Truth

"Things didn’t work out because, well, greater things were in the works. It’s so difficult while we’re blind and hurting and don’t know which way is up. But, if you have faith in anything, have faith in the fact that the universe has a beautiful way of straightening things out far better than we ever could. You may not see it today or tomorrow, but you will look back in a few years and be absolutely perplexed and awed by how every little thing added up and brought you somewhere wonderful– or where you always wanted to be. You will be grateful that things didn’t work out the way you once wanted them to."
 — What Happens After What Was “Supposed To Be” 

Chocolate Cake

"He showed the words ‘chocolate cake’ to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. “Guilt” was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: ‘celebration.’" — Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto 

Go Someplace

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime." — Mark Twain

Female

"I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and my femininity. And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be. —" Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "We should all be feminists" TedxEuston 

Body and Soul

"Your naked body should only belong to those who fall in love with your naked soul."

— Charlie Chaplin in a letter to his daughter, Geraldine 

BF

"Marry your best friend. I do not say that lightly. Really, truly find the strongest, happiest friendship in the person you fall in love with. Someone who speaks highly of you. Someone you can laugh with. The kind of laughs that make your belly ache, and your nose snort. The embarrassing, earnest, healing kind of laughs. Wit is important. Life is too short not to love someone who lets you be a fool with them. Make sure they are somebody who lets you cry, too. Despair will come. Find someone that you want to be there with you through those times. Most importantly, marry the one that makes passion, love, and madness combine and course through you. A love that will never dilute - even when the waters get deep, and dark."

— N’Tima

Big Picture

"Sometimes when we get overwhelmed, we forget how big God is."

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  A.W. Tozer 

Opinion

"Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding." 
— Bill Bullard 

Glory

"In my deepest wound
I saw your Glory,
And it astounded me."

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  St Augustine 

Soul

"Nothing hurts a good soul and the kind heart more than to live amongst people who can’t understand it."

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  Ali Ibn Abi Talib  

Saying No

“Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to. But other things are harder. Try it: “I’m not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it’s not a priority.” “I don’t go to the doctor because my health is not a priority.” If these phrases don’t sit well, that’s the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending an hour, we can choose differently. 
— Unknown 

Choice

“He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing. 
— The Toughest Indian In The World, Sherman Alexie

Mirrors

 “If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.”  -Junot Diaz

Don't Care

"I cured myself of shyness when it finally occurred to me that people didn’t think about me half as much as I gave them credit for. The truth was, nobody gave a damn. Like most teenagers, I was far too self-centered. When I stopped being prisoner to what I worried was others’ opinions of me, I became more confident and free."

 — Lucille Ball 

More Less

"Spend a little more time trying to make something of yourself & a little less time trying to impress people."

— The Breakfast Club (1985)

One

“And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time." 
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

Freedom

"Discipline is the path to freedom. This is another thing I hate, as I am drawn to sloth and over-consumption, and squandering whatever time I have left. But it is true, I promise. Discipline frees our spirits.

(Don't get me wrong. Naps are also divinely inspired.)

Radical self-care is what we've been longing for, desperate for, our entire lives--friendship with our own hearts. I am going to put on clothes that I feel really pretty in today. I am not going to make myself get exercise, because my feet hurt....

Giving is what we are starving for; not getting.
If you want to have loving feelings today, do some really loving things."

-Anne Lamott via Facebook

Power

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any".~ Alice Walker

Trust

"I’m always asking God for specific answers, but in the end the answer is always the same. Just trust me."

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( via bella-illusione)

Speechless

“In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things. "
— Edna O’Brien, from Sister Imelda   

20 Minutes

"I hope that someday, somebody wants to hold you for twenty minutes straight, and that’s all they do. They don’t pull away. They don’t look at your face. They don’t try to kiss you. All they do is wrap you up in their arms, without an ounce of selfishness in it." — Jenna, Waitress

Hope

"Hope is a function of struggle. Hope is not an emotion but a cognitive behavioral process that we learn when we experience adversity, when we have relationships that are trustworthy, or when people have faith in their ability to get out of a jam... it's not being shielded from pain."

-C.R. Snyder via Brene Brown

Worth of Interest

"...your only task is to know deeply in your soul–in that unshakeable place that isn’t rattled by rejection and loss and ego–that you are worthy of interest…If you can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive in the most important sense of the word. "

via Meg Fee

Abundance

"Acknowledging the good you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance."

-Eckhart Tolle

Desires -Danielle LaPorte

You are more than your name

More than your frame

More than your DNA

You are more plenty

Than everything you have given birth to

Big big wishes

Imagine that

Imagine anything

You are more

You are gone gone gone

Beyond

What started this all

I pray you desire temples of peace

And benevolent tsunamis of love

And that you realize your size

In relation to this one universal declaration

I desire

You are the space

And the fullness

The core

And the more

Ever expanding desire

-Danielle LaPorte

Connection

"Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses—especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else."

— Leonardo da Vinci  

Never Heard

“As a child, I never heard one woman say to me: ‘I love my body.’ Not my mother, my elder sister, my best friend. Not one woman has ever said: ‘I am so proud of my body.’ So, I make sure I say it to Mia, because a positive physical outlook has to start from a very early age.” - Kate Winslet