Presented in no particular order, these quotes, and many others, helped propel me toward my Everything. I hope you find them equally enlightening and motivating.
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
― Anais Nin
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
― Henry David Thoreau
“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.”
― George Addair
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”
― Helen Keller
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
― Maya Angelou
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”
― Les Brown
“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.”
― Joshua J. Marine
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
― Henry Ford
“It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
― Abraham Lincoln
“When you arise in the morning, think what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love…”
― Marcus Aurelius
“If you have it [love], you don’t need to have anything else, and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter much what else you have.”
― J.M. Barrie
“And maybe that was love. Being so vulnerable and allowing someone else in so far they could hurt you, but they also give you everything.”
― Christine Feehan
“Love is a wonderful gift. It’s a present so precious words can barely begin to describe it. Love is a feeling, the deepest and sweetest of all. It’s incredibly strong and amazingly gentle at the very same time. It is a blessing that should be counted every day. It is nourishment for the soul. It is devotion, constantly letting each person know how supportive its certainty can be. Love is a heart filled with affection for the most important person in your life. Love is looking at the special someone who makes your world go around and absolutely loving what you see. Love gives meaning to one’s world and magic to a million hopes and dreams. It makes the morning shine more brightly and each season seem like it’s the nicest one anyone ever had. Love is an invaluable bond that enriches every good thing in life. It gives each hug a tenderness, each heart a happiness, each spirit a steady lift. Love is an invisible connection that is exquisitely felt by those who know the joy, feel the warmth, share the sweetness, and celebrate the gift! ”
― Douglas Pagels
“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“What you had yesterday is only memories; what you will have tomorrow is your dreams and what you will do today, let it be love.”
― Santosh Kalwar
“Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.”
― Oscar Wilde
“When love has fused and mingled two beings in a sacred and angelic unity, the secret of life has been discovered so far as they are concerned; they are no longer anything more than the two boundaries of the same destiny; they are no longer anything but the two wings of the same spirit. Love, soar.”
― Victor Hugo
“It was the pure Language of the World. It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it than of anything in the world. He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. Because, when you know that language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it’s in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.”
― Paulo Coelho
“The present moment is the only moment available to us and it is the door to all other moments.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh
“The more you are motivated by Love, The More Fearless & Free your action will be.”
― Dalai Lama XIV
“If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.”
― John O’Donohue
“Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love”
― Erich Fromm
“Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.”
― Bertrand Russell
“Falling in love you remain a child; rising in love you mature. By and by love becomes not a relationship, it becomes a state of your being. Not that you are in love – now you are love.”
― Osho
“In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live.”
― Robert James Waller
“I have learned that you can go anywhere you want to go and do anything you want to do and buy all the things that you want to buy and meet all the people that you want to meet and learn all the things that you desire to learn and if you do all these things but are not madly in love: you have still not begun to live.”
― C. JoyBell C.
“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh
“Only once in your life, I truly believe, do you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colors seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end.”
― Bob Marley
“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is Love.”
― Sophocles
“When you find somebody you love, all the way through, and she loves you, even with your weaknesses, your flaws―everything starts to click into place. And if you can talk to her, and she listens, if she makes you laugh, and makes you think, makes you want, makes you see who you really are, and who you are is better, just better with her, you’d be crazy not to spend the rest of your life with her.
― Nora Roberts
“Because of a great love, one is courageous.”
― Lao Tzu
“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”
― Victor Hugo
“There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh
Destination Everything 