We All Love Ourselves Quotes

The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you. It is like the hydrostatic paradox, one drop of water can balance the universe. ~ Swami Vivekananda

It is lonely behind these boundaries. Some people-particularly those whom psychiatrists call schizoid-because of unpleasant, traumatizing experiences in childhood, perceive the world outside of themselves as unredeemably dangerous, hostile, confusing and unnurturing. Such people feel their boundaries to be protecting and comforting and find a sense of safety in their loneliness. But most of us feel our loneliness to be painful and yearn to escape from behind the walls of our individual identities to a condition in which we can be more unified with the world outside of ourselves. The experience of falling in love allows us this escapetemporarily. The essence of the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individual's ego boundaries, permitting one to merge his or her identity with that of another person. The sudden release of oneself from oneself, the explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved, and the dramatic surcease of loneliness accompanying this collapse of ego boundaries is experienced by most of us as ecstatic. We and our beloved are one! Loneliness is no more!

In some respects (but certainly not in all) the act of falling in love is an act of regression. The experience of merging with the loved one has in it echoes from the time when we were merged with our mothers in infancy. Along with the merging we also reexperience the sense of omnipotence which we had to give up in our journey out of childhood. All things seem pos ~ M. Scott Peck

The Deepest Night*

As we lay
asleep within our suspended animation
chambers - living coffins
our thoughts chase each other as they
entwine together

With our bodies
separated by a transparent aluminum partition
our minds connected
telepathically hug and kiss as we continue to
love each other

At the end
of our thousand lightyear journey
when our bodies
awake - thaw out - become warm again
within each others arms

We'll find ourselves
our passions burning all the hotter
forever brighter
into a supernova our love shall blossom
within the deepest night

Copyright David M. Green 2014 ~ David M. Green

Some of us may be without a special person to love. That can be difficult, but it is not an impossible situation. We may want and need someone to love, but I think it helps if we love ourselves enough. It's okay to be in a relationship, but it's also okay to not be in a relationship. Find friends to love, be loved by, and who think we are worthwhile. Love ourselves and know we are worthwhile. Use our time alone as a breather. Let go. Learn the lessons we are to be learning. Grow. Develop. Work on ourselves, so when love comes along, it enhances a full and interesting life. Love shouldn't be the concern of our whole life or an escape from an unpleasant life. Strive toward goals. Have fun. Trust God and His timing. He cares and knows all about our needs and wants. ~ Melody Beattie

It happens the world over - we love ourselves more than we do the one we say we love. We all want to be Number One, we've got to be Number One or nothing! We can't see that we could make ourselves loved and needed in the Number Two, or Three, or Four spot. No sir, we've got to be Number One, and if we can't make it, we'll rip and tear at the loved one till we've ruined every smidgin of love that was ever there. ~ Irene Hunt

Yes, I love that word "absorption" because I think that's my definition of happiness. I think all of us know we are happiest when we forget ourselves, when we forget the time, when we lose ourselves in a beautiful piece of music or a movie or a deep conversation with a friend or an intimate encounter with someone we love. That's our definition of happiness. ~ Pico Iyer

When we love all parts of ourselves, when we bless all of ourselves, when we honor all of our history and all of our insecurities, doubts, worries, and fears, we become the women that we always wanted to be. ~ Debbie Ford

And that is what we should all strive for. Being able to look in the mirror and love ourselves for who we are and what we've done. ~ Jessica Scott

If we are at all sensitive to the life around us, to one another's pains and joys,
to the beauty and fragility of the Earth, it is all about being broken open, allowing ourselves to
step out from out hardened veneers and expose our core, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in our emotional response to the world. And how can we not respond? This is what I mean by being 'broken open.' To engage. To love. Any one of these actions of the heart will lead to a personal transformation that bears collective gifts. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

You're no different than the rest of us, Victor. We all see ourselves as this dissatisfied thing, this ego, looking outside ourselves for just that one other thing that will make us complete. That job, that lover, that pot of money. Even enlightenment, as if that too is a thing we can grab hold of to complete what needs completing. There is always something, we believe, that will make us whole. But if you take a finite thing, like body and mind, and look for something outside it to make it complete, something like money or love or faith, what you are seeking is also just a finite thing. So you have a finite thing reaching for the infinite by grabbing for some other finite thing and you end up with nothing more than a deeper sense of dissatisfaction. ~ William Lashner

Nature is only terrible or squalid to those who do not understand her, and when misunderstanding has upset her balance. She is imbued above all with the power of love; by love she can after all be conquered, but in no other way. That has not been our way. We have attempted a less excellent way, and have upset the 'balance of nature,' so that she no longer appears to us in pleasant guise but in a guise in which the appearance of an opposition of forces - a 'struggle for existence' - predominates over the appearance of a balance of forces. So we have come to believe in a struggle for existence as the only possibility, and we infer that any such struggle is necessarily painful. It is painful now, and not only to ourselves. But it was not always so and need not always be so. We are the head and have the responsibility. We have tried to conquer nature by force and by intellect. It now remains for us to try the way of love ~ Walter Ernest Christopher James

Next comes the temptation to destroy ourselves for love of the other. The only value is love of the other. Self-sacrifice is an absolute value in itself. And the desire of the other is also absolute in itself. No matter what the lover desires, we will give up our life or even our soul to please him. This is the asceticism of Eros, which makes it a point of honor to follow the beloved even into hell. For what greater sacrifice could man offer on the altar of love than the sacrifice of his own immortal soul? Heroism in this sacrifice is measured precisely by madness: it is all the greater when it is offered for a more trivial motive. ~ Thomas Merton

Well, life isn't cheap. It's the greatest mystery of any millennium, and television needs to do all it can to broadcast that ... to show and tell what the good in life is all about.
But how do we make goodness attractive? By doing whatever we can do to bring courage to those whose lives move near our own
by treating our 'neighbor' at least as well as we treat ourselves and allowing that to inform everything that we produce.
Who in your life has been such a servant to you? Who has helped you love the good that grows within you? Let's just take ten seconds to think of some of those people who have loved us and wanted what was best for us in life, those who have encouraged us to become who we are tonight - just ten seconds of silence.
No matter where they are, either here or in heaven, imagine how pleased those people must be to know that you thought of them right now. ~ Fred Rogers

