experience

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
5056619	Turn your wounds into wisdom.	pain wisdom inspirational wounds experience	Oprah Winfrey
dd2f769	Don't let the expectations and opinions of other people affect your decisions. It's your life, not theirs. Do what matters most to you; do what makes you feel alive and happy. Don't let the expectations and ideas of others limit who you are. If you let others tell you who you are, you are living their reality -- not yours. There is more to life than pleasing people. There is much more to life than following others' prescribed path. There is so much more to life than what you experience right now. You need to decide who you are for yourself. Become a whole being. Adventure.	action whole-being confidence inspiration inspirational-quotes inspire life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking optimism life inspirational who-you-are authentic-self authentic-living adventure authenticity experience	Roy T. Bennett
5941500	The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.	life inspirational live-in-the-moment enjoy-life purpose-of-life adventure carpe-diem experience	Eleanor Roosevelt
15116b4	Don't Jus	action criticize dream learning inspiration inspirational-attitude inspirational-life inspirational-quotes inspire life-and-living life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life dreams change inspiring positive positive-thinking life-lessons optimism life inspirational inspirational-quote transform act feeling doing giving encouragement ponder experience listening life-philosophy thinking	Roy T. Bennett
4ce3632	Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it's all an experience.	gratitude inspiration inspirational-quotes inspire life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking optimism life inspirational experience thankful	Roy T. Bennett
78f9e34	I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.	men equality women-s-rights self-determination independence women freedom reason empowerment superiority submission experience gender	Charlotte Brontë
d97e981	We learn from failure, not from success!	learning wisdom records experience mistakes	Bram Stoker
01184ff	Pain is a pesky part of being human, I've learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can't be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.	wisdom-in-life pain freedom learning beauty inspirational-life inspirational-quotes life-and-living living inspiring life-lessons life wisdom inspirational living-life heal growing flying healing painful flight wisdom-quotes growth hurt wind experience wings hurting	C. JoyBell C.
d9eb69b	No matter how long you train someone to be brave, you never know if they are or not until something real happens.	dauntless bravery courage life training experience	Veronica Roth
b7f480c	All knowledge hurts.	wisdom disillusionment experience knowledge	Cassandra Clare
b4724ce	Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.	life variety experience wine	Paulo Coelho
cc22f4d	Some things cannot be taught; they must be experienced. You never learn the most valuable lessons in life until you go through your own journey.	learning inspiration inspirational-quotes inspire life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking optimism life inspirational lessons-in-life teach experience	Roy T. Bennett
a93d2c8	And if my heart be scarred and burned	inspirational experience	Dorothy Parker
129846d	We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.	mourning grief suffering reality personal-experience others experience	C.S. Lewis
1e804e9	How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?	understanding experience	Orhan Pamuk
f1db038	I don't really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more. I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits	living strength life experience	Anaïs Nin
1f88d6b	Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.	courage writing empowerment strength guenter-grass record-of-life creative-process experience memory	Salman Rushdie
caeab61	"People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept, but still a religion, it doesn't matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn't the fear of God but the upholding of one's own honor and conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the while day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that: "A quiet conscience mades one strong!"	true people life-lessons life truth wisdom inspirational wisdom-quote experience consciousness	Anne Frank
9a8303f	No matter how much experience you have, there's always something new you can learn and room for improvement.	learning inspiration inspirational-attitude inspirational-life inspirational-quotes inspire life-and-living life-quotes living motivation optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking motivational life-lessons optimism life inspirational improvement experience	Roy T. Bennett
df14379	To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.	doubt faith religion scepticism dogma experience kool-aid	Christopher Hitchens
f7c8f0d	Sometimes you have to steer away from the crowd in order to be a better person. It's not always easy, that's for sure. But it's right. And sometimes doing the right thing feels good, even if it does end up in a trip to the principal's office.	truth inspirational experience	Simone Elkeles
cd1e130	Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.	pain feel experience	P.D. James
6a28517	When I was a child I truly loved: Unthinking love as calm and deep As the North Sea. But I have lived, And now I do not sleep.	life love maturity experience	John Gardner
e970286	This world is your best teacher. There is a lesson in everything. There is a lesson in each experience. Learn it and become wise. Every failure is a stepping stone to success. Every difficulty or disappointment is a trial of your faith. Every unpleasant incident or temptation is a test of your inner strength. Therefore nil desperandum. March forward hero!	wisdom inspirational experience	Sivananda
9a8e769	Reason, Observation and Experience -- the Holy Trinity of Science -- have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect.	nature reason inspiration science happiness hope content holy-trinity trinity observation experience supernatural	Robert Green Ingersoll
702df23	It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.	love rural-life john-watson countryside vile sherlock-holmes experience smiling beautiful london sin	Arthur Conan Doyle
7dbd2d8	The moral of the story is even though that seemed like the end of the world back then, right now I can look back on it and laugh. And if anyone is going through something similar right now just know it will get better.	life-gets-better looking-ahead past-experiences sadness life-lessons love inspirational life-advice dating-advice experience	Phil Lester
59879fa	Strange how something good can come from something horrible.	good horibble experience	Jennifer L. Armentrout
6b7c687	The past is a place of learning, not a place of living.	learning inspiration inspirational-quotes inspire life-quotes living inspiring life inspirational experience	Roy T. Bennett
