Rhythm Of Living Quotes

I really like to discover a new culture, a new country, a new rhythm of living. I really, really like that. I think that's the most enriching thing, for my nature, because I like the psychology of people. ~ Audrey Tautou

Spirituality is the art of transfiguration. We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence. ~ John O'Donohue

Dancing is creating a sculpture that is visible only for a moment. ~ Erol Ozan

Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.
Bruce Barton ~ Bruce Barton

Sometimes we just have to stop and feel the pulse of the Earth, the rhythm of the seasons and the internal voice that was once our childhood friend. ~ Fennel Hudson

It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness rather than the idea of will. Too often people try to change their lives by using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their lives into proper shape. This way of approaching the sacredness of one's own presence is externalist and violent. It brings you falsely outside yourself, and you can spend years lost in the wilderness of your own mechanical, spiritual programs. You can perish in a famine of your own making. If you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and naturally home to yourself. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey. There are no general principles for this art of being. Yet the signature of this unique journey is inscribed deeply in each soul. If you attend to yourself and seek to come into your presence, you will find exactly the right rhythm for your life. ~ John O'Donohue

They're more interested in their fucking iPhones than doing their jobs. I can see the glow of their phone screens on their faces as they check e-mail, update their Facebook slaveware, dream of living, breathing, and fucking through the anonymity of text and memes. ~ Shane Kuhn

She didn't think she would have bothered if she hadn't been what people call "very beautiful except for." This is a special group of citizens living under special laws. Nobody knows what to do with them. We mostly want to stare at them like the optical illusion of a vase made out of the silhouette of two people kissing. Now it is a vase … now it could only be two people kissing … oh, but it is so completely a vase. It is both! Can the world sustain such a contradiction? And this was even better, because as the illusion of prettiness and horribleness flipped back and forth, we flipped with it. We were uglier than her, then suddenly we were lucky not to be her, but then again, at this angle she was too lovely to bear. She was both, we were both, and the world continued to spin. ~ Miranda July

Barth observes that the seventh day does not come at the end of a week of toil and labor for human beings as though its primary purpose is to offer a measure of respite after days of toil. Rather, since "God's seventh day was man's first,"54 the seventh day sets life's priority for human beings in the most tangible way. Better yet - and much closer to the point - the seventh day brings to view God's priorities. Seeing that human time "begins with a day of rest and not a day of work,"55 the spiritual pursuit, living life in a relationship with the Creator that is mutually meaningful, stands out as the primary meaning in life. ~ Sigve K. Tonstad

Feeling not okay went hand in hand with deep loneliness. In my early teens I sometimes imagined that I was living inside a transparent orb that separated me from the people and life around me. When I felt good about myself and at ease with others, the bubble thinned until it was like an invisible wisp of gas. When I felt bad about myself, the walls got so thick it seemed others must be able to see them. Imprisoned within, I felt hollow and achingly alone. The fantasy faded somewhat as I got older, but I lived with the fear of letting someone down or being rejected myself. ~ Tara Brach

It happens that over a long period you are promised a great success, in which from the very start you do not believe, so dissimilar is it from the rest of fate's offering, and if from time to time you do think of it, then you do so as it were to indulge your fantasy - but when, at last, on a very ordinary day with a west wind blowing, the news comes - simply, instantaneously and decisevely destroying any hope in it - then you are suddenly amazed to find that although you did not believe in it, you had been living with it all this time, not realizingt he constant, close presence of the dream, which had long since grown fat and independent, so that now you cannot get it out of your life without making a hole in that life. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

During her Oscar acceptance speech, Patricia Arquette called for equal pay for women. Then Oprah stood up and said, 'She's right, I can't live like this. I can't take another second of this living hell.' ~ Conan O'Brien

Despite living in this post-9/11 age of transnational terrorism, the risk of death during air travel has plummeted to the point where we now measure it in the 'per billions' of passengers. ~ Thomas P.M. Barnett