So how are the wedding plans progressing?" Richard asked, once they were out of the village.
"They aren't." Breckenridge heard his clipped tones, heard the irritation beneath. Didn't care if Richard did, too. "She's taken some nitwit notion into her head that I don't need to marry her, that she's going to go off and manage an orphanage in the country, or some such thing, so her social ruination doesn't matter."
"Ah." Richard nodded sagely. "She's playing stubborn."
"Playing?" Breckenridge shot him an irate look. "She's the definition of the word. I've already tried talking her around. Twice."
"I hate to break it to you, old son, but it won't be your honeyed words that change her mind."
Breckenridge snorted. "I've tried that, too-so far all that's gained me is..." An even deeper sense of being irrevocably linked to her.
Richard glanced at him curiously. "What?"
Breckenridge pulled a face, growled, "Damned if I know."
Richard grinned. "Well, whatever it takes, just console yourself with the thought that the end result will be worth it."
Breckenridge cast Richard a sharp glance, saw the open contentment in his face. Felt compelled to ask, "So what did you have to do?"
Richard's smile deepened. "The same thing we've all have to do-prostrate ourselves at their dainty feet, swear undying love, and mean it. ~ Stephanie Laurens

There is so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it, and the heart to love it, and the hand to gather it to ourselves
so much in men and women, so much in art and literature, so much everywhere in which to delight, and for which to be thankful. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Because we chose to tell the truth
(The cool of age, the rage of youth)
And stand against the lies of old
(The whispers soft, the tales untold)
We find ourselves the walking dead
(The love unkept, the words unsaid)
And in the crypt of all we've known
(The broken blade, the breaking stone)
We know that we were in the right
(The coming dawn, the ending night).
So here is when we stop the lies.
The time is come. We have to Rise. ~ Mira Grant

We may tell ourselves that love is not really available. but the deeper truth is that we don't entirely trust it, and therefore have a hard time fully opening to it or letting it all the way into us. This disconnects us from our own heart, exacerbating our sense of love's scarcity. ~ John Welwood

I'm sorry," Leo murmured and then seemed to look through Martin for a few seconds before he returned his gaze to him. "Although if it's any comfort - and please don't take this the wrong way, because I speak from my own perspective, which I understand often places me far outside of the norm - I sometimes like to think that death, at least in the case of those we truly love, allows us to appreciate what they have done for us in ways that are not possible when we're all here, constantly changing and fixated on how to get from one day to the next. Death offers us the chance to reflect on who they were, which of course is a way to understand ourselves. As painful as it can be to see them go - and I don't mean to diminish the sense of loss or grief we all feel - there is also no greater gift. ~ Matthew Gallaway

We didn't know how much love and forgiveness and understanding would be required to make it back on the path we were meant to be in, together. But what we did know was that we were here because we had both been willing to fight; to fight for each other, to fight for ourselves, to fight for love. And that means that despite all the pain that we had endured to be where we are, in the end, love won. ~Evie, Epilogue ~ Mia Sheridan

I took a little walk outside for a while. I was surprised that I wasn't feeling what I thought people were supposed to feel under the circumstances. May be I was fooling myself. I wasn't delighted, but I didn't feel terribly upset, perhaps because we had known for a long time that it was going to happen.

It's hard to explain. If a Martian(who, we'll imagine never dies except by accident) came to Earth and saw this peculiar race of creatures-these humans who live about seventy or eighty years, knowing that death is going to come--it would look to hi like a terrible problem of psychology to live under those circumstances, knowing that life is only temporary Well, we humans somehow figure out how to live despite this problem: we laugh, we joke, we live.

The only difference for me and Arlene was, instead of fifty years, it was five years. It was only a quantitative difference--the psychological problem was just the same. The only way it would have become any different is if we had said to ourselves, "But those other people have it better, because they might live fifty years." But that's crazy. Why make yourself miserable saying things like, "Why do we have such bad luck? What has God done to us? What have we done to deserve this?"--all of which, if you understand reality and take it completely into your heart, are irrelevant and unsolvable. They are just things that nobody can know. Your situation is just an accident of life..

We had a hell of goo ~ Richard P. Feynman

It's good to let God pick a man for you. We don't do so well when we pick them ourselves. They end up lipsticks in a drawer, all those wrong colors you thought looked so good in the package. ~ Deb Caletti

He stole glances at the heathen faces of Bodien and Gaylord, the suffering, yet oddly consoled, eyes and mouth of Basellecci, noting the brave enthusiasm of men who had never dreamed of anything very definite, and it occurred to him through the reek of his person that there was only one hope for him, and for all people who had lost, through intelligence, the hope of immortality. "We must love and delight in each other and in ourselves!" he cried. ~ Edward Lewis Wallant

Death is not an end. It is a new beginning. It entails a magnificent reunion with God and all the wonderful souls that we've ever loved or will love. This is our destination when we pass over. Dying is not the end but rather s shift to a fresh form of life, a new and glorious manifestation of ourselves. ~ Allan Hamilton

The Naked Truth ©2012 Lyrics and Music by Michele Jennae

V. 1
We dress ourselves in the lies of others
Lessening who we are
We clothe ourselves in our own self doubt
Holding on to scars
Take off the mask of uncertainty,
Let me see your face
Remove your disguise of hopelessness
Stand tall in this place

CHORUS
The naked truth is that you're… beautiful
You always have been
The naked truth is that you're… incredible
You're a perfect ten (I'm going to say it again)


V. 2
We robe ourselves in mediocrity
And all for what
We hide behind our fear and frustration
Who says you didn't make the cut?
Strip off the feelings of inferiority
Show us who you are
Let me see the winner inside you
Baby you're gonna go far

BRIDGE
Why would you want to be anybody else
Other than who you are?
Because the fact of the matter is
you're a shining star ~ Michele Jennae

Seeking to find our worth
in other people's eyes
is a game lost before it's even started.
People can only see us
through their own lens
and their opinion of us
is a reflection of themselves.
Noticing painful dynamics
is a path to finding
the wounded inner child
who needed love,
confirmation and approval,
but was so often misunderstood and unseen.
We all have the medicine - to reclaim our wounded inner child
and set our worth for ourselves.
Our environment will always react
to our own beliefs
and is a mirror
to how we,
so often subconsciously,
perceive ourselves.
The ones closest to us
are the most expressive mirrors of our wounds. ~ Petra Poje - Keeper Of The Eye

I made myself unhappy measuring my love against a given norm. The truth is, we make ourselves happy in among a wide variety of loves; all count. ~ Monique Roffey

All the external adoration, respect and adulation in the word, can't drown out the internal voices that tell us, we are not good enough and unworthy of; happiness, love and an abundant life. When we need others to tell us were amazing, worthy and lovable, in order to feel good about ourselves, it is never enough. It goes into the bottomless pit where our inherent self-worth should be. It may feel like we are reaching out to receive love, but in actuality, we are seeking external noise to help drown out our negative core beliefs.
Love blossoms from the inside out. That is why it is so important to do the work necessary to heal our emotional wounds, to love ourselves and stand strong in who we are. Only then, are we truly free to give and receive love, unconditionally and in abundance. ~ Jaeda DeWalt

This day fifty years ago I was born. From solitude in the Womb, we emerge into solitude among our Fellows, and return again to solitude within the Grave. We pass our lives in the attempt to mitigate that solitude. But propinquity is never fusion. We exchange Words, but exchange them from prison to prison, and without hope that they will signify to others what they mean to ourselves. We marry and there are two solitudes in the house instead of one; we beget children, and there are many solitudes. We reiterate the act of love; but again propinquity is never fusion. The most intimate contact is only of Surfaces, and we couple, as I have seen the condemned Prisoners at Newgate coupling with their Trulls, between the bars of our cages. Pleasure cannot be shared; like Pain, it can only be experienced or inflicted, and when we give pleasure to our lover or bestow Charity upon the Needy, we do so, not to gratify the object of our Benevolence, but only ourselves. For the Truth is that we are kind for the same reason as we are cruel, in order that we may enhance the sense of our own Power; and this we are for ever trying to do, despite the fact that by doing it we cause ourselves to feel more solitary than ever. The reality of Solitude is the same in all men, there being no mitigation of it, except in Forgetfulness, Stupidity or Illusion; but a man's sense of Solitude is proportionate to the sense and fact of his Power. In anz set of circumstances, the more Power we have, the more inte ~ Aldous Huxley

A person does not, as I had imagined, stand motionless and clear before our eyes with his merits, his defects, his plans, his intentions with regard to ourselves (like a garden at which we gaze through a railing with all its borders spread out before us), but is a shadow which we can never penetrate, of which there can be no such thing as direct knowledge, with respect to which we form countless beliefs, based upon words and sometimes actions, neither of which can give us anything but inadequate and as it proves contradictory information - a shadow behind which we can alternately imagine with equal justification, that there burns the flame of hatred and of love. ~ Marcel Proust

Look at this lot - how we all threw ourselves into a fight just for him. We're not soldiers. But we know that what we do when we're with him matters. ~ Scott Tipton

But part of loving is sacrificing our ego's need to be right. Part of loving is realising that all of us are on the same journey, seeking the same things, but find ourselves at different places. When we are able to acknowledge and accept this reality; we are freed from the desire to force others into our systems, our beliefs and our points of view. ~ Brandan Roberston

Love does not cost anything. Kind words and deeds do not cost anything. The real beauty of the world is equal for everyone to see. It was given by God equally to all, without restrictions.

Everyone, was given a beautiful vehicle in which to express love to others. Feelings are free to express and give to ourselves and each other through our willingness to give and care.

What is complicated about this... Why have we made others feel they have to climb mountains and swim oceans in order to make a difference.

All we need to understand my friends, is that human life was given equally to us all, not partially but in totality.

The sun was given to all. It does not shine on the few. So, just has nature is indifferent to our station or situation, we need to know that we are all equal. We need to focus on the things that are constant and not place our values on things that can be blown away with the next, great, wind.

Value life in what ever house it dwells. For when it comes time that we are all stripped to bare bones before the divine and facing eternity, we will understand that the only law we were meant to follow, was to love ourselves and each other. Nothing more...nothing less. ~ Carla Jo Masterson

Sadness has always been a part of me. That's why my eyes look sad. Sadness hovers over my life and never leaves me. It knows all the places where I go to. And it finds me. Sometimes I do feel happy. And life looks beautiful. But these moments don't stay as long as I want them to. And sadness visits me all over again. Sometimes I feel sad when there may not be any reason to be sad.

Sadness has stayed with me throughout my school and college days. While my friends in those days preferred listening to rock and roll, I preferred listening to ghazals or sad or deeply meaningful songs. I was never the most popular boy at school. I had a few friends but I would be brooding alone most often. I wanted to know the meaning of life. I would most often stare at the sky and try look for answers. I somehow felt someone will speak to me from the sky.

I have always felt a voice talking to me from the sky. But I feel lonely most often. I feel as if no one really loves anyone. There is no real love. The majority of people in this world believe in give and take. No person loves anyone unconditionally. When I realise this, I feel utterly sad. Because life is not about projecting an image. It is much more than that. It is about being authentic with ourselves and with others we meet in life. ~ Avijeet Das

So often when people hear about the suffering in our world, they feel guilty, but rarely does guilt actually motivate action like empathy or compassion. Guilt paralyzes and causes us to deny and avoid what makes us feel guilty. The goal is to replace our guilt with generosity. We all have a natural desire to help and to care, and we simply need to allow ourselves to give from our love without self-reproach. We each must do what we can. This is all that God asks of us.
- , God Has a Dream, p. 87-88 ~ Desmond Tutu

One fatherless child is revered, but the rest of us are sluts, whores, and faggots? We should all go kill ourselves, right? So we don't taint your delicate sensibilities with the twisted ways we search for love? ~ Eden Connor

I believe there is only one truly courageous thing we can do with our lives: to love unconditionally. Absolutely, with all of ourselves, so much that it hurts and then more. ~ Katie Davis

