Michael Pollan The idea took hold of me. It was a little like being shown a door in a familiar room — the room of your own mind — that you had somehow never noticed before and being told by people you trusted (scientists!) that a whole other way of thinking — of being! — …
Madeleine L’Engle On Self Consciousness
Madeleine L’Engle (November 29, 1918–September 6, 2007) When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creating. We …
David Paladin On Balance
David Paladin (November 04, 1926 - 1984) If we were to take the Tao symbol, put a pin at its center and spin it. We would have neither yin nor yang, but a whole, a new image as a result of the blending of the two. When you blend the good and the bad you …
James Broughton On Vision
James Broughton (November 10, 1913 – May 17, 1999) Believe in hunches, not opinion polls. You are not your name or your telephone number. At boarding time don't miss the boat that has your name on it. It sails only once. Head for the deep. Hold your course, even if your vision shipwrecks you.
Anne Beattie On Time
Anne Beattie (September 08, 1947 -) When we came in she had her chair sideways by the window looking out at the snow, and she said, without even looking up to know it was us, that the doctor had said that sitting and staring at the snow was a waste of time. She should get …
Virginia Woolf On Life
Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) How beautiful a street is in winter! It is at once revealed and obscured. Here vaguely one can trace symmetrical straight avenues of doors and windows; here under the lamps are floating islands of pale light through which pass quickly bright men and women, who, for …
Antoine De Saint-Exupery On Responsibility
Antoine De Saint-Exupery (June 29, 1900 - July 31, 1944) If you are to be, you must begin by assuming responsibility. You alone are responsible for every moment of your life, for every one of your acts.
Yoda On Fear
Yoda Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger and anger leads to hate. Hate... leads to suffering.
Christopher Eric Hitchens On Alcohol
Christopher Eric Hitchens (April 13, 1949 - December 15, 2011) Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, (godlike) or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing... Visiting today’s Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying …
William Zinsser On The Writer
William Zinsser (October 7, 1922 – May 12, 2015) This is the problem of writers who set out deliberately to garnish their prose. You lose whatever it is that makes you unique. The reader will notice if you are putting on airs. Readers want the person who is talking to them to sound genuine. Therefore …
Pema Chödrön On Wisdom
Pema Chödrön (July 14, 1936 -) The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself. The other problem is that our hangups, unfortunately or fortunately, contain our wealth. Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw …
Junichiro Tanizaki On Beauty
Junichiro Tanizaki (July 24, 1886–July 30, 1965) We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates... Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty…The quality that we call beauty ... must always grow from the realities of …
Ntozake Shange On Magic
Ntozake Shange (October 18, 1948 - October 27, 2018) my father is a retired magician which accounts for my irregular behavior everythin comes outta magic hats or bottles wit no bottoms & parakeets are as easy to get as a couple a rabbits or 3 fifty cent pieces/ 1958 my daddy retired from magic & took …
David Bohm On Living In Harmony
David Joseph Bohm (December 20, 1917 – October 27, 1992) If we are to live in harmony with ourselves and with nature, we need to be able to communicate freely in a creative movement in which no one permanently holds to or otherwise defends his own ideas.
Simone Weil On Ends And Means
Simone Weil (February 03, 1909 – August 24, 1943) Everywhere, without exception, all the things that are generally considered ends are in fact, by nature, by essence, and in a most obvious way, mere means. One could cite countless examples of this from every area of life: money, power, the state, national pride, economic production, …
Jhumpa Lahiri On Dying
Jhumpa Lahiri (July 11, 1967 -) “This is the worst part,” she told me once. “You’re holding your breath, thinking it’s still ahead, but this really is the worst of it, for you and for her.” At the time, her words had not soothed me; I could imagine nothing worse than the moment my mother …
Mary Oliver On Inner Vision
Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935 -) My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howsoever it may arrive. If I have a meeting with you at three o’clock, rejoice if I am late. Rejoice even more if I do not arrive at all... There is no other way work of artistic worth can be …
Toni Morrison On The Artist’s Task
Toni Morrison (February 18, 1931 -) I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence…This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, …
Inge and Sten Hegeler On Seeing
Inge and Sten Hegeler If we look through a piece of glass, irregularities and impurities may distort and discolor the impression of what we see. If we regard something through a convex lens, it appears to be upside down. But if we place a concave lens in front of the convex lens, we correct the …
Seneca On Gratitude
Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD 65) I am grateful, not in order that my neighbour, provoked by the earlier act of kindness, may be more ready to benefit me, but simply in order that I may perform a most pleasant and beautiful act.
Anya Krugovoy Silver On Cancer
Anya Krugovoy Silver (December 22, 1968 – August 6, 2018) Nothing focuses your mind and helps you see clearly what’s important quite like cancer. It made me want to explore, even more, the beauty and divinity of the ordinary world.
Walt Whitman On Democracy
Walter “Walt” Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) I can conceive of no better service… than boldly exposing the weakness, liabilities and infinite corruptions of democracy.
David Carr On Addiction
David Michael Carr (September 8, 1956 – February 12, 2015) It was a daylight waterfall of regret known to all addicts. It can’t get worse, but it does. When the bottom arrives, the cold fact of it all, it is always a surprise. Over fifteen years, I had made a seemingly organic journey from pothead to …
Pablo Neruda On Destiny
Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904–September 23, 1973) There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing …
Lyndon B Johnson On Voting, Racism And Fear
Lyndon B Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973) I think that the so-called 'white backlash' is destructive, not only of the interests of Negro Americans, but of all those who stand to gain from humane and farsighted government. And those that stand to gain from humane and farsighted government is everybody. Nevertheless, there …
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David Brooks On Trump
David Brooks (August 11, 1962 -) This is less a party than a personality cult. Law and order is a strange theme for a candidate who radiates conflict and disorder. Some rich children are careless that way; they break things and other people have to clean up the mess.
Elizabeth Gilbert On Grief
Elizabeth Gilbert (July 18, 1969 -) There’s this tremendous psychological and spiritual challenge to relax in the awesome power of it until it has gone through you. Grief is a full-body experience. It takes over your entire body — it’s not a disease of the mind. It’s something that impacts you at the physical level… …
Thomas L. Friedman On Trump And Nationalism
Thomas Loren Friedman (July 20, 1953 -) More than any time in my career, I think our country is in danger. It has a disturbed man as president, whose job description — to be a healer of the country in times of great national hurt and to pull us together to do big hard things that …
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Tao Writer On A Personal Space
Tao Writer April 17, 1948 -) I believe most creative people need such a room. A space where you can find yourself again and again staring out the window. A sacred space. It can be as simple as that little room in Mexico where life happened all around me without intrusion. A quiet space to …
Nicole Krauss On Bravery
Nicole Krauss (born August 18, 1974 -) Bravery is always more intelligent than fear, since it is built on the foundation of what one knows about oneself: the knowledge of one’s strength and capacity, of one’s passion.