In Madame Bovary, Félicité the maid is always scuttling away from some new abuse at the hands of her self-involved mistress. She seeks sweetness as consolation: "since Madame always left the key in the sideboard, Félicité took a small supply of sugar every night and ate it when she was all alone in her bed, after she had said her prayers." How could sugar still be necessary after prayer? It offers salve to the physical body, immediate comfort, something the flesh can trust while the spirit is being patient. Think of the sadness of two women living in the same house, both hungry for stolen increments of different pleasures - text and lust and sugar - both keeping these pleasures secret because they are ashamed to admit their hungers. ~ Leslie Jamison

Nothing is stronger than the position of the dead among the living. ~ Virginia Woolf

Didn't we all have dreams when we were young? But the reality of making a living took over when we had to pay our bills, rent our apartments, raise our families, and take care of others. We sacrificed our dreams, repressed them, or delegated them to the background until they were so far away that we forgot they ever existed. ~ Lucinda Bassett

The secret to living your life to its potential is to value the important stuff above your own comfort. Therefore, the critical first step to executing well is creating and maintaining a compelling vision of the future that you want even more than you desire your own short-term comfort, and then aligning your shorter term goals and plans, with that long-term vision. ~ Brian P. Moran

It is our inward journey that leads us through time – forward or back, seldom in a straight line, most often spiraling. Each of us is moving, changing, with respect to others. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge. Our living experience at those meeting points is one of the charged dramatic fields of fiction. ~ Eudora Welty

You Can See Russia From America!

There are two small Islands in the middle of the Bering Straits that are 2.4 miles apart, and have the "International Date Line" running between them. The larger Island to the west is Russian and is named Ratmanov Island. It is considered the last island in the far eastern reach of Asia.

Little Diomede Island or Ignaluk Island, belongs to Alaska and is the easternmost of the two islands. It is as far west as you can go before reaching the "International Date Line." Although the two islands are within easy sight of each other they are 24 hours apart, with one being in tomorrow and the other being in today. There are approximately 170, mostly Native Americans, living on the smaller American island.

During winter, an ice bridge usually spans the distance between these two islands, therefore there are times when it is possible to walk between the United States and Russia. This little stroll can be dangerous and is not advised; however at this location you can definitely see Russia from America. ~ Hank Bracker

Going to public school is like living in bubble, you have no concept of what other people do. ~ Thighpaulsandra

Be wiser than most, be a child in your heart, be a sage in your mind and a mage with your hands. Feel hearts beating, hear the flapping of birds' wings. Heal the broken, embrace the vulnerable. Speak to the living trees. Be pulled down by no one, and by nothing. This is how to be a Goddess. ~ C. JoyBell C.

A family is a place where principles are hammered and honed on the anvil of everyday living. ~ Charles R. Swindoll

She was living in a time when historically it was permissible to smile like that above the face of someone who had died a violent death. ~ Ali Smith

The future that we want - this is it. This is the future of all the previous thoughts you've ever had about the future. You're in it. You're already in it. What is the purpose of all this living if it's only to get some place else and then when you're there you're not happy anyway, you want to be some place else. It's always for 'when I retire,' 'when I graduate college,' 'when I make enough money,' 'when I get married,' 'when I get divorced,' 'when the kids move out.' It's like, wait a minute, this is it. This is your life. We only have moments. This moment's as good as any other. It's perfect. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

In between saying something and achieving it, there is some pothole to fill; that's "doing it". Goals are pursued with the word "GO" and visions with the word "VENTURE". You can't be living always in the promise of the cloud; it must rain now! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

We are all of us dreamers of dreams;
On visions our childhood is fed;
And the heart of the child is unhaunted, it seems,
By the ghosts of dreams that are dead.

From childhood to youth's but a span
And the years of our youth are soon sped;
Yet the youth is no longer a youth, but a man,
When the first of his dreams is dead.

There's no sadder sight this side the grave
Than the shroud o'er a fond dream spread,
And the heart should be stern and the eyes be brave
To gaze on a dream that is dead.

'Tis a cup as of wormwood and gall
When the doom of a great dream is said,
And the best of a man is under the pall
When the best of his dreams is dead.

He may live on by compact and plan
When the fine bloom of living is shed,
But God pity the little that's left of a man
When the last of his dreams is dead.

Let him show a brave face if he can,
Let him woo fame or fortune instead,
Yet there's not much to do but bury a man
When the last of his dreams is dead. ~ William Herbert Carruth

Of course these minimum life requirements don't fully address what it means to be alive. For even beyond all the metabolic processes, there was also an intangible essence separating the living from the not. Call it a soul, or just a need we had. Every living thing possessed a certain energy or life-force that infused even the unicellular among us. ~ Jon Stewart

Time Out To Cry ©

All alone at the end of the day
The time, just a little past ten
Evening has come for a short stay
It's time for her sorrow again
The smile on her face she's been holding
Suddenly, she lets fall
And the feelings begin unfolding
She comes out of her personal wall
As the world settles down for the night
She awakens herself from a dream
And the girl they all thought had her life going right
Is no longer the image she'd seem
She takes off the disguise she's been wearing
Then opens her heart to the truth
Behind closed doors she's not caring
About life or love in her youth
So she sits by the mirror spilling tears
And cries by herself in the dark
A whole day of acting like she has no fears
Takes a lot from an empty heart
Inside she's lonely and sad
But acts like she's fine in the day
Revealing her misery, secretly wishing she had
A friend, or a promise to stay
She's ashamed of the truth she's been keeping
Living her hours in daylight a lie
And this is the reason for in darkness she's weeping
Taking time out from each day to cry

Written by Shannen Wrass

Copyright © 1995 Shannen Wrass. All Rights Reserved ~ Shannen Wrass

I have discovered in a lifetime of traveling in primitive regions, a lifetime of seeing people living in the wilderness and using it, that there is a hard core of wilderness need in everyone, a core that makes its spiritual values a basic human necessity. There is no hiding it ... Unless we can preserve places where the endless spiritual needs of man can be fulfilled and nourished, we will destroy our culture and ourselves. ~ Sigurd F. Olson

On the day Contessa Carolina Fantoni was married, only one other living person knew that she was going blind, and he was not her groom.
This was not because she had failed to warn them.
"I am going blind," she had blurted to her mother, in the welcome dimness of the family coach, her eyes still bright with tears from the searing winter sun. By this time, her peripheral vision was already gone. Carolina could feel her mother take her hand, but she had to turn to see her face. When she did, her mother kissed her, her own eyes full of pity.
"I have been in love, too," she said, and looked away. ~ Carey Wallace

For a small child there is no division between playing and learning; between the things he or she does just for fun and things that are educational. The child learns while living and any part of living that is enjoyable is also play. ~ Penelope Leach

You can't live an obedient life and miss an adventure. Following the commands of Christ is not just about behavior. Behavior modification is not an end in itself in the New Testament. Transformation is about knowing the truth and the truth setting you free. ~ Beth Moore

The best standard of living will be attained when your house will be filled with God's blessings. ~ Moazzam Shaikh

I am still in the land of the dying; I shall be in the land of the living soon. (his last words) ~ John Newton

The mastery of the true self, and the refusal to permit others to dominate us, is the ultimate in living and self-expression in athletics. ~ Percy Cerutty

My body is a reflection of who I am. ~ Steven Cuoco

How to earn a viable standard of living while giving vent to their desire to perform creative activities is the quintessential challenge for modern humans. Some people settle for jobs filled with drudgery and in their free time immerse themselves in hobbies that provide them with personal happiness. Other people prefer to find work that makes them happy, even if this occupation requires them to live a more modest standard of living. The greater their impulse is for curiosity and creativity, the less likely that a person will exchange personal happiness for economic security. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Having culture means we are the only animal that acquires the rules of its daily living from the accumulated knowledge of our ancestors, rather than from the genes they pass to us. ~ Mark Pagel

And you must not worry about me. You must follow your dreams. You have your life ahead of you. I am just a wanderer passing by. ~ Avijeet Das

While living in America when I attended Harvard in the early 1970s, I saw for myself the awesome, almost miraculous, power of a people to change policy through democratic means. ~ Benazir Bhutto

Little by little over the following decade, the Jewish sect founded by a group of rural Galileans morphed into a religion of urbanized Greek speakers. No longer bound by the confines of the Temple and the Jewish religion, the Hellenist preachers began to gradually shed Jesus's message of its nationalistic concerns, transforming it into a universal calling that would be more appealing to those living in a Graeco-Roman milieu. In doing so, they unchained themselves from the strictures of Jewish law, until it ceased to have any primacy. Jesus did not come to fulfill the law, the Hellenists argued. He came to abolish it. Jesus's condemnation was not of the priests who defiled the Temple with their wealth and hypocrisy. His condemnation was of the Temple itself. ~ Reza Aslan

Who among us has not dreamt, in moments of ambition, of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical without rhythm and rhyme, supple and staccato enough to adapt to the lyrical stirrings of the soul, the undulations of dreams, and sudden leaps of consciousness. ~ Charles Baudelaire

One of the great pleasures of acting is surrendering to someone else's point of view of the world - living inside a character and a story that never would have come out of your mind or heart. ~ Brit Marling

London is not a healthy place. I feel much healthier when I'm living in the countryside or, indeed, anywhere out of London. When I go back to the countryside to visit my mother, I get out of the car, and suddenly there's great wafts of fresh air. ~ Honeysuckle Weeks

Having said that, I must admit that the world has changed. Perhaps it is time for us to change too." He smiled. "But who will lead us out of the darkness of the past? Kurda was the face of our future. He, perhaps, could have altered our ways of thinking and living. Now that he has shamed himself, who will dare speak up for the new world and its ways?"

"I don't know," I said. "But somebody should. If they don't, nothing will change, and today's disaster will be repeated, over and over, until the vampires wipe the vampaneze out, or vice versa. ~ Darren Shan

Man African societies divide humans into 3 categories: those still alive on the earth, the sasha, and the zamani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living-dead. They are not wholly dead, for they still live in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead. As generalized ancestors, the zamani are not forgotten but revered. Many ... can be recalled by name. But they are not living-dead. There is a difference. ~ Kevin Brockmeier

The other line of argument, which leads to the opposite conclusion, arises from looking at artificial automata. Everyone knows that a machine tool is more complicated than the elements which can be made with it, and that, generally speaking, an automaton A, which can make an automaton B, must contain a complete description of B, and also rules on how to behave while effecting the synthesis. So, one gets a very strong impression that complication, or productive potentiality in an organization, is degenerative , that an organization which synthesizes something is necessarily more complicated, of a higher order, than the organization it synthesizes. This conclusion, arrived at by considering artificial automaton, is clearly opposite to our early conclusion, arrived at by considering living organisms. ~ John Von Neumann

A healthy brain leads to a healthy you. ~ Abhijit Naskar

A society that thinks the choice between ways of living is just a choice between equally eligible 'lifestyles' turns universities into academic cafeterias offering junk food for the mind. ~ George Will

Oh, there are no living poets, Miss Van Damn. We're not entirely sure there ever were. They've found some shreds of sonnets in England and, embedded in a chalk wall of a cave in France, some yet undetermined thing which might be the legendary inward eye. But all evidence, such as it is, suggests that, if there ever were poets, they were all burned into extinction during the interglacial period of despair. ~ Paddy Chayefsky

The Other Worlds which fairy tales explore open a way for writers and storytellers to speak in Other terms, especially when the native inhabitants of the imaginary places do not belong to an established living faith and therefore do not command belief or repudiation. The tongue can be very free when it is speaking outside the jurisdiction of religion. ~ Marina Warner

There are those, too, who are ethnically predisposed in favor of funerals, who recognize among the black drapes and dirges an emotionally potent and spiritually stimulating intersection of the living and the dead. In death and its rituals, they see the leveled playing field so elusive in life. Whether we bury our dead in Wilbert Vaults, leave them in trees to be eaten by birds, burn them or beam them into space; whether choir or cantor, piper or jazz band, casket or coffin or winding sheet, ours is the species that keeps track of our dead and knows that we are always outnumbered by them. ~ Thomas Lynch

Nothing is more painful than the loneliness of being with someone who is never completely there. ~ Rick Yancey

Job creation is a choice. Investing in cleaner, greener technologies that allow us to strike a more sustainable balance with the other living systems of this earth - this, too, is a choice. ~ Martin O'Malley