As for myself, what has died for me has died, so to speak, into my own heart: when I looked for him, the person who vanished has collected himself strangely and so surprisingly in me, and it was so moving to feel he was now only there that my enthusiasm for serving his new existence, for deepening and glorifying it, took the upper hand almost at the very moment when pain would otherwise have invaded and devastated the whole landscape of my spirit. When I remember how I - often with the utmost difficulty in understanding and accepting each other - loved my father! Often, in childhood, my mind became confused and my heart grew numb at the mere thought that someday he might no longer be; my existence seemed to me so wholly conditioned through him (my existence, which from the start was pointed in such a different direction!) that his departure was to my innermost self synonymous with my own destruction …, but so deeply is death rooted in the essence of love that (if only we are cognizant of death without letting ourselves be misled by the uglinesses and suspicions that have been attached to it) it nowhere contradicts love: where, after all, can it drive out someone whom we have carried unsayably in our heart except into this very heart, where would the "idea" of this loved being exist, and his unceasing influence (: for how could that cease which even while he lived with us was more and more independent of his tangible presence) … where would this always secret influence be more ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

And black power births a kind of understanding that illuminates all the galaxies in their truest colors. Even the Dreamers - lost in their great reverie - feel it, for it is Billie they reach for in sadness, and Mobb Deep is what they holler in boldness, and Isley they hum in love, and Dre they yell in revelry, and Aretha is the last sound they hear before dying. We have made something down here. We have taken the one-drop rules of Dreamers and flipped them. They made us into a race. We made ourselves into a people. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Perfect. Imperfect. A pair of adjectives that come over and again, in all seasons, day in and day out, taunting us, judging us, isolating us, turning our isolation into illness. Is there a more accomplished adjective than perfect? Perfect is free from comparison, perfect rejects superlative. We can always be good, do better, try our best, but how perfect can we be before we can love ourselves and let others love us? And who, my dear child, has taken the word lovable out of your dictionary and mine, and replaced it with perfect? ~ Yiyun Li

Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provisions. thats all we thought about. No thought of revenge, or of parents. Only of bread. ~ Elie Wiesel

But we [women] are only at the beginning [of revamping feminism]. And our strictures on each other prove this. Our enforcement of thinness, of non-sexuality, of 'good' feminism versus 'bad' feminism, are proofs of our being at the beginning, not the end of a process. That younger feminists are embracing their sexuality is a sign of hope
a sign that women's lives will some day be less constricted, less fearful of the dark side of creativity (to which Eros provides the key). If that happens, we will at least have the full gamut of inspiration so long denied us. We will have access to all parts of ourselves
all the animals within us, from wolf to lamb. When we learn to love all the animals within us, we will know how to make men love them too. ~ Erica Jong

It is lawful to love all things and to seek them, once they become means to the love of God. There is nothing we cannot ask of Him if we desire it in order that He may be more loved by ourselves or by other men. ~ Thomas Merton

I love young adult fantasies. While I say that, I have not seen all of the Twilight and Harry Potter movies. But I've read all of the books, and I love them. I love them because I enjoy being transported to a different world and having my imagination challenged. That's a huge part of what we do as actors. We have to imagine ourselves in a different world. And when you are in a young adult fantasy, it challenges you in the best way. ~ Viola Davis

If we want to live perfectly happy lives...we must drive out selfish character tendencies such as pride, ego, vanity, jealousy, lusts, envy and worry. When we learn to live selflessly, putting others before ourselves, committing to what is noble, right and good; treating others with love and compassion...that's when true happiness is experienced. A genuine focus on selflessness cures all and creates an environment for true growth. It's the secret to every great relationship. We gain...when we give up self. Sacrificing one's selfish characteristics through diligent thought, meditation, prayer and action gives life to true love and abounding joy.~Jason Versey ~ Jason Versey

...A huge "army" of immature guys with blinders over their eyes, looking for UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, are going nowhere. Such men are all ending up to be eternal dating losers, because they are simply wasting huge amounts of effort, trying hard and hoping to find something that does not exist on the planet.
To achieve the goal of personal happiness, we have to be honest with ourselves first of all. We need to be brave enough and smart enough to look into the mirror at our true selves, without our comfortable masks of lies or hypocrisy.

LET'S FACE IT:
There are always reasons why we feel love for another person; we don't love someone for no reason at all. We love them for the qualities they possess, which we admire; for those amazing, bright emotions they evoke from within ourselves; for the love and care that we so acceptingly receive from them; and for what good feelings we experience being around them, etc.

Be HONEST with yourself! ~ Sahara Sanders

A pandemic paradoxically becomes an opportunity to finally be able to deal with ourselves, in a long interval where the world has stopped and everything around us starts to function at a slow pace. Shopping becomes a long and slow business, and if before we hated getting stuck in the traffic or queuing at the post office, today we can do nothing but adapt to this new world of expectations and shifts, and discover the faces of our fellow men, finally looking them in the face (or rather, in the eyes).

We have rediscovered the pleasure of cooking and eating, a world that before the quarantine stopped only on TV with masterchef. If before we considered it a waste of time to cook a plate of pasta, now we have had all the time to devote to cakes, pizzas, biscuits and homemade bread as our grandmothers once did. Rediscovering genuine flavors that have little of "fast" and much of "slow".

And so we also found time to read the book that we are not never managed to finish, or we pulled our favorite board game off the shelf. These small gestures, sometimes even insignificant in appearance, are rich in meaning, since they are imbued with our time, our dedication, our passion and our love. Characteristics of the human being that have been forgotten for too long. Thus we find ourselves reflecting on our time, on the past and on the future, observing a precipitous past that makes room for a rich and decidedly slower present.

