Life in Quotes
I wanted a good place to keep all the quotes (all of which I've posted before in separate entries) that sort of inspire my life and how I live it and want to live it. So how bout here? :) I'm sure I'll have to come back and append this post, but at least I can add this to my LJ Memories and find it easily.
Life is fucking brilliant, y'all.
'I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."' - Henry David Thoreau
"Living on the edge wasn't about danger...It was about curiosity; audacious curiosity, like the kind Lance [Armstrong] had when he was chalked off for good and still decided to see if he could build a wasted body into a world-beater. The way Kerouac did, when he set off on the road and then wrote about it in a mad, carefree burst he never thought would see the light of print. Looking at it that way, Jenn and Billy could trace a direct line of descent from a Beatnik writer to a champion cyclist to a pair of Pabst Blue Ribbon-chugging Virginia Beach lifeguards. They were expected to accomplish nothing, so they could try anything. Audacity beckoned." -Christopher McDougall
"If you're going to try, go all the way
There is no other feeling like that
You will be alone with the gods
And the nights will flame with fire...
You will ride life straight to
Perfect Laughter, it's
the only good fight there is."
-Charles Bukowski
"We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."
-Charles Bukowski
"This Is What You Shall Do:
Love the earth and sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to
anyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your
income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to
nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely
with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the
mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of
every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at church
or school or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and
your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not
only in it’s words but in the slightest lines of it’s lips and face
and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of
your body."
Preface to the first edition of Leaves Of Grass, 1855
Walt Whitman 1819-1892
"You do not need to be loved, not at the cost of yourself. The single relationship that is truly central and crucial in a life is the relationship to the self. Of all the people you will know in a lifetime, you are the only one you will never lose." -Joy's friend Tassa
Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels.
The troublemakers. The round
pegs in the square holes - the
ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules and
they have no respect for
the status quo. You can praise
them, disagree with them,
quote them, disbelieve them,
glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing that you
can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
- Jack Kerouac
“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's not just in some of us; it's 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.”
- Marriane Williamson