Wallace Stevens: Priest of the Invisible

“There is no wing like meaning.”

“There is nothing in life except what one thinks of it.”

“It is the unknown that excites the ardor of scholars, who, in the known alone, would shrivel up with boredom.

“The poet is the priest of the invisible.”

“The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself.”

“Of the Surface of Things In my room, the world is beyond my understanding; But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four Hills and a cloud.”

“The way through the world is more difficult to find than the way beyond it.”

“Reality is not what it is. It consists of the many realities which it can be made into.”

“A change of style is a change of meaning.”

They said, “You have a blue guitar You do not play things as they are”. The man replied,”things as they are Are changed upon the blue guitar”.

“It is never the thing but the vision of the thing.”
“Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams And our desires.”

“We say God and the imagination are one… How high that highest candle lights the dark.”

“The fire burns as the novel taught it how.”

All quotes by Wallace Stevens

Artwork by David Hockney

To Give Light

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.”

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.”

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

“If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.”

“Fear makes come true that which one is afraid of.”

“Human potential at its best is to transform a tragedy into a personal triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.”

“What is to give light must endure burning.”

All quotes by Viktor Frankl
Artwork by Igor Morski

To Think Beyond

“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there’s no ground.”

“Becoming ‘awake’ involves seeing our confusion more clearly.”

“There is no need to struggle to be free; the absence of struggle is in itself freedom.”

“It’s easier to put on a pair of shoes than to wrap the earth in leather.”

“The idea is not to regard the spiritual path as something very luxurious and pleasurable, but to see it as just facing the facts of life.”

“We must try to think beyond our homes, beyond the fire burning in the fireplace, beyond sending our children to school or getting to work in the morning. We must try to think how we can help this world. If we don’t help, nobody will. It is our turn to help the world.”

All quotes by Chögyam Trungpa

Quotes & Questions from James Clear

The Price of Admission

“Growth means risking failure. Expansion comes to those who invite discomfort. And the person you aspire to become waits on the other side of that thing you’re hiding from. Invest in experience. In that which scares you. And watch your life change.” – Rich Roll

“The more you practice tolerating discomfort, the more confidence you’ll gain in your ability to accept new challenges.” – Amy Morin

“Be not afraid of discomfort. If you can’t put yourself in a situation where you are uncomfortable, then you will never grow. You will never change. You’ll never learn.” – Jason Reynolds

“If you’re never able to tolerate a little bit of pain and discomfort, you’ll never get better.” – Angela Duckworth

“Lean into the discomfort of the work.” – Brene Brown

“Fear, uncertainty and discomfort are your compasses toward growth.” – Barack Obama

“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.” – Susan David

Your Own Salvation

I snagged this piece of writing from Busy Philipps’ Instagram account…

Being in Love with Your Life

What if there’s no contradiction between being your idiosyncratic self in love with your life and serving others with the best gifts you have to give?

What if exploring your inner world to activate your personal genius dovetails perfectly with fighting to recreate the soulless culture we’re embedded in?

What if working on your own salvation makes you a more effective force in liberating others from their suffering?

And then it made me think of this quote…

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

– Gospel of Thomas

Like a Rebirth

“I think it is very important for people to run away…from home, from the mainstream, from their family, from the culture, from the society that produced them…because the moment I have to learn something new, like new habits, new languages, I myself have something like a rebirth. I reduce myself to the lowest denominator and this is very healthy for an artist. To start all over again.”

Quote by Saul Steinberg

The Purpose of Life

“The biggest breakthroughs in consciousness occur when things are difficult; when we have a choice to fall to the worst of ourselves or rise to the best of ourselves.”

“Darkness is the only path to light. It is not our wonderful gifts that make us closer to God: it’s using our garbage to transform ourselves. This is the key that unlocks the door that opens to God.”

“Unfortunately, it is human nature for us to only learn and grow from a place of emptiness. It’s hard to learn when we are winning and on top of the world.”

“God never answers prayers. It is people who answer their own prayers by knowing how to connect and utilize the divine energy of the Creator and the God-like force in their own souls.”

“If I said it once, I’ll say it again: ‘We have the power to change everything.'”

“The whole point of all of this – why we are here, why the world is here, and why we have the political system and leaders that we do – is to achieve change. This is the purpose of life.”

All quotes by Yehuda Berg