We have resumed the taste of walk ~ Corina Abdulahm Negura

We are all the best versions of ourselves when we have love and acceptance in our lives. ~ Dianna Agron

You forgive what you can, when you can. That's all you can do.
To forgive does not mean overlooking the offense and pretending it never happened. Forgiveness means releasing our rage and our need to retaliate, no longer dwelling on the offense, the offender, and the suffering, and rising to a higher love. It is an act of letting go so that we ourselves can go on. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

Which is probably one of the reasons those of us who love contemporary fiction love it as we do. We're alone with it. It arrives without references, without credentials we can trust. Givers of prizes (not to mention critics) do the best they can, but they may - they probably will - be scoffed at by their children's children. We, the living readers, whether or not we're members of juries, decide, all on our own, if we suspect ourselves to be in the presence of greatness. We're compelled to let future generations make the more final decisions, which will, in all likelihood, seem to them so clear as to produce a sense of bafflement over what was valued by their ancestors; what was garlanded and paraded, what carried to the temple on the shoulders of the wise. ~ Michael Cunningham

Before the Prince can save the damsel in distress, he has to slay the dragons that surround her castle. So do we all. Those dragons are our demons, our wounds, our egos, our brilliant ways of denying love to ourselves and others. The ego's patterns have to be rooted out, detoxed from our system, before the pure love within us can have a chance to come forth. ~ Marianne Williamson

When we stop fighting with ourselves, we aren't creating anymore conflict in our mind. Then our mind can for the first time relax and be still. Then for the first time our consciousness can become whole and unfragmented. Then total attention can be given to all of our thoughts and feelings. And then there will be found a gentleness and a goodness in us that can embrace all that is been given in the world. Then a deep love for everything will be the result of this deep attention. For this total attention, this soft and pure consciousness that we are, is nothing but Love itself. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Here's the stark truth about the person who is right for you: They want the same lifestyle that you do. How do I know this? Because that is, by definition, what makes them right for you. To be with someone whose eyes light up when yours do, whose heart races when your blood also pounds, who is enticed and inspired by the same forces that drive you forward, is a gift many of us never truly get to experience.

Because we settle. We settle for the person we love over the person who could push us – to be bigger, stronger, greater versions of ourselves. We tell ourselves that love is enough. That it conquers everything. But we forget that love shouldn't be the thing that conquers our lives – we should be. And we should do it deliberately, triumphantly, by the side of somebody who shares all of our joys and successes.

So how do we meet such a person? That's simple – we do more of what we love. We give ourselves up to uncertainty, to searching, to pursuing what we want out of life without the certainty of having someone beside us while we do it. We throw ourselves wholeheartedly into the things that we love and we consequently attract the people who love what we love. Who value what we prioritize. Who appreciate all that we are. We throw ourselves into the heart of possibility instead of staying comfortably settled inside of certainty. Because we owe it to ourselves to do so. We owe it to ourselves to live the greatest life that we're capable of living, even if ~ Heidi Priebe

The West doesn't have to love us. In fact, we should ask ourselves more often why people are so suspicious of us. After all, the West isn't a charity organization. How have we been perceived for centuries? As a huge, warlike realm ruled by despots - first by the czars and then Bolsheviks. Why should anyone have loved us? If we want to be accepted, we have to do something in return. And it's an art that we have yet to master. ~ Vladislav Surkov

The comparison of religions is only possible, in some measure, through the miraculous virtue of sympathy. We can know men to a certain extent if at the same time as we observe them from the outside we manage by sympathy to transport our own soul into theirs for a time. In the same way the study of different religions does not lead to a real knowledge of them unless we transport ourselves for a time by faith to the very center of whichever one we are studying...This scarcely ever happens, for some have no faith, and the others have faith exclusively in one religion and only bestow upon the others the sort of attention we give to strangely shaped shells. There are others again who think they are capable of impartiality because they have only a vague religiosity which they can turn indifferently in any direction, whereas, on the contrary, we must have given all our attention, all our faith, all our love to a particular religion in order to think of any other religion with the high degree of attention, faith, and love that is proper to it. ~ Simone Weil

I belong to a culture that includes Proust, Henry James, Tchaikovsky, Cole Porter, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Marlowe, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Tennessee Williams, Byron, E.M. Forster, Lorca, Auden, Francis Bacon, James Baldwin, Harry Stack Sullivan, John Maynard Keynes, Dag Hammarskjold… These are not invisible men. Poor Bruce. Poor frightened Bruce. Once upon a time you wanted to be a soldier.
Bruce, did you know that an openly gay Englishman was as responsible as any man for winning the Second World War? His name was Alan Turing and he cracked the Germans' Enigma code so the Allies knew in advance what the Nazis were going to do - and when the war was over he committed suicide he was so hounded for being gay. Why don't they teach any of this in the schools? If they did, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself and maybe you wouldn't be so terrified of who you are. The only way we'll have real pride is when we demand recognition of a culture that isn't just sexual. It's all there - all through history we've been there; but we have to claim it, and identify who was in it, and articulate what's in our minds and hearts and all our creative contributions to this earth. And until we do that, and until we organize ourselves block by neighborhood by city by state into a united visible community that fights back, we're doomed. That's how I want to be defined: as one of the men who fought the war. ~ Larry Kramer

the ultimate irrational prejudice of the human mind: the belief that the symbols of reality are more real than the reality they symbolize. That's us all over. We believe that money is more valuable than the work it represents, that sex is more essential than the love it expresses, that an actor is more admirable than the hero he portrays, that flesh is more alive than spirit. That's the whole nature of our deluded lives, the cause of so much of our misery. One by one, we let idolatry ruin each good thing. Without faith, we can't help ourselves. Without faith, we can no more see through our materialist prejudice than we can see through the big blue bowl of the sky and into the eternity beyond. The choice between idolatry and faith - which is ultimately the choice between slavery in the flesh and freedom in the spirit - is the only real choice we have to make. I ~ Andrew Klavan

We, the human beings, are meant to live life to its fullest. We are meant to experience it all - sadness, disappointment, rage, kindness, joy, love. We are meant to test ourselves. It is painful and frightening, but this is what it means to be alive. ~ Ilona Andrews

Music is a lady that I still love because she gives me the air that I breathe. We need all sorts of nourishment. And music satisfies and nourishes the hunger within ourselves for connection and harmony. ~ Cat Stevens

To imagine the way we think is the singular causative agent of all we go through is to practice cruelty toward ourselves. ~ Sharon Salzberg

Prayer is the converse of the soul with God. Therein we manifest or express to Him our reverence, and love for His divine perfection, our gratitude for all His mercies, our penitence for our sins, our hope in His forgiving love, our submission to His authority, our confidence in His care, our desires for His favour, and for the providential and spiritual blessings needed for ourselves and others. ~ Charles Hodge

Not as we are but as we must appear,
contractual ghosts of pity; not as we
desire life, but as they would have us live,
set apart in timeless colloquy.
So it is required; so we bear witness,
despite ourselves, to what is beyond us,
each distant sphere of harmony forever
poised, unanswerable. It is without
consequence when we vaunt and suffer,
or if it is not, all echoes are the same
in such eternity. Then tell me, love,
how that should comfort us-or anyone
dragged half-unnerved out of this worldly place
crying to the end "I have not finished."
From 'Funeral Music ~ Geoffrey Hill

Have patience . . .

