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When I was nineteen years old, I discovered a collection of books in the Harvard library written by Jacob Boehme. Do you know of him?" Naturally she knew of him. She had her own copies of these works in the White Acre library. She had read Boehme, though she never admired him. Jacob Boehme was a sixteenth-century cobbler from Germany who had mystical visions about plants. Many people considered him an early botanist. Alma's mother, on the o..
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jacob-boehme
medicinal-herbs
medicinal-plants
mysticism
symbolism
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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cd4d82c
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my fourth day in Rome, my shadow has still not darkened the door way of a church or a museum..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Dar aici este diferenta dintre mintile noastre, draga mea. Eu vreau sa ajung la revelatie purtat de aripi, in timp ce tu inaintezi statornic pe jos, cu lupa in mana. Eu sunt un ratacitor nestatornic, il caut pe Dumnezeu in contururile mari, caut o cale noua de cunoastere. Tu stai cu picioarele pe pamant si masori dovezile palma cu palma. Calea ta e mai rationala si mai metodica, dar eu nu pot sa mi-o schimb pe a mea.
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mbti
sensitive
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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3e92175
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Was I tapping into a universal yearning for God? Did I have a chemical imbalance? Or did I just need to get laid?
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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0c0b78e
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I am more touched, still, that you are trying to understand - through rational thought - that which cannot be understood at all. The divine, as Boehme said, is unground, unfathomable, something outside the world as we experience it. But this is a difference of our minds, dearest one. I wish to arrive on wings, while you advance steadily on foot, magnifying glass in hand. I am a smattering wanderer, seeking God within the outer contours, sea..
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reason
science
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1407b8e
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I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.
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spiritual
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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ffada7f
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Not town can live peacefully, whatever its laws," Plato wrote, "when its citizens ... do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love." But is it such a bad thing to live like this for just a little while? Just for a few months of one's life, is it so awful to travel through time with no greater ambition than to find the next lovely meal? Or to learn how to speak a language for no higher purpose than that it plea..
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peace
travel
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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08f3094
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The hardest part of your life is behind you now.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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43befe3
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Rest assured, dear friend, that many noteworthy and great sciences and arts have been discovered through the understanding and subtlety of women, both in cognitive speculation, demonstrated in writing, and in the arts, manifested in manual works of labor. I will give you plenty of examples. Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies 1405
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9401af2
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Then he asked me to tell him some stories about India, about America, about Italy, about my family. That's when I realized that I am not Ketut Liyer's English teacher, nor am I exactly his theological student, but I am the merest and simplest of pleasures for this old medicine man- I am his company. I'm somebody he can talk to because he enjoys hearing about the world and he hasn't had much of a chance to see it.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9691199
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A sage Portuguese sailor who had told him, years before 'To be prosperous and happy in life, Henry, it is simple. Pick one woman, pick it well, and surrender.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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fa8e999
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just might get lucky enough some random morning to burst right into bloom.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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51689bf
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Cuando te pierdes en un bosque, a veces tardas un rato en darte cuenta de que te has perdido. Te puedes tirar un buen tiempo intentando convencerte de que te has alejado un poco del camino, pero que lo vas a encontrar de aqui a nada. Entonces cae la noche sin parar, y sigues sin tener ni idea de donde estas, y ha llegado el momento de admitir que te has apartado atolondradamente del camino, tanto que ya no sabes ni siquiera por donde sale e..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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148f399
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The other day in prayer I said to God, "Look - I understand that an unexamined life is not worth living, but do you think I could someday have an unexamined lunch?"."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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a40978f
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E melhor viver o nosso proprio destino de forma imperfeita do que uma imitacao da vida de outra pessoa na perfeicao" Bhagavad Gitav"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1e41475
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The fact that this was a fairly accurate portrait of my own mother is a quick indicator of how difficult it once was for me to tell the difference between myself and the powerful woman who had raised me.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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3142e79
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Bravery means doing something scary. Fearlessness means not even understanding what the word scary means.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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65a9019
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If your goal in life is to become fearless, then I believe you're already on the wrong path, because the only truly fearless people I've ever met were straight-up sociopaths and a few exceptionally reckless three-year-olds--and those aren't good role models for anyone.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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3297dfa
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I think a creative life is the most marvelous life there is.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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120f1f9
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Luca's grandfather (who I hope is known as Nonno Spaghetti) gave him his first sky-blue Lazio jersey when the boy was just a toddler. Luca, likewise, will be a Lazio fan until he dies. "We can change our wives," he said. "We can change our jobs, our nationalities and even our religions, but we can never change our team." By the way, the word for "fan" in Italian is tifoso. Derived from the word for typhus. In other words--one who is mightil..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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5d3c4b9
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remember what W. C. Fields had to say on this point: "It ain't what they call you; it's what you answer to." --
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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She stopped feeling like she was nothing more than a consumer, nothing more than the sum of her daily obligations and duties. She was making something
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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2c1ea46
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Pure creativity is something better than a necessity; it's a gift. It's the frosting.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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fbc1f28
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What a stark and stunning thing was life--that such a cataclysm can enter and depart so quickly, and leave such wreckage behind!
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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The city had been founded on the sound principles of religious tolerance, a free press, and good landscaping, by William Penn--a man who grew tree saplings in bathtubs, and who had imagined his metropolis as a great nursery of both plants and ideas.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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233e18e
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Most of all, though, he asked his students to be brave. Without bravery, he instructed, they would never be able to realize the vaulting scope of their own capacities. Without bravery, they would never know the world as richly as it longs to be known. Without bravery, their lives would remain small--far smaller than they probably wanted their lives to be.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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e363b90
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When it comes to romance, I'm always behind you. I am slower. It's like you are the lightening and I am the thunder.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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5e47295
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For the entirety of my young and skittish life, I had fixated upon my fear as if it were the most interesting thing about me, when actually it was the most mundane. In fact, my fear was probably the only 100 percent mundane thing about me. I had creativity within me that was original; I had a personality within me that was original; I had dreams and perspectives and aspirations within me that were original. But my fear was not original in t..
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instinct
tadpole
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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c448add
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Also, he detested people who bought fast horses that they were unskilled to ride. Furthermore, he detested: recreational sailing vessels; surveyors; cheaply made shoes; French (the language, the food, the populace); nervous clerks; tiny porcelain plates which broke in a man's damned hand; poetry (but not songs!); the stooped backs of cowards; thieving sons of whores; a lying tongue; the sound of a violin; the army (any army); tulips ("onion..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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22c3a97
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While it's lovely to be childlike in your pursuit of creativity, in other words, it's dangerous to be childish.)
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1da9d60
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the men in Rome are ridiculously, hurtfully, stupidly beautiful. More beautiful even than Roman women, to be honest.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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fc9220d
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Even if my acquaintance at the publishing party was certain that she herself would never abandon her husband, the question was not entirely up to her. She was not the only person in that bed. All lovers, even the most faithful lovers, are vulnerable to abandonment against their will.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1108082
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Curiosity is what keeps you working steadily, while hotter emotions may come and go.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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846cd78
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You can resist the seductions of grandiosity, blame, and shame. You can support other people in their creative efforts, acknowledging the truth that there's plenty of room for everyone. You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures. You can battle your demons (through therapy, recovery, prayer, or humility) instead of battling your gifts--in part by realizing that your demons were never the on..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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it's a mighty act of human love to remind somebody that they can accomplish things by themselves,
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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6a31435
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count your eggs while they're still up inside the chicken's ass,
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1bcd199
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Do whatever brings you to life, then.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b14e17a
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This proclamation of intent and entitlement is not something you can do just once and then expect miracles; it's something you must do daily, forever.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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aad709b
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Because either way, it's all kind of amazing--what we get to do, what we get to attempt, what we sometimes get to commune with.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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644aa27
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What does any of that have to do with the quiet glory of merely making things, and then sharing those things with an open heart and no expectations?
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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all the good ideas feel daunting at first,
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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91e9dfa
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It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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ea70a2e
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All human beings have needs and temptations and stresses. Men and women who have lived together over long years get to know one another's failings; but they also come to know what is worthy of respect and admiration in those they live with and in themselves.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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7b1a983
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You see, I have never felt the need to invent a world beyond this world, for this world has always seemed large and beautiful enough for me. I have wondered why it is not large and beautiful enough for others--why they must dream up new and marvelous spheres, or long to live elsewhere, beyond this dominion . . . but that is not my business. We are all different, I suppose. All I ever wanted was to know this world. I can say now, as I reach ..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |