and yet move forward we must. We stumble through life, trying to find our own way, not knowing whom to listen to, whom to trust, whom to suspect, what to believe. But in that process we discover our most authentic selves. ~ Norman Buckley

Inherent in every living thing is an insatiable hunger, the innate desire to express life by freely and fully being "what" it was uniquely created to be. To personalize this, consider the possibility that there was a time when you were a "what" before you were a "who." If you can wrap your mind around that possibility, then, the question to explore is, what were you before you became a who - and why did you become the who you uniquely are when there are so many other "who"s on the planet you might have been? While this may seem like a bit of a paradoxi- cal tongue twister, it is the quintessential question that requires exploration if you are to follow your true North Star back to your point of origin, where you'll find your authentic self waiting to weave itself into the fabric of your human life today and every day. ~ Dennis Merritt Jones

I think comedy has to come from your authentic point of view. ~ Chelsea Handler

Children, we can grow spiritually only if we see the guru as the manifestation of God. We should not accept anyone as guru before we are fully convinced personally that he is authentic and truthful. Once we choose someone as guru, we should surrender completely to him. Only then will spiritual development be possible. Devotion to the guru means total surrender to him. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi

But to your point - you also raise a point, too, that it's not that, like, a bromance is necessarily a new thing. It's happened a lot in sort of big budget comedies in the past decade or so. But people have pointed out to us that we're doing a bromance, so to speak, but doing it in a different way that's even more authentic and real and sincere. ~ Steve Zissis

The most authentic Russian Impressionism leaves one perplexed if one compares it with Monet and Pissarro. Here, in the Louvre, before the canvases of Manet, Millet and others, I understood why my alliance with Russia and Russian art did not take root. ~ Marc Chagall

Authentic leaders inspire us to engage with each other in powerful dreams that make the impossible possible. We are called on to persevere despite failure and pursue a purpose beyond the paycheck. This is at the core of innovation. It requires aligning the dreams of each individual to the broader dream of the organization. ~ Henna Inam