We are not the masters of our own feelings of attraction or revulsion; these come from places in ourselves over which we have little or no control. All we can do is try not to follow inclinations which make for barriers within the community. We have to hope that the Holy Spirit will come to forgive, purify and trim the rather twisted branches of our being. Our emotional makeup has grown from a thousand fears and egoisms since our infancy, as well as from signs of love and the gift of God. It is a mixture of shadow and light. And so it will not be straightened out in a day, but will take a thousand purifications and pardons, daily efforts and above all a gift of the Holy Spirit which renews us from within.

It is a long haul to transform our emotional makeup so that we can really start loving our enemy. We have to be patient with our feelings and fears; we have to be merciful to ourselves. If we are to make the passage to acceptance and love of the other - all the others - we must start very simply, by recognizing our own blocks, jealousies, ways of comparing ourselves to others, prejudices and hatreds. We have to recognize that we are poor creatures, that we are what we are. And we have to ask our Father to forgive and purify us. It is good, then, to speak to a spiritual guide, who perhaps can help us to understand what is happening, strengthen us in our efforts and help us discover God's pardon. ~ Jean Vanier

Still, despite the satisfaction of their surface lives, Cora Grovians share in full measure the pain that is the basis of all human misery: the fact that we can never be as important to anyone else as we are to ourselves.
There simply is never enough love. ~ Lynn Hall

I will tell you what's left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love,. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he's given us complete control over them. Even in the darkest night it's still within our power to hold faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may feel ourselves unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who chooses to discard them. ~ William Kent Krueger

We have time for everything:
to sleep, to run from one place to another,
to regret having mistaken and to mistake again,
to judge the others and to forgive
ourselves
we have time for reading and writing,
for making corrections to our texts, to regret ever having
written

we have time to make plans and time not to respect them,

we have time for ambitions and sicknesses,
time to blame the destiny and the details,

we have time to watch the clouds, advertisements or
some ordinary accident,
we have time to chase our wonders away
and to postpone the answers,
we have time to break a dream to pieces and then
to reinvent it,

we have time to make friends, to lose friends,
we have time to receive lessons and forget them afterwards,

we have time to receive gifts and not to understand them.

We have time for them all.
There is no time for just a bit of tenderness.
When we are aware about to do this we die.

I've learned that you cannot make someone love you;
All you can do is to be a loved person.
the rest … depends on the others.

I've learned that as much as I care
others might not care.

I've learned that it takes years to earn trust
and just a few seconds to lose it.

I've learned that it does not matter WHAT you have in your life
but WHO you ha ~ Octavian Paler

God never promised us an easy life. He never promised that we wouldn't suffer, that we wouldn't feel despair and loneliness and confusion and desperation. What he did promise was that in our suffering we would never be alone. And though we may sometimes make ourselves blind and deaf to his presence he is beside us and around us and within us always. We are never separated from his love. And he promised us something else, the most important promise of all. That there would be surcease. That there would be an end to our pain and our suffering and our loneliness, that we would be with him and know him, and this would be heaven. ~ William Kent Krueger

Science is getting knocked on all sides these days, not only from religious fundamentalists, but from all kinds of people who perceive science as arrogant, one-sided, and the source of the troubles that come with the technology it produces. It's true that individuL scientists can be so arrogant and narrowly focused, they're blind to any but their own truths, and that new discoveries bring new problems with them. Still, I don't know many people who would refuse a biopsy for a newly discovered lump because they think science needs to be taken down a peg or two.

Religion gets knocked for the same kinds of reasons as science: for its arrogance, narowmindedness, and tendency to create more trouble than it's worth. Religion is also accused of concealing reality under a comforting blanket of measureless faith -- the flip side, perhaps of the scientist for whom nothing can be real until she has measured it.

My own sojourn into religion convinced me that good religion reveals rather than conceals. Religion is the soul in search of itself and its relationship to the cosmos. This journey requires looking at all of it: the joy, the sorrow, the beauty and the horror of life. We hope for the best. We want meaning and love to exist not only in ourselves, but in the very soul of the universe. At times this great hope might tempt us to pick and choose only the data that supports our desires. But in religion as in boat-building, the design must be tested in all conditions ~ Margaret D. McGee

All too often women believe it is a sign of commitment, an expression of love, to endure unkindness or cruelty, to forgive and forget. In actuality, when we love rightly we know that the healthy, loving response to cruelty and abuse is putting ourselves out of harm's way. ~ Bell Hooks

As you peel it back, in the heart of nothing, that is love. You are what you are seeking. Life is a set up so that each of us can actually see in ourselves the truth for ourselves. What gets taken away are all the exterior means we thought we wanted love to come to us. You have the choice to notice the perfect set up to see love is exactly what you are. ~ Adyashanti

The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

We can't act cruelly toward others without also being negatively affected by our actions. We really are all connected, deeper than we know. If we can't be kinder to each other simply because it's the compassionate and loving way to be, the less remember that when we hurt others, we hurt ourselves, too. Every single time. Just one more reason to treat each other well. ~ Scott Stabile

Americans should never forget that the founders of this country, like all who have served her in uniform, were willing to die defending everything its flag represents. It's so easy to get lost in the controversies that divide us. But I believe, no matter what our race, religion, or beliefs may be, that Americans should be able to come together to keep our country rooted in what made it great: a land of opportunity, a place where people can make something of themselves, limited only by their imaginations and willingness to work hard; a country where we can all come together, whatever our differences, for the greater good; a country of hands up, not handouts, where we try to live by the meaning of the words "Love thy neighbor," and put as much effort into helping others as we do helping ourselves. By doing those things, we can continue to live up to the idea of "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. ~ Marcus Luttrell