e654e4d	He had learned some of the things that every man must find out for himself, and he had found out about them as one has to find out--through error and through trial, through fantasy and illusion, through falsehood and his own damn foolishness, through being mistaken and wrong and an idiot and egotistical and aspiring and hopeful and believing and confused. Each thing he learned was so simple and obvious, once he grasped it, that he wondered why he had not always known it. And what had he learned? A philosopher would not think it much, perhaps, and yet in a simple human way it was a good deal. Just by living, my making the thousand little daily choices that his whole complex of heredity, environment, and conscious thought, and deep emotion had driven him to make, and by taking the consequences, he had learned that he could not eat his cake and have it, too. He had learned that in spite of his strange body, so much off scale that it had often made him think himself a creature set apart, he was still the son and brother of all men living. He had learned that he could not devour the earth, that he must know and accept his limitations. He realized that much of his torment of the years past had been self-inflicted, and an inevitable part of growing up. And, most important of all for one who had taken so long to grow up, he thought he had learned not to be the slave of his emotions.	maturity experience	Thomas Wolfe
7a5b80a	One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.	learning life-experience experience	Frank Herbert
331ffaa	The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed open the door and went in. She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library past and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass.	library reading feelings books smell mood read experience	Betty Smith
67eaa0d	Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.	experience europe inequality	Thomas Jefferson
f798659	There is no experience like having children.' That's all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.	having-children responsibility family life love truth experience children	Mitch Albom
07f42f2	There is a fullness and calmness there which can come only from knowing pain.	pain experience	Dan Simmons
f70e0da	Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life - it has given me . It has provided time and experience and failures and triumphs and time-tested friends who have helped me step into the shape that was waiting for me. I fit into me now. I have an organic life, finally, not necessarily the one people imagined for me, or tried to get me to have. I have the life I longed for. I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I would be.	life maturing getting-older contentment experience aging	Anne Lamott
ddcc79a	Grown people know that they do not always know the way of things, and even if they think they know, they do not know where and how they got the proof.	youth wisdom experience	Zora Neale Hurston
01b3a26	A brain was only capable of what it could conceive, and it couldn't conceive what it had never experienced	mind human concieve capable experience thoughtful	Graham Greene
29fa383	We learn words by rote, but not their meaning; that must be paid for with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves.	words literature feeling growth experience	George Eliot
d34d41f	There is nothing passive about mindfulness. One might even say that it expresses a specific kind of passion--a passion for discerning what is subjectively real in every moment. It is a mode of cognition that is, above all, undistracted, accepting, and (ultimately) nonconceptual. Being mindful is not a matter of thinking more clearly about experience; it is the act of experiencing more clearly, including the arising of thoughts themselves. Mindfulness is a vivid awareness of whatever is appearing in one's mind or body--thoughts, sensations, moods--without grasping at the pleasant or recoiling from the unpleasant.	spirituality mindfulness experience	Sam Harris
9b5d953	We all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born.	motive experience	George Eliot
49995dd	We are accustomed to repeating the cliche, and to believing, that 'our most precious resource is our children.' But we have plenty of children to go around, God knows, and as with Doritos, we can always make more. The true scarcity we face is practicing adults, of people who know how marginal, how fragile, how finite their lives and their stories and their ambitions really are but who find value in this knowledge, even a sense of strange comfort, because they know their condition is universal, is shared.	communality clichés obscurity experience children	Michael Chabon
912da8d	To care means first of all to empty our own cup and to allow the other to come close to us. It means to take away the many barriers which prevent us from entering into communion with the other. When we dare to care, then we discover that nothing human is foreign to us, but that all the hatred and love, cruelty and compassion, fear and joy can be found in our own hearts. When we dare to care, we have to confess that when others kill, I could have killed too. When others torture, I could have done the same. When others heal, I could have healed too. And when others give life, I could have done the same. Then we experience that we can be present to the soldier who kills, to the guard who pesters, to the young man who plays as if life has no end, and to the old man who stopped playing out of fear for death. By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness, we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but powerless, not to be different but the same, not to take our pain away but to share it. Through this participation we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community.	mankind jesus empathy community church experience	Henri J.M. Nouwen
ce254d8	"Adults, in their dealing with children, are insane," he [Ed Ricketts] said. "And children know it too. Adults lay down rules they would not think of following, speak truths they do not believe. And yet they expect children to obey the rules, believe the truths, and admire and respect their parents for this nonsense. Children must be very wise and secret to tolerate adults at all. And the greatest nonsense of all that adults expect children to believe is that people learn by experience. No greater lie was ever revered. And its falseness is immediately discerned by children since their parents obviously have not learned anything by experience. Far from learning, adults simply become set in a maze of prejudices and dreams and sets of rules whose origins they do not know and would not dare inspect for fear the whole structure might topple over on them. I think children instinctively know this," Ed said. "Intelligent children learn to conceal their knowledge and keep free of this howling mania."	learning education experience children	John Steinbeck
cccd2a3	The power to concentrate was the most important thing. Living without this power would be like opening one's eyes without seeing anything.	vision experience	Haruki Murakami
b98549c	Death followed by eternity the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible thought.	death life eternity experience	Tom Stoppard
ed85cb3	What was to be the value of the long looked forward to, Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders, Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit? The serenity only a deliberate hebetude, The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets Useless in the darkness into which they peered Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us, At best, only a limited value In the knowledge derived from experience. The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies, For the pattern is new in every moment And every moment is a new and shocking Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.	wisdom maturity experience knowledge	T.S. Eliot
7e7d96d	The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience.	language experience	Chinua Achebe
9356679	With age comes acumen. With experience comes insight.	life-lessons maturity experience	Chris Bohjalian
baae42c	Many besides Angel have learnt that the magnitude of lives is not as to their external displacements but as to their subjective experiences.	life displacement importance experience	Thomas Hardy
fdd915e	Experience has tutored me well that most will lie or cheat to get the better hand. It's why I prefer solitude to social interaction. - Bethany	solitude life experience lie	Sherrilyn Kenyon
a97baf4	"YOU HAVE TO BE STRONG ENOUGH TO BE WEAK Allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling. Notice any labels you attach to crying or feeling vulnerable. Let go of the labels. Just feel what you are feeling, all the while cultivating moment-to-moment awareness, riding the waves of "up" and "down," "good" and "bad," "weak" and "strong," until you see that they are all inadequate to fully describe your experience. Be with the experience itself. Trust in your deepest strength of all: to be present, to be wakeful."	present labels weak trust strength moment-to-moment-awareness riding-the-waves up-and-down wakeful weak-and-strong good-and-bad feeling mindfulness meditation experience strong vulnerable	Jon Kabat-Zinn
a6d036a	The two of them simply weren't attracted to just any attractive, eligible man; they were attracted rarely, but when it happened, it was evidently a life-altering experience.	life experience	Judith McNaught
7925348	It [enlightenment] has not come to you by means of teaching! And-thus is my thought, oh exalted one,-nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! (character of Siddhartha, speaking to the Buddha)	enlightenment experience	Hermann Hesse
27f5af6	The spoken word has come to dominate many Protestant forms of worship: the words of prayers, responsive readings, Scripture, the sermon, and so forth. Yet the spoken word is perhaps the least effective way of reaching the heart; one must constantly pay attention with one's mind. The spoken word tends to go to our heads, not our hearts.	words faith god language experience	Marcus J. Borg
8c16c1b	A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel... he must lay the best coffee hearth to attract the finest men... a good ruler has to learn his world's language... it's different for every world... the language of the rocks and growing things... the language you don't hear just with your ears... the Mystery of Life... not a problem to solve, but a reality to experience... Understanding must move with the flow of the process.	understanding problem leadership reality life flow team languages experience mystery persuasion process	Frank Herbert
152ae51	[W]hat one has as a born Catholic is something given and accepted before it is experienced. I am only slowly coming to experience things that I have all along accepted. I suppose the fullest writing comes from what has been accepted and experienced both and that I have just not got that far yet all the time. Conviction without experience makes for harshness.	writing conviction experience	Flannery O'Connor
86fa944	Grant was something rare in that or any war. He could learn from experience.	learning american-civil-war-biography experience mistakes	Shelby Foote
1afff43	Buttercup dried her tears and began to smile. She took a deep breath, heaved a sigh. It was all part of growing up. You got these little quick passions, you blinked, and they were gone. You forgave faults, found perfection, fell madly; then the next day the sun came up and it was over. Chalk it up to experience, old girl, and get on with the morning.	passion youth growing-pains experience	William Goldman
a5c8412	... in moments of crisis our thoughts do not run consecutively but rather sweep over us in waves or intuition and experience ...	intuition experience thinking	John le Carré
4aa4630	"The repugnance to what must ensue almost immediately, and the uncertainty, were dreadful, he said; but worst of all was the idea, 'What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge and count up every minute of it, so as to waste not a single instant!' He said that this thought weighed so upon him and became such a terrible burden upon his brain that he could not bear it, and wished they would shoot him quickly and have done with it." The prince paused and all waited, expecting him to go on again and finish the story. "Is that all?" asked Aglaya. "All? Yes," said the prince, emerging from a momentary reverie. "And why did you tell us this?" "Oh, I happened to recall it, that's all! It fitted into the conversation--" "You probably wish to deduce, prince," said Alexandra, "that moments of time cannot be reckoned by money value, and that sometimes five minutes are worth priceless treasures. All this is very praiseworthy; but may I ask about this friend of yours, who told you the terrible experience of his life? He was reprieved, you say; in other words, they did restore to him that 'eternity of days.' What did he do with these riches of time? Did he keep careful account of his minutes?" "Oh no, he didn't! I asked him myself. He said that he had not lived a bit as he had intended, and had wasted many, and many a minute." "Very well, then there's an experiment, and the thing is proved; one cannot live and count each moment; say what you like, but one cannot." "That is true," said the prince, "I have thought so myself. And yet, why shouldn't one do it?" "You think, then, that you could live more wisely than other people?" said Aglaya. "I have had that idea." "And you have it still?" "Yes -- I have it still," the prince replied."	living-wakefully wasting-time wakefulness value experience awareness	Fyodor Dostoyevsky
71c6e5b	What these people were trying to create or re-create here in this new world is beyond me. I can't put myself in their minds or their hearts, but I can sympathize with their struggle for an identity, with their puzzlement, which has troubled Americans from the very beginning - Who are we, where do we fit in, where are we going?	life experience	Nelson DeMille
79f1f84	Look, Miranda, he said, those twenty long years that lie between you and me. I've more knowledge of life than you, I've lived more and betrayed more and seen more betrayed. At your age one is bursting with ideals. You think that because I can sometimes see what's trivial and what's important in art that I ought to be more virtuous. But I don't want to be virtuous. My charm (if there is any) for you is simply frankness. And experience. Not goodness. I'm not a good man. Perhaps morally I'm younger even than you are. Can you understand that?	virtue good goodness life betrayed bursting younger older trivial ideals virtuous years frank old frankness betray important understand ideal experience charm knowledge betrayal young	John Fowles
587c4a0	The spaces between the perceiver and the thing perceived can [...] be closed with a shout of recognition.	recognition experience perception knowledge	Timothy Findley
e74cb1e	"When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy.But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud. As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals."	idealism youth politics practicality experience	G.K. Chesterton
a702efb	We haven't remained idle, twiddling our thumbs while you were off having a good time. Through books Cathy and I have lived a zillion lives . . . our vicarious way to feel alive.	live reading books book-reading lived vicarious abandonement good-time thumbs alive idle away read experience lives children	V.C. Andrews
20bb239	Polarities of the 'authentic' vs. the 'inauthentic' are easily discernible in recreational modes. The criteria of authenticity are not necessarily objective but rather have to do with the rules by which the self allows or disallows its own experience.	genuineness the-self existentialism experience	Walker Percy
91ef39d	"Reading well is one of the great pleasures	solitude great healing experience pleasures	Harold Bloom
3e467eb	We do not teach history; we recreate the experience. We follow the chain of consequences - the tracks of the beast in its forest. Look behind our words and you see the broad sweep of social behavior that no historian has ever touched.	history personal-history social-history materialism experience	Frank Herbert
6f0983f	One must not make too much of anything in life, good or bad.	good life wisdom experience	Joseph Conrad
d96aeaf	In a number of workshops, I have asked people whether they have had one or more experiences that they would identify as an experience of God and, if so, to share them in small groups. On average, 80 percent of the participants identify one or more and are eager to talk about them. They also frequently report that they had never before been asked that question in a church setting or given an opportunity to talk about it.	faith god experience	Marcus J. Borg
0b15e8b	When the course of experience made me see that there is no saviour and no special grace, no remission beyond the human, that pain is to be endured and fades, if it fades, only with time, then God became nothing to me but a dyslexic dog, with neither bark nor bite.	experience	Yann Martel
a3d4f00	The benefit of appearing so young is I'm constantly underestimated	zitora judgement experience	Maria V. Snyder
8abaca1	You know what's wrong with scientific power?... It's a form of inherited wealth... Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual Guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline. Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it. But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step... There is no discipline... no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature... A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits.	responsibility science life meaning-of-life hard-work experience	Michael Crichton
67f40fc	In return, Giovanni told me that empathizing Italians say L'ho provato sulla mia pelle, which means 'I have experienced that on my own skin.' Meaning, I have also been burned or scarred in this way, and I know exactly what you're going through.	italian experience scars	Elizabeth Gilbert
16459c2	"Old soul." I laughed. "You're Thirty." "It's not the years, it's the experience," he paused."	janco old-soul opal-cowan experience	Maria V. Snyder
b3cda6a	People are like that .... They need to make their own worst experiences universal. It gives them a kind of support.' And who can blame them? It is just infuriating to argue with someone like that; because of an experience that has denied them their humanity, they go around denying another kind of humanity in others, which is the truth of human variety -- it stands alongside our sameness.	rape humanity victimhood experience	John Irving
3f02975	Or we'll go that way. Or we'll walk on the highways now, and we'll have time to put things into ourselves. And some day, after it sets in us a long time, it'll come out of our hands and our mouths. And a lot of it will be wrong, but just enough of it will be right. We'll just start walking today and see the world and the way the world walks around and talks, the way it really looks. I want to see everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it'll all gather together inside and it'll be me. Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it's finally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get hold of it so it'll never run off. I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning.	travel strength life inspirational experience	Ray Bradbury
ca777ae	Then turn your eyes back on me, and tell me that Cathy and I are still children to be treated with condescension, and are incapable of understanding adult subjects. We haven't remained idle, twiddling our thumbs while you were off having a good time.	understanding kids youth philosophy wisdom abandonement adult-subjects condescension good-time thumbs incapable subjects away idleness understand experience children condescending eyes	V.C. Andrews
e3772d4	I was born with the ability to see in metaphor.	metaphor seeing writing listen experience listening	Mark Nepo
6954114	And I learned that it's a bad idea to curse if you're in trouble, but a good idea to sing, if you can.	experience	Tobias Wolff
b051b37	grys khwdsh nmy dnst chqdr srd st, fkr my krd shtyqy kh nshn my dhd byd mnjr bh ldht hyy shwd kh, dr khlwt w khyl, b anh ashn bwd, w Hss my krd z an bh b`dsh r mwry byd bh `hdh bgyrd. kh nmy grft.	feeling experience	Alice Munro
c176a54	Every religion in the world has had a subset of devotees who seek a direct, transcendent experience with God, excusing themselves from fundamentalist scriptural or dogmatic study in order to personally encounter the divine.	spirituality personally-encounter experience	Elizabeth Gilbert
8433a07	"You must convince your chiefs that what you're telling 'em is important, which ain't difficult, since they want to believe you, having chiefs of their own to satisfy; make as much mystery of your methods as you can; hint what a thoroughgoing ruffian you can be in a good cause, but never forget that innocence shines brighter than any virtue, "Flashman? Extraordinary fellow - kicks 'em in the crotch with the heart of a child"; remember that silence frequently passes for shrewdness, and that while suppressio veri is a damned good servant, suggestio falsi is a perilous master."	philosophy wisdom the-way-the-world-works knowledge-of-self experience hedonism human-nature	George MacDonald Fraser
5f26af8	The worth is in the act. Your worth halts when you surrender the will to change and experience life. - Saphira	worth change experience surrender	Christopher Paolini
2442779	Agora penso que e verdade, como se costuma dizer - disse Mahamut -, que o que a gente sabe sentir sabe dizer, mesmo que algumas vezes a emocao emudeca a lingua.	narrative experience	Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
8bbf670	For a merely conscious being, death is the cessation of experiences, in much the same way that birth is the beginning of experiences. Death cannot be contrary to an interest in continued life any more than birth could be in accordance with an interest in commencing life. To this extent, with merely conscious beings, birth and death cancel each other out; whereas with self-aware beings, the fact that one may desire to continue living means that death inflicts a loss for which the birth of another is insufficient compensation.	utilitarianism preference ethics experience	Peter Singer
6de872d	Agora penso que e verdad, como se costuma dizer - disse Mahamut -, que o que a gente sabe sentir sabe dizer, mesmo que algumas vezes a emocao emudeca a lingua.	narrative experience	Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
63ac17d	Hvis dette bare hadde hendt et annet sted, i et annet land, og vi hadde lest om det i avisen! Da hadde vi kunnet snakke om det i fred og ro, studere sporsmalet fra alle sider, og trekke objektive slutninger. Vi kunne ha organisert diskusjonsmoter og fatt vitenskapsmenn, forfattere, jurister, laerde damer og kunstnere til a komme. Ja, alminnelige mennesker ogsa. Det ville vaert interessant, spennende og laererikt. Men nar en star midt oppe i det, nar en plutselig befinner seg ansikt til ansikt med den brutale virkeligheten, sa kan en ikke la vaere a fole at det angar en.	here-and-now rhinoceros objectivity subjectivity experience	Eugène Ionesco

Turn your wounds into wisdom.

pain wisdom inspirational wounds experience

Oprah Winfrey

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Don't let the expectations and opinions of other people affect your decisions. It's your life, not theirs. Do what matters most to you; do what makes you feel alive and happy. Don't let the expectations and ideas of others limit who you are. If you let others tell you who you are, you are living their reality -- not yours. There is more to life than pleasing people. There is much more to life than following others' prescribed path. There is so much more to life than what you experience right now. You need to decide who you are for yourself. Become a whole being. Adventure.

action whole-being confidence inspiration inspirational-quotes inspire life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking optimism life inspirational who-you-are authentic-self authentic-living adventure authenticity experience

Roy T. Bennett

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The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.

life inspirational live-in-the-moment enjoy-life purpose-of-life adventure carpe-diem experience

Eleanor Roosevelt

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Don't Jus

action criticize dream learning inspiration inspirational-attitude inspirational-life inspirational-quotes inspire life-and-living life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life dreams change inspiring positive positive-thinking life-lessons optimism life inspirational inspirational-quote transform act feeling doing giving encouragement ponder experience listening life-philosophy thinking

Roy T. Bennett

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Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it's all an experience.

gratitude inspiration inspirational-quotes inspire life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking optimism life inspirational experience thankful

Roy T. Bennett

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I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.

men equality women-s-rights self-determination independence women freedom reason empowerment superiority submission experience gender

Charlotte Brontë

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We learn from failure, not from success!

learning wisdom records experience mistakes

Bram Stoker

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Pain is a pesky part of being human, I've learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can't be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.

wisdom-in-life pain freedom learning beauty inspirational-life inspirational-quotes life-and-living living inspiring life-lessons life wisdom inspirational living-life heal growing flying healing painful flight wisdom-quotes growth hurt wind experience wings hurting

C. JoyBell C.

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No matter how long you train someone to be brave, you never know if they are or not until something real happens.

dauntless bravery courage life training experience

Veronica Roth

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All knowledge hurts.

wisdom disillusionment experience knowledge

Cassandra Clare

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Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.

life variety experience wine

Paulo Coelho

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Some things cannot be taught; they must be experienced. You never learn the most valuable lessons in life until you go through your own journey.

learning inspiration inspirational-quotes inspire life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking optimism life inspirational lessons-in-life teach experience

Roy T. Bennett

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And if my heart be scarred and burned

inspirational experience

Dorothy Parker

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We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.

mourning grief suffering reality personal-experience others experience

C.S. Lewis

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How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?

understanding experience

Orhan Pamuk

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I don't really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more. I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits

living strength life experience

Anaïs Nin

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Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.

courage writing empowerment strength guenter-grass record-of-life creative-process experience memory

Salman Rushdie

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"People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept, but still a religion, it doesn't matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn't the fear of God but the upholding of one's own honor and conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the while day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that: "A quiet conscience mades one strong!"

true people life-lessons life truth wisdom inspirational wisdom-quote experience consciousness

Anne Frank

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No matter how much experience you have, there's always something new you can learn and room for improvement.

learning inspiration inspirational-attitude inspirational-life inspirational-quotes inspire life-and-living life-quotes living motivation optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking motivational life-lessons optimism life inspirational improvement experience

Roy T. Bennett

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To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.

doubt faith religion scepticism dogma experience kool-aid

Christopher Hitchens

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Sometimes you have to steer away from the crowd in order to be a better person. It's not always easy, that's for sure. But it's right. And sometimes doing the right thing feels good, even if it does end up in a trip to the principal's office.

truth inspirational experience

Simone Elkeles

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Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.

pain feel experience

P.D. James

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When I was a child I truly loved: Unthinking love as calm and deep As the North Sea. But I have lived, And now I do not sleep.

life love maturity experience

John Gardner

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This world is your best teacher. There is a lesson in everything. There is a lesson in each experience. Learn it and become wise. Every failure is a stepping stone to success. Every difficulty or disappointment is a trial of your faith. Every unpleasant incident or temptation is a test of your inner strength. Therefore nil desperandum. March forward hero!

wisdom inspirational experience

Sivananda

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Reason, Observation and Experience -- the Holy Trinity of Science -- have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect.

nature reason inspiration science happiness hope content holy-trinity trinity observation experience supernatural

Robert Green Ingersoll

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It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.

love rural-life john-watson countryside vile sherlock-holmes experience smiling beautiful london sin

Arthur Conan Doyle

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The moral of the story is even though that seemed like the end of the world back then, right now I can look back on it and laugh. And if anyone is going through something similar right now just know it will get better.

life-gets-better looking-ahead past-experiences sadness life-lessons love inspirational life-advice dating-advice experience

Phil Lester

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Strange how something good can come from something horrible.

good horibble experience

Jennifer L. Armentrout

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The past is a place of learning, not a place of living.

learning inspiration inspirational-quotes inspire life-quotes living inspiring life inspirational experience

Roy T. Bennett

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He had learned some of the things that every man must find out for himself, and he had found out about them as one has to find out--through error and through trial, through fantasy and illusion, through falsehood and his own damn foolishness, through being mistaken and wrong and an idiot and egotistical and aspiring and hopeful and believing and confused. Each thing he learned was so simple and obvious, once he grasped it, that he wondered why he had not always known it. And what had he learned? A philosopher would not think it much, perhaps, and yet in a simple human way it was a good deal. Just by living, my making the thousand little daily choices that his whole complex of heredity, environment, and conscious thought, and deep emotion had driven him to make, and by taking the consequences, he had learned that he could not eat his cake and have it, too. He had learned that in spite of his strange body, so much off scale that it had often made him think himself a creature set apart, he was still the son and brother of all men living. He had learned that he could not devour the earth, that he must know and accept his limitations. He realized that much of his torment of the years past had been self-inflicted, and an inevitable part of growing up. And, most important of all for one who had taken so long to grow up, he thought he had learned not to be the slave of his emotions.

maturity experience

Thomas Wolfe

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One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.

learning life-experience experience

Frank Herbert

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The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed open the door and went in. She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library past and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass.

library reading feelings books smell mood read experience

Betty Smith

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Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

experience europe inequality

Thomas Jefferson

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There is no experience like having children.' That's all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.

having-children responsibility family life love truth experience children

Mitch Albom

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There is a fullness and calmness there which can come only from knowing pain.

pain experience

Dan Simmons

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Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life - it has given me . It has provided time and experience and failures and triumphs and time-tested friends who have helped me step into the shape that was waiting for me. I fit into me now. I have an organic life, finally, not necessarily the one people imagined for me, or tried to get me to have. I have the life I longed for. I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I would be.

life maturing getting-older contentment experience aging

Anne Lamott

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Grown people know that they do not always know the way of things, and even if they think they know, they do not know where and how they got the proof.

youth wisdom experience

Zora Neale Hurston

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A brain was only capable of what it could conceive, and it couldn't conceive what it had never experienced

mind human concieve capable experience thoughtful

Graham Greene

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We learn words by rote, but not their meaning; that must be paid for with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves.

words literature feeling growth experience

George Eliot

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There is nothing passive about mindfulness. One might even say that it expresses a specific kind of passion--a passion for discerning what is subjectively real in every moment. It is a mode of cognition that is, above all, undistracted, accepting, and (ultimately) nonconceptual. Being mindful is not a matter of thinking more clearly about experience; it is the act of experiencing more clearly, including the arising of thoughts themselves. Mindfulness is a vivid awareness of whatever is appearing in one's mind or body--thoughts, sensations, moods--without grasping at the pleasant or recoiling from the unpleasant.

spirituality mindfulness experience

Sam Harris

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We all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born.

motive experience

George Eliot

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We are accustomed to repeating the cliche, and to believing, that 'our most precious resource is our children.' But we have plenty of children to go around, God knows, and as with Doritos, we can always make more. The true scarcity we face is practicing adults, of people who know how marginal, how fragile, how finite their lives and their stories and their ambitions really are but who find value in this knowledge, even a sense of strange comfort, because they know their condition is universal, is shared.

communality clichés obscurity experience children

Michael Chabon

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To care means first of all to empty our own cup and to allow the other to come close to us. It means to take away the many barriers which prevent us from entering into communion with the other. When we dare to care, then we discover that nothing human is foreign to us, but that all the hatred and love, cruelty and compassion, fear and joy can be found in our own hearts. When we dare to care, we have to confess that when others kill, I could have killed too. When others torture, I could have done the same. When others heal, I could have healed too. And when others give life, I could have done the same. Then we experience that we can be present to the soldier who kills, to the guard who pesters, to the young man who plays as if life has no end, and to the old man who stopped playing out of fear for death. By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness, we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but powerless, not to be different but the same, not to take our pain away but to share it. Through this participation we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community.

mankind jesus empathy community church experience

Henri J.M. Nouwen

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"Adults, in their dealing with children, are insane," he [Ed Ricketts] said. "And children know it too. Adults lay down rules they would not think of following, speak truths they do not believe. And yet they expect children to obey the rules, believe the truths, and admire and respect their parents for this nonsense. Children must be very wise and secret to tolerate adults at all. And the greatest nonsense of all that adults expect children to believe is that people learn by experience. No greater lie was ever revered. And its falseness is immediately discerned by children since their parents obviously have not learned anything by experience. Far from learning, adults simply become set in a maze of prejudices and dreams and sets of rules whose origins they do not know and would not dare inspect for fear the whole structure might topple over on them. I think children instinctively know this," Ed said. "Intelligent children learn to conceal their knowledge and keep free of this howling mania."

learning education experience children

John Steinbeck

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The power to concentrate was the most important thing. Living without this power would be like opening one's eyes without seeing anything.

vision experience

Haruki Murakami

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Death followed by eternity the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible thought.

death life eternity experience

Tom Stoppard

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What was to be the value of the long looked forward to, Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders, Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit? The serenity only a deliberate hebetude, The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets Useless in the darkness into which they peered Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us, At best, only a limited value In the knowledge derived from experience. The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies, For the pattern is new in every moment And every moment is a new and shocking Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.

wisdom maturity experience knowledge

T.S. Eliot

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The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience.

language experience

Chinua Achebe

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With age comes acumen. With experience comes insight.

life-lessons maturity experience

Chris Bohjalian

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Many besides Angel have learnt that the magnitude of lives is not as to their external displacements but as to their subjective experiences.

life displacement importance experience

Thomas Hardy

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Experience has tutored me well that most will lie or cheat to get the better hand. It's why I prefer solitude to social interaction. - Bethany

solitude life experience lie

Sherrilyn Kenyon

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"YOU HAVE TO BE STRONG ENOUGH TO BE WEAK Allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling. Notice any labels you attach to crying or feeling vulnerable. Let go of the labels. Just feel what you are feeling, all the while cultivating moment-to-moment awareness, riding the waves of "up" and "down," "good" and "bad," "weak" and "strong," until you see that they are all inadequate to fully describe your experience. Be with the experience itself. Trust in your deepest strength of all: to be present, to be wakeful."

present labels weak trust strength moment-to-moment-awareness riding-the-waves up-and-down wakeful weak-and-strong good-and-bad feeling mindfulness meditation experience strong vulnerable

Jon Kabat-Zinn

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The two of them simply weren't attracted to just any attractive, eligible man; they were attracted rarely, but when it happened, it was evidently a life-altering experience.

life experience

Judith McNaught

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It [enlightenment] has not come to you by means of teaching! And-thus is my thought, oh exalted one,-nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! (character of Siddhartha, speaking to the Buddha)

enlightenment experience

Hermann Hesse

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The spoken word has come to dominate many Protestant forms of worship: the words of prayers, responsive readings, Scripture, the sermon, and so forth. Yet the spoken word is perhaps the least effective way of reaching the heart; one must constantly pay attention with one's mind. The spoken word tends to go to our heads, not our hearts.

words faith god language experience

Marcus J. Borg

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A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel... he must lay the best coffee hearth to attract the finest men... a good ruler has to learn his world's language... it's different for every world... the language of the rocks and growing things... the language you don't hear just with your ears... the Mystery of Life... not a problem to solve, but a reality to experience... Understanding must move with the flow of the process.

understanding problem leadership reality life flow team languages experience mystery persuasion process

Frank Herbert

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[W]hat one has as a born Catholic is something given and accepted before it is experienced. I am only slowly coming to experience things that I have all along accepted. I suppose the fullest writing comes from what has been accepted and experienced both and that I have just not got that far yet all the time. Conviction without experience makes for harshness.

writing conviction experience

Flannery O'Connor

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Grant was something rare in that or any war. He could learn from experience.

learning american-civil-war-biography experience mistakes

Shelby Foote

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Buttercup dried her tears and began to smile. She took a deep breath, heaved a sigh. It was all part of growing up. You got these little quick passions, you blinked, and they were gone. You forgave faults, found perfection, fell madly; then the next day the sun came up and it was over. Chalk it up to experience, old girl, and get on with the morning.

passion youth growing-pains experience

William Goldman

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... in moments of crisis our thoughts do not run consecutively but rather sweep over us in waves or intuition and experience ...

intuition experience thinking

John le Carré

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"The repugnance to what must ensue almost immediately, and the uncertainty, were dreadful, he said; but worst of all was the idea, 'What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge and count up every minute of it, so as to waste not a single instant!' He said that this thought weighed so upon him and became such a terrible burden upon his brain that he could not bear it, and wished they would shoot him quickly and have done with it." The prince paused and all waited, expecting him to go on again and finish the story. "Is that all?" asked Aglaya. "All? Yes," said the prince, emerging from a momentary reverie. "And why did you tell us this?" "Oh, I happened to recall it, that's all! It fitted into the conversation--" "You probably wish to deduce, prince," said Alexandra, "that moments of time cannot be reckoned by money value, and that sometimes five minutes are worth priceless treasures. All this is very praiseworthy; but may I ask about this friend of yours, who told you the terrible experience of his life? He was reprieved, you say; in other words, they did restore to him that 'eternity of days.' What did he do with these riches of time? Did he keep careful account of his minutes?" "Oh no, he didn't! I asked him myself. He said that he had not lived a bit as he had intended, and had wasted many, and many a minute." "Very well, then there's an experiment, and the thing is proved; one cannot live and count each moment; say what you like, but one cannot." "That is true," said the prince, "I have thought so myself. And yet, why shouldn't one do it?" "You think, then, that you could live more wisely than other people?" said Aglaya. "I have had that idea." "And you have it still?" "Yes -- I have it still," the prince replied."

living-wakefully wasting-time wakefulness value experience awareness

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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What these people were trying to create or re-create here in this new world is beyond me. I can't put myself in their minds or their hearts, but I can sympathize with their struggle for an identity, with their puzzlement, which has troubled Americans from the very beginning - Who are we, where do we fit in, where are we going?

life experience

Nelson DeMille

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Look, Miranda, he said, those twenty long years that lie between you and me. I've more knowledge of life than you, I've lived more and betrayed more and seen more betrayed. At your age one is bursting with ideals. You think that because I can sometimes see what's trivial and what's important in art that I ought to be more virtuous. But I don't want to be virtuous. My charm (if there is any) for you is simply frankness. And experience. Not goodness. I'm not a good man. Perhaps morally I'm younger even than you are. Can you understand that?

virtue good goodness life betrayed bursting younger older trivial ideals virtuous years frank old frankness betray important understand ideal experience charm knowledge betrayal young

John Fowles

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The spaces between the perceiver and the thing perceived can [...] be closed with a shout of recognition.

recognition experience perception knowledge

Timothy Findley

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"When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy.But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud. As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals."

idealism youth politics practicality experience

G.K. Chesterton

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We haven't remained idle, twiddling our thumbs while you were off having a good time. Through books Cathy and I have lived a zillion lives . . . our vicarious way to feel alive.

live reading books book-reading lived vicarious abandonement good-time thumbs alive idle away read experience lives children

V.C. Andrews

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Polarities of the 'authentic' vs. the 'inauthentic' are easily discernible in recreational modes. The criteria of authenticity are not necessarily objective but rather have to do with the rules by which the self allows or disallows its own experience.

genuineness the-self existentialism experience

Walker Percy

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"Reading well is one of the great pleasures

solitude great healing experience pleasures

Harold Bloom

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We do not teach history; we recreate the experience. We follow the chain of consequences - the tracks of the beast in its forest. Look behind our words and you see the broad sweep of social behavior that no historian has ever touched.

history personal-history social-history materialism experience

Frank Herbert

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One must not make too much of anything in life, good or bad.

good life wisdom experience

Joseph Conrad

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In a number of workshops, I have asked people whether they have had one or more experiences that they would identify as an experience of God and, if so, to share them in small groups. On average, 80 percent of the participants identify one or more and are eager to talk about them. They also frequently report that they had never before been asked that question in a church setting or given an opportunity to talk about it.

faith god experience

Marcus J. Borg

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When the course of experience made me see that there is no saviour and no special grace, no remission beyond the human, that pain is to be endured and fades, if it fades, only with time, then God became nothing to me but a dyslexic dog, with neither bark nor bite.

experience

Yann Martel

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The benefit of appearing so young is I'm constantly underestimated

zitora judgement experience

Maria V. Snyder

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You know what's wrong with scientific power?... It's a form of inherited wealth... Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual Guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline. Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it. But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step... There is no discipline... no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature... A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits.

responsibility science life meaning-of-life hard-work experience

Michael Crichton

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In return, Giovanni told me that empathizing Italians say L'ho provato sulla mia pelle, which means 'I have experienced that on my own skin.' Meaning, I have also been burned or scarred in this way, and I know exactly what you're going through.

italian experience scars

Elizabeth Gilbert

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"Old soul." I laughed. "You're Thirty." "It's not the years, it's the experience," he paused."

janco old-soul opal-cowan experience

Maria V. Snyder

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People are like that .... They need to make their own worst experiences universal. It gives them a kind of support.' And who can blame them? It is just infuriating to argue with someone like that; because of an experience that has denied them their humanity, they go around denying another kind of humanity in others, which is the truth of human variety -- it stands alongside our sameness.

rape humanity victimhood experience

John Irving

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Or we'll go that way. Or we'll walk on the highways now, and we'll have time to put things into ourselves. And some day, after it sets in us a long time, it'll come out of our hands and our mouths. And a lot of it will be wrong, but just enough of it will be right. We'll just start walking today and see the world and the way the world walks around and talks, the way it really looks. I want to see everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it'll all gather together inside and it'll be me. Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it's finally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get hold of it so it'll never run off. I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning.

travel strength life inspirational experience

Ray Bradbury

ca777ae

Then turn your eyes back on me, and tell me that Cathy and I are still children to be treated with condescension, and are incapable of understanding adult subjects. We haven't remained idle, twiddling our thumbs while you were off having a good time.

understanding kids youth philosophy wisdom abandonement adult-subjects condescension good-time thumbs incapable subjects away idleness understand experience children condescending eyes

V.C. Andrews

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I was born with the ability to see in metaphor.

metaphor seeing writing listen experience listening

Mark Nepo

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And I learned that it's a bad idea to curse if you're in trouble, but a good idea to sing, if you can.

experience

Tobias Wolff

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grys khwdsh nmy dnst chqdr srd st, fkr my krd shtyqy kh nshn my dhd byd mnjr bh ldht hyy shwd kh, dr khlwt w khyl, b anh ashn bwd, w Hss my krd z an bh b`dsh r mwry byd bh `hdh bgyrd. kh nmy grft.

feeling experience

Alice Munro

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Every religion in the world has had a subset of devotees who seek a direct, transcendent experience with God, excusing themselves from fundamentalist scriptural or dogmatic study in order to personally encounter the divine.

spirituality personally-encounter experience

Elizabeth Gilbert

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"You must convince your chiefs that what you're telling 'em is important, which ain't difficult, since they want to believe you, having chiefs of their own to satisfy; make as much mystery of your methods as you can; hint what a thoroughgoing ruffian you can be in a good cause, but never forget that innocence shines brighter than any virtue, "Flashman? Extraordinary fellow - kicks 'em in the crotch with the heart of a child"; remember that silence frequently passes for shrewdness, and that while suppressio veri is a damned good servant, suggestio falsi is a perilous master."

philosophy wisdom the-way-the-world-works knowledge-of-self experience hedonism human-nature

George MacDonald Fraser

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The worth is in the act. Your worth halts when you surrender the will to change and experience life. - Saphira

worth change experience surrender

Christopher Paolini

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Agora penso que e verdade, como se costuma dizer - disse Mahamut -, que o que a gente sabe sentir sabe dizer, mesmo que algumas vezes a emocao emudeca a lingua.

narrative experience

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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For a merely conscious being, death is the cessation of experiences, in much the same way that birth is the beginning of experiences. Death cannot be contrary to an interest in continued life any more than birth could be in accordance with an interest in commencing life. To this extent, with merely conscious beings, birth and death cancel each other out; whereas with self-aware beings, the fact that one may desire to continue living means that death inflicts a loss for which the birth of another is insufficient compensation.

utilitarianism preference ethics experience

Peter Singer

6de872d

Agora penso que e verdad, como se costuma dizer - disse Mahamut -, que o que a gente sabe sentir sabe dizer, mesmo que algumas vezes a emocao emudeca a lingua.

narrative experience

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

63ac17d

Hvis dette bare hadde hendt et annet sted, i et annet land, og vi hadde lest om det i avisen! Da hadde vi kunnet snakke om det i fred og ro, studere sporsmalet fra alle sider, og trekke objektive slutninger. Vi kunne ha organisert diskusjonsmoter og fatt vitenskapsmenn, forfattere, jurister, laerde damer og kunstnere til a komme. Ja, alminnelige mennesker ogsa. Det ville vaert interessant, spennende og laererikt. Men nar en star midt oppe i det, nar en plutselig befinner seg ansikt til ansikt med den brutale virkeligheten, sa kan en ikke la vaere a fole at det angar en.

here-and-now rhinoceros objectivity subjectivity experience

Eugène Ionesco