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Plantain branches, like these ones here, Sister Whittaker, are also said to be symbolic of the human body. Because of that shape, plantains are used as gestures of peace--as gestures of humanity, you might say. You throw one on the ground at the feet of your enemy, to show your surrender or your willingness to consider compromise.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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as a songwriter, the only thing I really do is make jewelry for the inside of other people's minds.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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I was born into argument. Argument was my first nursemaid. Argument is my lifelong bedfellow. What's more, I believe in argument and I even love it. Argument is our most steadfast pathway toward truth, for it is the only proven arbalest against superstitious thinking, or lackadaisical axioms.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Treasure of my soul," he said. He took one of her hands, brought it to his lips, and kissed it, just above the knuckles, as he had been doing every night for the last month, since their engagement. "You have brought me such peace." "Ambrose," she replied, amazed by his name, amazed by his face. "It is in our sleep that we most closely glimpse the power of the spirit," he said. "Our minds will speak across this narrow distance. It will be he..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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To know God, you need only to renounce one thing--your sense of division from God. Otherwise, just stay as you were made, within your natural character.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Henry sailed from England in July of 1776. The stated objectives of Cook's third expedition were twofold. The first was to sail to Tahiti, to return Sir Joseph Banks's pet--the man named Omai--to his homeland. Omai had grown tired of court life and now longed to return home. He had become sulky and fat and difficult, and Banks had grown tired of his pet. The second task was to then sail north, all the way up the Pacific coast of the America..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Nothing is so essential as dignity, girls, and time will reveal who has it
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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crime is to cut short the experiment of one's own life before its natural end. To do so is a weakness and a pity--for the experiment of life will cut itself off soon enough, in all our cases, and one may just as well have the courage and the curiosity to stay in the battle until one's eventual and inevitable demise. Anything less than a fight for endurance is cowardly. Anything less than a fight for endurance is a refusal of the great coven..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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But I was supposed to want to have a baby.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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at any given moment, and that night, going back to
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.")"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Alma learned that her father drank out of bottles in the evening, and that those bottles sometimes contained danger (raised voices; banishment), but could also contain miracles--such
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Don't fret about the irrationality and unpredictability of all this strangeness. Give in to it. Such is the bizarre, unearthly contract of creative living. There is no theft; there is no ownership; there is no tragedy; there is no problem. There is no time or space where inspiration comes from--and also no competition, no ego, no limitations. There is only the stubbornness of the idea itself, refusing to stop searching until it has found an..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Later in life, when Alma was a woman of science, she would better understand how the introduction of any new element into a controlled environment will alter that environment in manifold and unpredictable ways, but as a child, all she sensed was a hostile invasion and a premonition of doom. Alma did not embrace her interloper with a warm heart. Then again, why should she have? Who among us has ever warmheartedly embraced an interloper?
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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cc8d397
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Find your mercy
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Later in life he reported that he had found his fame boring--not because it was immoral or corrupting, but simply because it was exactly the same thing every day.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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word ciao comes from. (If you must know, it's an abbreviation of a phrase used by medieval Venetians as an intimate salutation: Sono il suo schiavo! Meaning: "I am your slave!")"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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The word paradise, by the way, which comes to us from the Persian, means literally "a walled garden."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Where there is life, George, there is still hope. Death is so terribly final. It will come soon enough
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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If the person of most consequence in the world has chosen to prefer us over all others, then we become accustomed to having what we wish for. Wasn't that the case with you, as well? How can we not feel that we are strong--people like you and me?
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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fact was not merely true about the lives of human beings; it was also true of every living entity on the planet, from the largest creation down to the humblest. It was
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Not merely alive, but outfitted with a mind that was functioning at the uppermost limits of its capacity--a mind that was seeing everything, and understanding everything, as though watching it all from the highest imaginable ridge.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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I believe that we are half-blind and full of errors. I believe that we understand very little, and what we do understand is mostly wrong. I believe that life cannot be survived--that is evident!--but if one is lucky, life can be endured for quite a long while. If one is both lucky and stubborn, life can sometimes even be enjoyed.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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within
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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The writer Rebecca Solnit puts it well: "So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else, because the perfect is not only the enemy of the good; it's also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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said: "We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we're so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don't give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you won't be completely free until you reach your sixties and seventies, when you finally realize this liberating truth--nobody was ever thinking about you, a..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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It may seem a simple pleasure to spoil our children with a treat of sugar, but that pleasure becomes a sin when the sugar was grown by human beings held in unspeakable misery.
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slavery
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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No hay ciudad que pueda vivir pacificamente, sean cuales sean sus leyes>>, escribio Platon, <>.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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is no love which does not become help," taught the theologian Paul Tillich.)"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Which left me with nothing but a dazzled heart and the sense that I live in a most remarkable world, thick with mysteries.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Everything reminds us of something. But once you put your own expression and passion behind an idea, that idea becomes yours.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Do I have the right to experience pleasure and peace? If so, what would bring me pleasure and peace?
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Alma came to admire sailors. She could not imagine how they endured such long periods of time away from the comforts of land. How did they not go mad? The ocean both stunned and disturbed her. Nothing had ever put more of an impression upon her being. It seemed to her the very distillation of matter, the very masterpiece of mysteries. One night they sailed through a diamond field of liquid phosphorescence. The ship churned up strange molecu..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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I recently read a fabulous blog by a writer named Mark Manson, who said that the secret to finding your purpose in life is to answer this question in total honesty: "What's your favorite flavor of shit sandwich?"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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You study Yoga in India, Liss?" he asks. "Yes, Ketut." "You can do Yoga," he says, "but Yoga too hard." Here, he contorts himself in a cramped lotus position and squinches up his face in a comical and constipated-looking effort. Then he breaks free and laughs, asking, "Why they always look so serious in Yoga? You make serious face like this, you scare away good energy. To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and ..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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When you insist on your limitations, you are stuck with them.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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I asked one Sicilian if those buildings were made of cheap concrete and he said, "Oh, no -this is very expensive concrete. In each batch, there are a few bodies of people who were killed by the Mafia, and that costs money. But it does make the concrete stronger to be reinforced with all those bones and teeth."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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I was an exceptionally freaked-out child. My earliest memories are of fear, as are pretty much all the memories that come after my earliest memories. Growing up, I was afraid not only of all the commonly recognized and legitimate childhood dangers: the dark, strangers, the deep end of the swimming pool, but I was also afraid of an extensive list of completely benign things: snow, perfectly nice babysitters, cars, playgrounds, stairs, Sesame..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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The fun part (the part where it doesn't feel like work at all) is when you're actually creating something wonderful, and everything's going great, and everyone loves it, and you're flying high. But such instants are rare.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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excited, I want to pause for a moment and ask you to consider all the negative conclusions that I could have drawn about this incident,
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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But doesn't that make sense? That the infinite would be, indeed... infinite? That even the most holy amongst us would only be able to see scattered pieces of the eternal picture at any given time? And that maybe if we could collect those pieces and compare them, a story about God would begin to emerge that resembles and includes everyone? And isn't our individual longing for transcendence all just part of this larger human search for divini..
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spirituality
life
infinity
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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utopia, a place that has known only peace and harmony and balance
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Work with all your heart, because - I promise - if you show up for your work day after day after day after day. you just might get lucky enough some random morning to burst into bloom.
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live
work
inspiration
ideas
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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8eeec05
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Di la verdad, di la verdad, di la verdad>>.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |