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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| af6c1b1 | Do you know what I believe, Miss Whittaker? Regarding your question on the origins of human compassion and self-sacrifice? I believe that evolution explains nearly everything about us, and I certainly believe it explains absolutely everything about the rest for the natural world, But I do not believe that evolution alone can account for our unique human consciousness. There is no evolutionary need, you see, for us to have such acute sen.. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 7f1adec | I'm considered a difficult girl. I have a reputation for needing to be told a good reason to do something before I will do it." ~ Tulsi" | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 5dcdd65 | You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be." This" | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| a717abd | The human mind, if dutifully trained, should be able to perform anything we ask of it. It is all just a matter of working hard. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| fb7679a | The English travel writer Isabel Bird, famous for her cool and detached prose, seemed scarcely able to keep from exclaiming hubba-hubba as she checked out the rugged men she kept encountering on her trip to America in the 1850s: | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 1609d75 | So the question is not so much "What are you passionate about?" The question is "What are you passionate enough about that you can endure even the most disagreeable aspects of the work." -- | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| faf15f3 | I simply vowed to the universe that I would write forever, regardless of the result. I promised that I would try to be brave about it, and grateful, and as uncomplaining as I could possibly be. I also promised that I would never ask writing to take care of me financially, but that I would always take care of it - meaning that I would always support us both, by any means necessary. I did not ask for any external rewards for my devotion; I ju.. | writing | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 208fb14 | Social science now tells us that if we can take indigent girls between the ages of 10 and 14 and give them a basic education, we can change the fabric of an entire community. If we can capture them in that fleeting window, great social advances can be achieved. Give enough young girls an education and per capita income will go up; infant mortality will go down; the rate of economic growth will increase; the rate of HIV/AIDS infection will f.. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 349bf0f | The worst thing about shame is that we imagine we are the only ones to experience it. | Annie Ernaux | ||
| a4add5d | Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I a.. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| cb59c43 | hegira. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 379f003 | A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. <...> Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, <...> tear apart your ego a little bit, show your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you [have] to transform your life. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| b497193 | 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, anyhow. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 0fa3b78 | 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 | ||
| fdca2ac | 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? I | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 17fe0b1 | insouciance. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 488cf37 | As the saying goes, "Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them." Why would I want to keep my limitations?" | limitations | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 693b705 | It's all just an instinct and an experiment and a mystery, so begin. Begin anywhere. Preferably right now. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 28576dc | Any motion whatsoever beats inertia, because inspiration will always be drawn to motion. So wave your arms around. Make something. Do something. Do anything. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 39f192b | But we work with what we know in this life, | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| c08e010 | It matters./It doesn't matter. Build space in your head for this paradox. Build as much space for it as you can. Build even more space. You will need it. And then go deep within that space--as far in as you can possibly go--and make absolutely whatever you want to make. It's | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| b6fb41b | The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go. With all your heart, ask for grace, and let go. Watch the heat of the day pass into the cool night. Let go. When the past has passed from you at last, let go. Then climb down and begin the rest of your life. With great joy. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| c664162 | His spelling was several degrees beyond arbitrary, and his punctuation brought reason to sigh with unhappiness. But | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 6743b0b | The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them. The hunt to uncover those jewels--that's creative living. The | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 6fa2904 | Creative entitlement doesn't mean behaving like a princess, or acting as though the world owes you anything whatsoever. No, creative entitlement simply means believing that you are allowed to be here, and that--merely by being here--you are allowed to have a voice and a vision of your own. The | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| df0a5be | I work steadily, and I always thank the process. Whether | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 91bec14 | Because often what keeps you from creative living is your self-absorption (your self-doubt, your self-disgust, your self-judgment, your crushing sense of self-protection). The arrogance of belonging pulls you out of the darkest depths of self-hatred--not by saying "I am the greatest!" but merely by saying "I am here!" I" | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 808a4f1 | Hearing this announcement, your soul will mobilize accordingly. It will mobilize ecstatically, in fact, because this is what your soul was born for. (Trust me, your soul has been waiting for you to wake up to your own existence for years.) But | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 5af6133 | How you manage yourself between those bright moments, when things aren't going so great, is a measure of how devoted you are to your vocation, and how equipped you are for the weird demands of creative living. Holding yourself together through all the phases of creation is where the real work lies. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| a09dcbb | And at the end of your days, you can thank creativity for having blessed you with a charmed, interesting, passionate existence. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 5e562aa | All of which is to say: You do not need a permission slip from the principal's office to live a creative life. Or if you do worry that you need a permission slip--THERE, I just gave it to you. I | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 1b1ca6a | I had actively participated in every moment of the creation of this life-so why did I feel like none of it resembled me? | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 12a9f97 | fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun. This | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| ce58377 | There's a reason the call God a ~ because God is right , right In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| fb46c4c | There's a reason they call God a ~ because God is right , right In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 54df6a0 | Attraversiamo. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 95803a9 | why are you so sure that your micromanagement of every moment in this whole world is so essential | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 1a1ad81 | Destiny, I feel, is also a relationship--a play between divine grace and willful self-effort. Half of it you have no control over; half of it is absolutely in your hands, and your actions will show measurable consequence. Man is neither entirely a puppet of the gods, nor is he entirely the captain of his own destiny; he's a little of both. We gallop through our lives like circus performers balancing on two speeding side-by-side horses--one .. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 5dba04f | 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 you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of .. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 90ad73c | The earliest evidence of recognizable human art is forty thousand years old. The earliest evidence of human agriculture, by contrast, is only ten thousand years old. Which means that somewhere in our collective evolutionary story, we decided it was way more important to make attractive, superfluous items than it was to learn how to regularly feed ourselves. The | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 0396f69 | Prayer is a relationship; half the job is mine. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 09b8ea6 | Even smile in your liver. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 217401c | for all my days, as a raft against the winds and sorrows of the world. Whosoever wishes to board my raft may do so. I do not force anyone to come aboard, you see, but how can I abandon the raft? My good | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 9ec0525 | your fear will always show up--especially when you're trying to be inventive or innovative. Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome, and fear hates uncertain outcome. Your fear--programmed by evolution to be hypervigilant and insanely overprotective--will always assume that any uncertain outcome is destined to end in a bloody, horrible death. Basically, you.. | Elizabeth Gilbert |