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If I were to wish for anything,
I should not wish for wealth and power,
but for the passionate sense of potential -
for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.
Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Related topics: Values Positive Wisdom
Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Once you label me, you negate me.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
- Soren Kierkegaard
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Thank you, Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Pleasure disappoints, possibility never
- Soren Kierkegaard
Be that self which one truly is.
- Soren Kierkegaard
To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily.
Not to dare is to lose oneself.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Face the facts of being what you are,
for that is what changes what you are.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste
that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Prayer doesn't change God, but changes him who prays
- Soren Kierkegaard
The tyrant dies and his rule is over,
the martyr dies and his rule begins
- Soren Kierkegaard
Life can only be understood backwards;
but it must be lived forwards.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Far from idleness being the root of all evil,
it is rather the only true good.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The more a man can forget, the greater the number
of metamorphoses which his life can undergo,
the more he can remember, the more divine his life becomes.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed by those
who really have an opinion.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him,
for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low,
could still be saved; the bitterest enemy
and also he who was your friend could again be your friend;
love that has grown cold can kindle
- Soren Kierkegaard
Faith is the highest passion in a human being.
Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The function of prayer is not to influence God,
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here?
What is this thing called the world?
How did I come into the world?
Why was I not consulted?
And If I am compelled to take part in it,
Where is the director? I want to see him.
- Soren Kierkegaard
If I am capable of grasping God objectively,
I do not believe, but precisely because
I cannot do this I must believe.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self,
can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour
when every one has to throw off his mask?
Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked?
Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight
in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it?
I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others
that at last their true nature could not reveal itself;...
In every man there is something which to a certain degree
prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself;
and this may be the case in so high a degree,
he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life
which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself.
But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love,
and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The truth is a snare:
you cannot have it, without being caught.
You cannot have the truth
in such a way that you catch it,
but only in such a way that it catches you.
- Soren Kierkegaard
It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks,
that we concentrate only
on what is most significant and important.
- Soren Kierkegaard
People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have,
for example, freedom of thought;
instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
- Soren Kierkegaard
People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand
my complaint about them not understanding me.
- Soren Kierkegaard
During the first period of a man's life
the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Truth always rests with the minority,
and the minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed by those
who really have an opinion,
while the strength of a majority is illusory,
formed by the gangs who have no opinion -
and who, therefore, in the next instant
(when it is evident that the minority is the stronger)
assume its opinion... while truth again reverts to a new minority.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The highest and most beautiful things in life
are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but,
if one will, are to be lived.
- Soren Kierkegaard
A man who as a physical being
is always turned toward the outside,
thinking that his happiness lies outside him,
finally turns inward and
discovers that the source is within him.
- Soren Kierkegaard
There is nothing with which every man is so afraid
as getting to know how enormously much
he is capable of doing and becoming.
- Soren Kierkegaard
God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say.
Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful:
he makes saints out of sinners.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk.
Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being
and walk away from every illness.
I have walked myself into my best thoughts,
and I know of no thought so burdensome
that one cannot walk away from it.
- Soren Kierkegaard
When you read God's Word, you must
constantly be saying to yourself,
"It is talking to me, and about me."
- Soren Kierkegaard
The self-assured believer is a greater sinner
in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever
- Soren Kierkegaard
Follow your bliss and doors will open
where there were no doors before.
- Joseph Campbell
Whenever you do a thing,
act as if all the world were watching.
- Thomas Jefferson
While they were saying among themselves
it cannot be done, it was done.
- Helen Keller
Act as if it were impossible to fail.
- Dorthea Brande
Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago?
Didn't you waste a lot of fruitless energy
on account of most of them?
Didn't most of them turn out all right after all?
- Dale Carnegie
The simplest questions are the most profound.
Where were you born?
Where is your home?
Where are you going?
What are you doing?
Think about these once in a while
and watch your answers change.
- Richard Bach
We would never have a word for Joy
if there were no suffering.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
- Marianne Williamson
Begin each day as if it were on purpose.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Who were you before you put yourself last.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Hide not your talents,
they for use were made.
What's a sundial in the shade?
- Benjamin Franklin
Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before,
but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God.
- Ram Dass
We could never learn to be brave and patient,
if there were only joy in the world.
- Helen Keller
When you are alone you are not alone,
you are simply lonely -
and there is a tremendous difference
between loneliness and aloneness.
When you are lonely you are thinking of the other,
you are missing the other.
Loneliness is a negative state.
You are feeling that it would have been
better if the other were there -
your friend, your wife, your mother,
your beloved, your husband.
It would have been good if the other
were there, but the other is not.
Loneliness is absence of the other.
Aloneness is the presence of oneself.
Aloneness is very positive.
It is a presence, overflowing presence.
You are so full of presence
that you can fill the whole universe
with your presence and there is no need for anybody.
- Osho
Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free
and realizing you were the prisoner!
- Max Lucado
We act as though comfort and luxury
were the chief requirements of life,
when all that we need to make us really happy
is something to be enthusiastic about.
- Charles Kingsley
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back
and realize they were the big things.
- Robert Brault
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure about you.
We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.
- Marianne Williamson
So your father, or your mother,
never thought you were good enough - SO WHAT?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Win as if you were used to it,
lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The journey between what you once were
and who you are now becoming
is where the dance of Life really takes place.
- Barbara De Angelis
Love is what we were born with.
Fear is what we learned here.
Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love.
The real miracle is the love that inspires them.
In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.
- Marianne Williamson
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet
as if they were going to be dead by midnight.
Extend to them all the care,
kindness and understanding you can muster,
and do with no thought of any reward.
Your life will never be the same again.
- Og Mandino
The world moves, and ideas that were
once good are not always good.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
What if it were only an illusion?
Perhaps life is not as threatening as it appears.
Perhaps the greatest threat to our serenity
is our fear of the future -
our fear of the unknown.
Perhaps, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said,
"The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Forgive and give as if it were your last opportunity.
Love like there's no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes, love again.
- Max Lucado
When you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you,
and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living.
When you can see that, you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid,
and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.
- Joseph Campbell
"I wonder what Piglet is doing," thought Pooh.
"I wish I were there to be doing it, too."
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)
If life were predictable
it would cease to be life,
and be without flavor.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Half of everything you were ever taught is wrong;
the question is which half.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We should live our lives as though
Christ were coming this afternoon.
- Jimmy Carter
Nine-tenths of the people were created
so you would want to be with the other tenth.
- Horace Walpole
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Thank you, Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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