It may seem a hard matter, to love our neighbours who have so much of what is evil about them, and whose faults so often await the evil that lingers within ourselves. But remember that he made them and he loves them, and whosever loves him that begat, loveth him that was begotten also. and if god so loveth us that he gave his only begotten son to die for us, we ought also to love one another, but if you cannot feel positive affection for those that do not care for you, you can at least try to do to them as they should do unto you. You can endeavour to pity their failings and excuse their offenses and to do all the good you can to those about you. And if you accustom yourself to this, Nancy, the very effort itself will make you love them in some degree, to say nothing of the goodwill your kindness would beget in them, though they might have little else that is good about them. If we love God, and wish to serve him, let us try to be like him, to do his work, to labour for his glory, which is the good of man, to hasten the coming of his kingdom, which is the peace and happiness of all the world. However powerless we may seem to be in doing all the good through life, the humblest of us may do much towards it. And let us dwell in love, that he may dwell in us, and we in him. The more happiness we bestow, the more we shall receive even here and the greater will be our reward in heaven when rest from our labours. ~ Anne Bronte

People who have intended and loved what is evil in the world intend and love what is evil in the other life, and then they no longer allow themselves to be led away from it. This is why people who are absorbed in evil are connected to hell and actually are there in spirit; and after death they crave above all to be where their evil is. So after death, it is we, not the Lord, who cast ourselves into hell. ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

I think if we open ourselves to all different kinds of men and all groups, we find a lot more opportunities to love. ~ Gabrielle Union

Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company. ~ Milan Kundera

The chase for more, and the need to be recognised through our achievements and belongings, can hinder us from the real things, like time with those we love, time doing things we love ourselves, and balance. It's probably all about balance really, isn't it? ~ Bronnie Ware

There's power in the touch of another person's hand. We acknowledge it in little ways, all the time. There's a reason human beings shake hands, hold hands, slap hands, bump hands.

"It comes from our very earliest memories, when we all come into the world blinded by light and color, deafened by riotous sound, flailing in a suddenly cavernous space without any way of orienting ourselves, shuddering with cold, emptied with hunger, and justifiably frightened and confused. And what changes that first horror, that original state of terror?

"The touch of another person's hands.

"Hands that wrap us in warmth, that hold us close. Hands that guide us to shelter, to comfort, to food. Hands that hold and touch and reassure us through our very first crisis, and guide us into our very first shelter from pain. The first thing we ever learn is that the touch of someone else's hand can ease pain and make things better.

"That's power. That's power so fundamental that most people never even realize it exists. ~ Jim Butcher

He loves me like a monster,
all teeth and talk and
hiding in the dark.
That's my specialty -
men with strong bodies
and fragile hearts,
and if you hold them too tightly
they will crumble beneath you
like an avalanche that's waiting.
Still, he looks at me like all things
beautiful and burning
and we love each other recklessly
with hearts so empty
our names echo against
vandalized walls that say,
"There was someone here before me,
listen closely and you'll hear their name."

He has matches for hands,
and I, a paper heart.
Gasoline will drip
from our mouths
and we will call that holy.
We will burn at the stake
and pollute the sky with
smoke and selfishness,
and we will say it was
in the name of a crooked love.
We will burn our own bodies
to the ground and we will
call that sacrifice.
We will tear ourselves open
like there's something left inside.

Nobody ever taught us how to love. ―Lindsey Hobart ~ Lindsey Hobart

O Life,
How oft we throw it off and think, - 'Enough,
Enough of life in so much! - here's a cause
For rupture; - herein we must break with Life,
Or be ourselves unworthy; here we are wronged,
Maimed, spoiled for aspiration: farewell Life!'
- And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyes
And think all ended. - Then, Life calls to us
In some transformed, apocryphal, new voice,
Above us, or below us, or around .
Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's,
Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed
To own our compensations than our griefs:
Still, Life's voice! - still, we make our peace with Life. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

What we really need is somebody who loves us so much we don't worry about death, or about [anything for that matter] ... We need this; we need this so we can love other people purely and not for selfish gain, we need this so we can see everybody as equals, we need this so our relationships can be sincere, we need this so we can stop kicking ourselves around, we need this so we can lose all self-awareness and find ourselves for the first time, not by realizing some dream, but by being told who we are by the only Being who has the authority to know, by that I mean the Creator. ~ Donald Miller

Orthodoxy is idolatry if it means holding the 'correct opinions about God' - 'fundamentalism' is the most extreme and salient example of such idolatry - but not if it means holding faith in the right way, that is, not holding it at all but being held by God, in love and service. Theology is idolatry if it means what we say about God instead of letting ourselves be addressed by what God has to say to us. Faith is idolatrous if it is rigidly self-certain but not if it is softened in the waters of 'doubt. ~ John D. Caputo

Dear young people, choose God for your portion; love his truth, and be not ashamed of it; choose for your company such as serve him in uprightness; and shun as most dangerous the conversation of those whose lives are of an ill savor; for by frequenting such company some hopeful young people have come to great loss, and been drawn from less evils to greater, to their utter ruin. In the bloom of youth no ornament is so lovely as that of virtue, nor any enjoyments equal to those which we partake of in fully resigning ourselves to the Divine will. These enjoyments add sweetness to all other comforts, and give true satisfaction in company and conversation, where people are mutually acquainted with it; and as your minds are thus seasoned with the truth, you will find strength to abide steadfast to the testimony of it, and be prepared for services in the church. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Optimism is contagious, he states.
If that were the case, all your would have to do is go to the person you loved with a huge grin, full of plans and ideas, and know how to present the package. Does it work? No. What is really contagious is fear, the constant fear of never finding someone to accompany us to the end of our days. And in the name of this fear we are capable of doing anything, including accepting the wrong person and convincing ourselves that he or she's the one, the only one, who God has placed in our path. In very little time the search for security turns into a heartfelt love, and things become less bitter and difficult. Our feelings can be put in a box and pushed to the back of the closet in our head, where it will remain forever, hidden and invisible. ~ Paulo Coelho

This is what parents do
what all of us do, in fact, when we're at our unrivaled best. We bind ourselves to those who need us most, and through caring for them, grow to love them, grow to delight in them, grow to marvel at who they are. Gift-love at its purest. ~ Jennifer Senior

It's a funny thing about the modern world. You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, "Yeah, he fucked off and left me. He didn't love me. He just couldn't deal with love. He was too fucked up to know how to love me." Now, how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll
then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time. ~ Zadie Smith

We assent to wifedom because we are so used to having someone to blame and so unused to freedom. We prefer self-punishment to the conquest of our fears. We prefer our anger to our freedom.
If women were totally conscious of the part of themselves that gives away power to men, the prediction of victory might prove true. But we are far from this self-knowledge. And we move further and further away as we retreat from the psychoanalytic model of the self. As long as we disclaim the importance of unconscious motivations, of the existence of the unconscious itself, we cannot root out the slave in ourselves. Freedom is hand to love. Freedom takes away all the excuses. ~ Erica Jong

We think of ourselves as failures, rather than renounce our belief in the possibility of perfection. We hang on to the hope of eternal love by denying even its temporary validity. It´s less painful to think 'I'm shallow', 'She's self centred', 'We couldn't communicate', 'It was all just physical', than to accept the simple fact that love is a passing sensation, for reasons beyond our control and even beyond our personalities. But who can reassure himself with his own rationalizations? No argument can fill the void of a dead feeling -- that reminder of the ultimate void, our final inconstancy. We're untrue even to life. ~ Stephen Vizinczey

Know that truth, forgiveness, and love can heal the world. Imagine if all of us could be truthful with ourselves, start forgiving everyone, and start loving everyone. We would no longer be selfish, gossiping would be over, and we would no longer judge one another. The world would become a place where all of us live in love. ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz

We could go to the extreme of giving away everything we have to feed, clothe, and house the poor, or we could sacrifice ourselves in the most heroic of ways, even our body or our life, but if we don't do those things out of a heart of pure love, they won't profit us in any way (1 Corinthians 13:3). Love is what gives meaning to all that we do. ~ Stormie O'martian

If anyone had a right to lecture people about their sin, it was the sinless son of God. If even he could meet sinners as equals, how much more should we Christians
all sinners ourselves
treat as equals the people we encounter in our lives? ~ Justin Lee

All we cared about was dividends. Well, we can't do business that way today. We have learned that what's best for the countries we operate in is best for the company. Maybe we can't make the people love us, but we will make ourselves so useful to them that they will want us to stay. ~ Sam Zemurray

We all, like Frodo, carry a Quest, a Task: our daily duties. They come to us, not from us. We are free only to accept or refuse our task- and, implicitly, our Taskmaster. None of us is a free creator or designer of his own life. "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself" (Rom 14:7). Either God, or fate, or meaningless chance has laid upon each of us a Task, a Quest, which we would not have chosen for ourselves. We are all Hobbits who love our Shire, or security, our creature comforts, whether these are pipeweed, mushrooms, five meals a day, and local gossip, or Starbucks coffees, recreational sex, and politics. But something, some authority not named in The Lord of the Rings (but named in the Silmarillion), has decreed that a Quest should interrupt this delightful Epicurean garden and send us on an odyssey. We are plucked out of our Hobbit holes and plunked down onto a Road. ~ Peter Kreeft

We'd hoped vaguely to fall in love but hadn't worried much about it, because we'd thought we had all the time in the world. Love had seemed so final and so dull
love was what ruined our parents. Love had delivered them to a life of mortgage payments and household repairs; to unglamorous jobs and the flourescent aisles of a supermarket at two in the afternoon. We'd hoped for love of a different kind, love that knew and forgave our human frailty but did not miniaturize our grander ideas of ourselves. It sounded possible. If we didn't rush or grab, if we didn't panic, a love both challenging and nurturing might appear. If the person was imaginable, then the person could exist. ~ Michael Cunningham

All the other stuff without love? Not worth a whole lot. Love starts with ourselves and needs to be approached like anything else we want to master-with a lot of diligent studying and practicing! ~ Brian Johnson

Semrad taught us that most human suffering is related to love and loss and that the job of therapists is to help people "acknowledge, experience, and bear" the reality of life - with all its pleasures and heartbreak. "The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves," he'd say, urging us to be honest with ourselves about every facet of our experience. He often said that people can never get better without knowing what they know and feeling what they feel. I ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

I only say it because without saying I don't think anything can be properly understood. How we were able to see slaughter without flinching. Because we were nothing ourselves, to begin with. We knew what to do with nothing, we were at home there. I almost wasn't able to say, my father died too. I saw his body. Hunger is a sort of fire, a furnace. I loved my father when I was a human person formerly. Then he died and I was hungry and then the ship. Then nothing. Then America. Then John Cole. John Cole was my love, all my love. ~ Sebastian Barry

Fruits of the Spirit

GOODNESS and KINDNESS live in the hearts of those who have suffered greatly, as the wounded tend to learn compassion through their misery. GENTLENESS is born out of the adversity that has challenged a believer, but who has then released all hopes for vindication to the power of God. PEACE is a fruit that grows from seeds of trust. LOVE matures as we learn to give up pieces of ourselves for the benefit of others, knowing full well that every piece we loose is replaced by an even more wondrous portion of Christ. JOY comes from knowing God and experiencing His strength during trials. PATIENCE is learned through experiences of long-suffering and allows the saint to move forward on his earthy journey, while always longing for his real home in heaven. FAITHFULNESS means commitment. It is a sold-out attitude and stance that resonates a belief in God's unquestionable ability to do the impossible. Finally, the believer who suffers in the name of Christ for love's sake grows in SELF-CONTROL. With this final fruit, the temptations of the devil lesson and loose their power. We gain strength by gaining self-control. ~ Cheryl Zelenka

Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays. I have invented a mask that makes me look like anybody. People will not even turn round in the streets. You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ~ Gaston Leroux

We went there to grope for our happiness, which all the world was threatening with the utmost ferocity. We were ashamed of wanting what we wanted, but something had to be done about it all the same. Love is harder to give up than life. In this world we spend our time killing or adoring, or both together. "I hate you! I adore you!" We keep going, we fuel and refuel, we pass on our life to a biped of the next century, with frenzy, at any cost, as if it were the greatest of pleasures to perpetuate ourselves, as if, when all's said and done, it would make us immortal. One way or another, kissing is as indispensable as scratching. ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine