1
2
3
5
8
12
20
33
52
83
133
213
340
543
867
1384
2208
3346
3522
5127
5128
5129
5130
5131
5443
5619
6757
7581
8098
8422
8625
8752
8832
8882
8913
8932
8945
8953
8957
8960
8962
8963
8964
8965
▲
▼
| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 8fe3c20 | Pure creativity is something better than a necessity; it's a gift. It's the frosting. Our creativity is a wild and unexpected bonus from the universe. It's as if all our gods and angels gathered together and said, "It's tough down there as a human being, we know. Here--have some delights." | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 5b0c3ff | incalculable failed experiments." She wrote, "Those who are ill-prepared to endure the battle for survival should perhaps never have attempted living in the first place. The only unforgivable 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 .. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 4f653cf | Because creative living is a path for the brave. We all know this. And we all know that when courage dies, creativity dies with it. We all know that fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 4b18ce2 | But I was always coming here. I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen. | life philosophy spirituality | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 2b495ea | So be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 368b7dc | Sometimes beauty needs a bit of ignoring, to properly come into being. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 9a8b78b | most of my prayers are expressions of sheer gratitude for the fullness of my contentment. | happiness prayer | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| fa2b597 | I work either way, you see - assisted or unassisted - because that is what you must do in order to live a fully creative life. I work steadily, and I always thank the process. Whether I am touched by grace or not, I thank creativity for allowing me to engage with it at all. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 2026f47 | people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once yo.. | life | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| eb440ac | The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people. | happiness life people | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 83b39a3 | All the good ideas seem daunting at first. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 47f3568 | You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have four legs, instead of two. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 3afb313 | in order to let go of the addiction to creative suffering, you must reject the way of the martyr | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| c866a92 | If you tell me slowly, I can understand quickly. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| d2ea7bd | But if you don't have the courage, let's try to get you some. Because creative living is a path for the brave. We all know this. And we all know that when courage dies, creativity dies with it. We all know that fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun. This is common knowledge; sometimes we just don't know what to do about it. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| bc72828 | The cave was cool and silent- thoroughly carpeted- with the most luxuriant mantle of mosses Alma Whittaker had ever seen. The cave was not merely mossy; it throbbed with moss. It was not merely green; it was frantically green. It was so bright in its verdure that the color nearly spoke, as though- smashing through the world of sight- it wanted to migrate into the world of sound. The moss was a thick, living pelt, transforming every rock sur.. | botany cave genus-species green horticulture moss | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| f308363 | The guardians of high culture will try to convince you that the arts belong only to a chosen few, but they are wrong and they are also annoying. We | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| e75050b | The other problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that you are never where you are. You are always digging in the past or poking at the future, but rarely do you rest in this moment. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 9cd63f9 | Measure your worth by the dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures." Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic" | Joanna Penn | ||
| 42aeacb | I thought about the relentless thought-processing, soul-devouring machine that is my brain, and wondered how on earth I was ever going to master it. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 1a947d3 | Train them to pay attention to their choices. ("Reduce, Reuse and Recycle are good ideas," he would lecture, "but those three concepts should only be the last resort. What you really need to focus on are two other words that also begin with R- Reconsider and Refuse. Before you even acquire the disposable good, ask yourself why you need this consumer product. And then turn it down. Refuse it. You can.")" | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 2ec4909 | She did not need a library; she was a library. | genius intelligence learning | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 5be4a4a | On this day, Eustace was heating iron rods to fix a broken piece on his antique mower. He had a number of irons cooking in his forge at the same time and, distracted by trying to teach me the basics of blacksmithing, he allowed several of them to get too hot, to the point of compromising the strength of the metal. When he saw this, he said, "Damn! I have too many irons in the fire." Which was the first time I had ever heard that expression .. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 6c78888 | Think of the many articles one can find every year in the Wall Street Journal describing some entrepreneur or businessman as being a "pioneer" or a "maverick" or a "cowboy." Think of the many times these ambitious modern men are described as "staking their claim" or boldly pushing themselves "beyond the frontier" or even "riding into the sunset." We still use this nineteenth-century lexicon to describe our boldest citizens, but it's really .. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 59be3c4 | We all know that fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 0ae8b16 | I don't sit around waiting for passion to strike me. I keep working steadily, because I believe it is our privilege as humans to keep making things. Most of all, I keep working because I trust that creativity is always trying to find me, even when I have lost sight of it. | inspiration passion waiting-for-ideas waiting-for-inspiration writer-s-block writers-block | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 99a06fb | un cierto grado de desapego inteligente puede ser un valioso instrumento de paz en esta vida. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 8786627 | A stranger came out to White Acre one day to sell Henry a pony, for Alma to learn to ride. The pony's name was Soames, and he was the color of sugar icing, and Alma loved him immediately. A price was negotiated. The two men settled on three dollars. Alma, who was only six years old, asked, "Excuse me, sir, but does that price also include the bridle and saddle which the pony is currently wearing?" The stranger balked at the question, but He.. | auction father-and-daughter henry-whittaker pony six-years-old | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 85de4b2 | Perfectionism stops people from completing their work, yes--but even worse, it often stops people from beginning their work. Perfectionists | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 7bb5517 | There is a] quiet glory [in] merely making things, and then sharing those things with an open heart and no expectations. | being-creative creativity glory make-stuff make-things making-things | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 117b7a3 | Guilt's just your ego's way of tricking you into thinking that you're making moral progress. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| bf66a47 | If you don't have a clear passion and somebody blithely tells you to go follow your passion, I think you have the right to give that person the middle finger. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| f682fbd | I cannot unshackle myself from argument, Ambrose. Recall that I am Henry Whittaker's daughter. 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. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| ba1be1e | The results of my work don't have much to do with me. I can only be in charge of producing the work itself. That's a hard enough job. I refuse to take on additional jobs, such as trying to police what anybody thinks about my work once it leaves my desk. | opinions-of-others others-opinions pleaser pleasing pleasing-others what-others-think what-will-others-think will-people-like-it will-they-like-it | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 31b80f2 | I rail a lot against passion, because I feel like passion can be very exclusionary, and very elitist, and it can leave a lot of people feeling like they don't belong... I'm much more interested in allowing people to follow curiosity, which is a much more gentle impulse that doesn't require that you sacrifice your entire life for something. It's more of kind of a scavenger hunt, where you're allowed to pick up these tiny beautiful little clu.. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 18e396d | The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| c951d54 | It's all for the best, I know it is. I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises. I know all this. But still... | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 9e06f85 | People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates.. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 35434e5 | To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver. | smile spirituality | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 823fc9a | I don't think that marriage means to suffer endlessly, in order to prove that you can honor a commitment. I don't think marriage is supposed to be an endurance contest. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| b157bb9 | The guardians of high culture will try to convince you that the arts belong only to a chosen few, but they are wrong and they are also annoying. We are all the chosen few. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 14408b2 | I pause here for a moment to explain exactly what I mean when I say that word, just so people can decide right away how offended they need to get. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 3c49c75 | Ah, lovely adolescence--when the "talented" are officially shunted off from the herd, thus putting the total burden of society's creative dreams on the thin shoulders of a few select souls, while condemning everyone else to live a more commonplace, inspiration-free existence! What a system . . . ) For" | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| b394ce7 | Worse, their relationship with their work is often emotionally violent. You want to make something? You are told to open up a vein and bleed. Time to edit your work? You are instructed to kill your darlings. | Elizabeth Gilbert |