The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
When you feel alone in it
Feeling cut off from people. These lines are company for that, not a crowd.
223 quotes
What you seek is seeking you.
In the end, just three things matter: how well we lived, how well we loved, how well we learned to let go.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
Without music, life would be a mistake.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
A word after a word after a word is power.
If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.
Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.
Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.
To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.
The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.
Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals.
Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.
When we protect ourselves so we won't feel pain, that protection becomes like armor that imprisons the softness of the heart.
You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
We're all just walking each other home.
I can do nothing for you but work on myself... you can do nothing for me but work on yourself.
Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.
When you know how to listen, everybody is the guru.
We're fascinated by the words — but where we meet is in the silence behind them.
You hold in your hand an invitation: to remember the transforming power of forgiveness and loving kindness.
Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.
Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, 'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky.
I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.
Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I'd like to see you in better living conditions.
The heart is a thousand-stringed instrument that can only be tuned with love.
What do you want? asks God. To feel your presence. What else? asks God. Nothing else, I say.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.
When you can bear your own silence, you are free.
The truth is that you already are what you are seeking.
Freedom is not something you acquire. It's something you uncover.
The moon stays bright when it does not avoid the night.
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer.
Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.
The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.
The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.
Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
The soul is neither born, nor does it ever die; nor having once existed, does it ever cease to be. The soul is without birth, eternal, immortal, and ageless. It is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.
There are those who always think of Me and engage in exclusive devotion to Me. To them, whose minds are always absorbed in Me, I provide what they lack and preserve what they already possess.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.
There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still.
Peace begins with a smile.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
The meaning of life is to give life meaning.
In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.
Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking.
The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.
Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself.
Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true self.
What is most personal is most universal.
People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you can let them be.
When someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good.
The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.
The capacity to tolerate uncertainty is a prerequisite for the capacity to love.
To love means to open ourselves to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible.
Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.
What we call the personality is often a patchwork quilt of compensations and cover-ups.
The question is not why the addiction, but why the pain.
Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.
You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.
Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough.
Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.
Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.
Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we're all in this together.
With self-compassion, we give ourselves the same kindness and care we'd give to a good friend.
Self-compassion involves treating yourself with the same kindness, concern, and support you'd show a good friend.
Life doesn't make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all.
Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
Happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance.
Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health.
Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.
Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.
The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to.
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff.
For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious.
The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars.
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.
I am among those who think that science has great beauty.
We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain.
Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.
We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.
Knowing where you came from is no less important than knowing where you are going.
The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there's any sort of planned intervention.
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, we will help.
Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play.
You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you.
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity.
Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature.
In nature nothing exists alone.
Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.
Look closely at nature. Every species is a masterpiece.
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean.
In this great chain of causes and effects, no single fact can be considered in isolation.
I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous — everyone hasn't met me yet.
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
Associate with people who are likely to improve you.
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
To find yourself, think for yourself.
The hottest love has the coldest end.
Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.
The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
Invisible threads are the strongest ties.
The most common form of despair is not being who you are.
A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside will never be happy.
The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.
Respect yourself and others will respect you.
To lead people, walk beside them.
Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.
I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.
Art is to console those who are broken by life.
Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter's soul.
The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place.
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.
Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.
A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human words as possible.
The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for love.
To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain.
Music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear, but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
What I have in my heart and soul — must find a way out. That's the reason for music.
I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!
A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.
Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart.
Works of art are of an infinite loneliness.
The only journey is the one within.
Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself.
Write hard and clear about what hurts.
If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.
Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
You write in order to change the world.
The poet or the revolutionary is there to articulate the necessity.
I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way.
I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.
I paint my own reality.
Feet, what do I need them for if I have wings to fly?
I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.
I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.
Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.
The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.
The piano looks right at me like a friend.
I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.
A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.
Tell all the truth but tell it slant.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
You do not have to struggle to reach God, but you do have to struggle to tear away the self-created veil that hides Him from you.
Kindness is the light that dissolves all walls between souls, families, and nations.
People may differ in beliefs, they can differ in faith, but knowledge, true knowledge, is universal.
A loving relationship with God is a rare diamond. It is a rare alchemy; it is a kind of magic.
True love is within yourself but one doesn't know how to wake up and discover it, as one's mind is so full of ungratefulness.
As a person sheds worn-out garments and wears new ones, likewise, at the time of death, the soul casts off its worn-out body and enters a new one.
I am equally disposed to all living beings; I am neither inimical nor partial to anyone. But the devotees who worship Me with love reside in Me and I reside in them.
Always think of Me, be devoted to Me, worship Me, and offer obeisance to Me. Having dedicated your mind and body to Me, you will certainly come to Me.
Always think of Me, be devoted to Me, worship Me, and offer obeisance to Me. Doing so, you will certainly come to Me. This is My pledge to you, for you are very dear to Me.