We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter. Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don't even matter, while all that time we waste and the people who do love us have to stand on the sidewalk and watch us beg in the streets! It's time to put an end to this. It's time for us to let ourselves be loved.

Before, I wanted to say: "I found love!" But now, I want to say: "I found a person. And he belongs to me and I belong to him.

Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others.

So I am not a broken heart. I am not the weight I lost or miles or ran and I am not the way I slept on my doorstep under the bare sky in smell of tears and whiskey because my apartment was empty and if I were to be this empty I wanted something solid to sleep on. Like concrete. I am not this year and I am not your fault.I am muscles building cells, a little every day, because they broke that day,but bones are stronger once they heal and I am smiling to the bus driver and replacing my groceries once a week and I am not sitting for hours in the shower anymore. I am the way a life unfolds and bloom and seasons come and go and I am the way the spring always finds a way to turn even the coldest winter into a field of green and flowers and new life. I am not your fault.

Pain is a pesky part of being human, I've learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can't be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.

Never let hard lessons harden your heart; the hard lessons of life are meant to make you better, not bitter.

Growing up means learning what life is. When you're little, you have a set of ideals, standards, criteria, plans, outlooks, and you think that you have to sit around and wait for them to happen to you and then life will work. But life isn't like that, for anybody; you can't fall in love with a standard, you have to fall in love with a person. You can't live in a criteria, you have to live your life. You can't wait for your plans to materialize, because they may never materialize the way you think they will. You can't wait to watch your ideals and standards walk up to you, because you can't know what's yours until you have it. I always say, always take the first chance in case you never get a second one, but growing up takes that even one step further, growing up means that you have to hold on to what you have, when you have it, because what you have- that's yours- and all the ideals and criteria you have set in your head, those aren't yours, because those haven't happened to you.

When I was little and running on the race track at school, I always stopped and waited for all the other kids so we could run together even though I knew (and everybody else knew) that I could run much faster than all of them! I pretended to read slowly so I could "wait" for everyone else who couldn't read as fast as I could! When my friends were short I pretended that I was short too and if my friend was sad I pretended to be unhappy. I could go on and on about all the ways I have limited myself, my whole life, by "waiting" for people. And the only thing that I've ever received in return is people thinking that they are faster than me, people thinking that they can make me feel bad about myself just because I let them and people thinking that I have to do whatever they say I should do. My mother used to teach me "Cinderella is a perfect example to be" but I have learned that Cinderella can go fuck herself, I'm not waiting for anybody, anymore! I'm going to run as fast as I can, fly as high as I can, I am going to soar and if you want you can come with me! But I'm not waiting for you anymore.

When I was a little girl, everything in the world fell into either of these two categories: wrong or right. Black or white. Now that I am an adult, I have put childish things aside and now I know that some things fall into wrong and some things fall into right. Some things are categorized as black and some things are categorized as white. But most things in the world aren't either! Most things in the world aren't black, aren't white, aren't wrong, aren't right, but most of everything is just different. And now I know that there's nothing wrong with different, and that we can let things be different, we don't have to try and make them black or white, we can just let them be grey. And when I was a child, I thought that God was the God who only saw black and white. Now that I am no longer a child, I can see, that God is the God who can see the black and the white and the grey, too, and He dances on the grey! Grey is okay.

Anything that you learn becomes your wealth, a wealth that cannot be taken away from you; whether you learn it in a building called school or in the school of life. To learn something new is a timeless pleasure and a valuable treasure. And not all things that you learn are taught to you, but many things that you learn you realize you have taught yourself.

Stop trying to be less of who you are. Let this time in your life cut you open and drain all of the things that are holding you back.

I can do this… I can start over. I can save my own life and I’m never going to be alone as long as I have stars to wish on and people to still love.

I was transformed the dayMy ego shattered,And all the superficial, materialThings that matteredTo me before,Suddenly ceasedTo matter.

You will never be entirely comfortable. This is the truth behind the champion - he is always fighting something. To do otherwise is to settle.

I could watch him do this until morning — never asking questions and never interrupting his work. I worship quietly — his intense focus and attention to detail and then, out of no where, I realize the inconvenient, inappropriate truth: ‘I love this man… and it has swallowed me.

Your personal truth is your gift to the world.

A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain...This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines - they are a way of sowing to the Spirit... By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.

Only ignorance excuses stupidity

COMING FORTH INTO THE LIGHTI was born the dayI thought:What is?What was?AndWhat if?I was transformed the dayMy ego shattered,And all the superficial, materialThings that matteredTo me before,Suddenly ceasedTo matter.I really came into beingThe day I no longer cared aboutWhat the world thought of me,Only on my thoughts forChanging the world.

Sometimes we have to soak ourselves in the tears and fears of the past to water our future gardens.

We can't be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don't have something better.

I am my own biggest critic. Before anyone else has criticized me, I have already criticized myself. But for the rest of my life, I am going to be with me and I don't want to spend my life with someone who is always critical. So I am going to stop being my own critic. It's high time that I accept all the great things about me.

I have realized; it is during the times I am far outside my element that I experience myself the most. That I see and feel who I really am, the most! I think that's what a comet is like, you see, a comet is born in the outer realms of the universe! But it's only when it ventures too close to our sun or to other stars that it releases the blazing "tail" behind it and shoots brazen through the heavens! And meteors become sucked into our atmosphere before they burst like firecrackers and realize that they're shooting stars! That's why I enjoy taking myself out of my own element, my own comfort zone, and hurling myself out into the unknown. Because it's during those scary moments, those unsure steps taken, that I am able to see that I'm like a comet hitting a new atmosphere: suddenly I illuminate magnificently and fire dusts begin to fall off of me! I discover a smile I didn't know I had, I uncover a feeling that I didn't know existed in me... I see myself. I'm a shooting star. A meteor shower. But I'm not going to die out. I guess I'm more like a comet then. I'm just going to keep on coming back.

How to win in life:1 work hard 2 complain less 3 listen more 4 try, learn, grow5 don't let people tell you it cant be done6 make no excuses

When a Wanderess has been caged, or perched with her wings clipped, She lives like a Stoic, She lives most heroic, smiling with ruby, moistened lips once her cup of Death is welcome sipped.

A woman must prefer her liberty over a man. To be happy, she must. A man to be happy, however, must yearn for his woman more than his liberty. This is the rightful order.

Advice to my younger self:1 Start where you are with what you have2 Try not to hurt other people3 Take more chances4 If you fail, keep trying

When no possessions keep us, when no countries contain us, and no time detains us, man becomes a heroic wanderer, and woman, a wanderess.

What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of nature’s course.

Don’t worry if people think you’re crazy. You are crazy. You have that kind of intoxicating insanity that lets other people dream outside of the lines and become who they’re destined to be.

I met a boy whose eyes showed me that the past, present and future were all the same thing.

For so many years, I couldn’t understand why every time I thought that someone finally loved me, like… for real, they would eventually turn to vapor. Every person whom I’ve ever loved is trapped inside of my chest. I’ve breathed all of them in so deeply that I’ve nearly choked and died on every soul that I’ve ever given myself to.

I want to be the best version of myself for anyone who is going to someday walk into my life and need someone to love them beyond reason.

Let this time in your life cut you open and drain all of the things that are holding you back. I’m going to help you forgive the things that you won’t let yourself forget.

I look out into the water and up deep into the stars. I beg the sparkling lanterns of light to cure me of myself — my past and the kaleidoscope of mistakes, failures and wrong turns that have stacked unbearable regret upon my shoulders.

Does our purpose on Earth directly link to the people whom we end up meeting? Are our relationships and experiences actually the required dots that connect and then lead us to our ultimate destinies?

I fantasize the night sky to be like a cosmic blue print of my life as I close my eyes and unbutton my heart…. just in case anyone up there is listening.

I’ve grown up defined by this desperate, undeniable, ‘can’t breathe’ kind of space inside of myself and I’m afraid that the diagnosis is fatal.

Something, somewhere, knows what’s best for me and promises to keep sending me people and experiences to light my way as long as I live in gratitude and keep paying attention to the signs.

I’ve always seen this in you, ever since you were a little girl — this hunger to love other people into their highest selves and it’s what has made me irreversibly and just so forever in love with you.

Please… Whoever you are, whatever you are… I believe in you even though I don’t completely understand you. I feel you around me even though I can’t exactly describe what I’m feeling. Sometimes things happen to me and I know that you’re there and I’m humbled by the lack of coincidence that exists in the world. Whatever you want from me, it’s yours — just please help me. You know how I get when I lose control, and I find myself constantly being pulled back there these days.

I feel a resurgence of my 6-year-old self… that little warrior, goddess of a girl reminding me of who I was when I was little, before the world got its hands on me.

I know that this process of ‘me changing my life’ doesn’t just end once I set fire to this list of things I hate about myself. Tonight isn’t as much of a new beginning as it is a violent end and I know the real work hasn’t even started yet.

I’m going to follow this invisible red thread until I find myself again… until I finally figure out… who I’m meant to be.

If ever I was running, it was towards you.

I love him in ways that I can’t explain to other people. They don’t understand… it’s not their fault.

I really believe that there is an invisible red thread tied between him and me, and that it has stretched and tangled for years — across oceans and lifetimes. I know that it won’t break because our souls are tied.

Everything hurts right now and nothing is helping because as the pain is getting worse — so is the love.

I just want your voice aimed at me again. I want to absorb the direction of your eyes…

I want you to trust yourself, baby. Love is all that matters and you’ve always known that. You’ve known, since you were a very little girl, what your life is meant to be about…

I know that your soul is on life support and that you feel lost and like you’re completely spinning out of control, but you’re finding yourself — here, tonight… even in this darkness.

I look in the mirror through the eyes of the child that was me.

The more open we are, the more we can learn. The more we learn, the more we recognize that every one of us is a hero

Life is a process during which one initially gets less and less dependent, independent, and then more and more dependent.

Don't live the same day over and over again and call that a life. Life is about evolving mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.

Love is my drug of choice, even if it comes laced with pain and disaster.

Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.

I’d loved women who were old and who were young; those extra kilos and large rumps, and others so thin there was barely even skin to pinch, and every time I held them, I worried I would snap them in two. But for all of these: where they had merited my love was in their delicious smell. Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.

We learn and grow Always building on what we know

This year has taught me the simple craft of belief. I believe in the things I’ve nurtured and built this year. Slowly but carefully. Such as understanding, knowledge, passion, strength; the hundreds of songs I’ve written, the 365 poems, the books I’ve read and the miles I’ve run. The resolution to breathe, to meditate, to not harm my mind or body even when I’ve felt like it.

They say the apple don't fall far from the tree but every apple has it own seeds

Today is a new day and it brings with it a new set of opportunities for me to act on.I am attentive to the opportunities and I seize them as they arise.I have full confidence in myself and my abilities.I can do all things that I commit myself to.No obstacle is too big or too difficult for me to handle because what lies inside me is greater than what lies ahead of me.I am committed to improving myself and I am getting better daily.I am not held back by regret or mistakes from the past.I am moving forward daily.Absolutely nothing is impossible for me.

When you work on something that only has the capacity to make you 5 dollars, it does not matter how much harder you work – the most you will make is 5 dollars.

But if you forgive someone for something they did to you, it doesn’t mean you agree with what they did or believe it was right. Forgiving that person means you have chosen not to dwell on the matter anymore; you have moved on with your life.

Pain and suffering have been my most trusted textbook.

Marriage is the beginning of love for your spouse, not the result of it.

Keep growing, even when times are tough. Learn the lessons you need to learn and keep changing. Keep growing stronger. You have made it this far and you can make it through all the hard times ahead. Stay strong.

If it doesn't agree with your spirit let it go.

Trials make you strong.Failure makes you humble.Challenges make you strive.Life keeps you going and growing

Vibrate higher daily.

Only human can learn from others’ mistakes, and one who doesn’t, ceases to become a human.

I’m not everything I want to be, but I’m more than I was, and I’m still learning.

Great growth comes from loneliness. You have time to develop, dwell in your own mind and go a bit mad. All great people are a bit mad. That’s good to remember. Don’t escape it. Great growth comes from time spent in foreign lands, watching foreign people with foreign cultures. It makes you forget about your own land and race and town for a while. Great growth also comes from rooting yourself into one place from time to time. Unpack your bags, get a nice bed, a book shelf, some friends. Learn to show up, keep in touch, stick around. Growth comes in all sort of forms and shapes, everywhere at all times, and it’s yours to take and consume. Do what ought to be done. Here and now, to get you somewhere — anywhere.

I want to learn how to speak to anyone at any time and make us both feel a little bit better, lighter, richer, with no commitments of ever meeting again. I want to learn how to stand wherever with whoever and still feel stable. I want to learn how to unlock the locks to our minds, my mind, so that when I hear opinions or views that don’t match up with mine, I can still listen and understand. I want to burn up lifeless habits of following maps and to-do lists, concentrated liquids to burn my mind and throatand I want to go back to the way nature shaped me. I want to learn to go on well with whatever I have in my hands at the momentin a natural state of mind,certain like the sea.I will find comfort in the rhythm of the sea.

Always make an effort to be around people who will help you grow.

Maybe a person's world can grow bigger in all the right ways, not too wide that it becomes shallow, just large enough to preserve its depth.

Young people today are deeply passionate and crave authentic life based on truth. They're hungry to make a difference. They're willing to take a stand for whatever they believe, even to die for a cause. When they sell out to Jesus, they'll pursue a standard of righteousness that is greater than anything you and I ever saw growing up. Don't water it down. Don't lower the standard. And don't just settle for raising it-raise it higher. Believe in your children. Talk with them. Speak well of them. Encourage them. Pray for them. Celebrate the victories with them. Affirm their growth. We can raise a generation that, although they'll make mistakes, will sell out completely when Jesus grips them. They'll give Him everything. They'll make you proud by being even weirder than you are.

Hatred is always at war with love that keeps growing.

FORKED BRANCHESWe grew up on the same street,You and me.We went to the same schools,Rode the same bus,Had the same friends,And even shared spaghettiWith each other's families.And though our roots belong toThe same tree,Our branches have grownIn different directions.Our tree,Now resembles a thousandOther treesIn a sea of a trillionOther treesWith parallel destiniesAnd similar dreams.You cannot envy the branchThat grows biggerFrom the same seed,And you cannotBlame it on the sun's direction.But you still compare us,As if we're still those twoKids at the parkSlurping down slushies andEating ice cream. Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010)

We grew up on the same street,You and me.We went to the same schools,Rode the same bus,Had the same friends,And even shared spaghettiWith each other's families.And though our roots belong toThe same tree,Our branches have grownIn different directions.Our tree,Now resembles a thousandOther treesIn a sea of a trillionOther treesWith parallel destiniesAnd similar dreams.You cannot envy the branchThat grows biggerFrom the same seed,And you cannotBlame it on the sun's direction.But you still compare us,As if we're still those twoKids at the parkSlurping down slushies andEating ice cream.Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010)

In the plains the grass grows tall, since there is no one to cut it. There is no one to water it either.

Life has me trapped in a cocoon of earth where I must grow and change until the day I sprout wings. And on that day I shall burst free, no longer marooned on a pebble of dust in a universe that only waits for me to find a means to fly.

There is no perfection, only beautiful versions of brokenness.

Sometimes, being true to yourself means changing your mind. Self changes, and you follow.

I felt like a Porsche that had learned it wasn't a bicycle anymore but was still taking part in bicycle races.

You can't reach your potential by remaining in a past due season. Your breakthrough is coming. Strongholds are breaking. Get Ready!

What is this lovethat makes me see beauty,and makes every beautiful thing bring you back to me?What is this lovethat makes me declare 'I love you'even though I uttered itonly a moment ago?What is this love that keeps growing even when my chest is soreand it hurts to love you any more?Tell me:How am I to find what this love iswhen it was the one to find you, me, this verse, and this universe?

Growing nails breaks all conducts (aachar). When one conduct breaks, it breaks all other conducts.

The family that reads together grows together!

The survival of poor opinions can make a thinker feel as though he is failing humanity.

Don't be ashamed to weep; 'tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.

The past does not define me, it ignites me. The past is not a piece of me, it has placed me

You didn’t understand the poem, but that was because it wasn’t for you. It was for me to understand the pain you put me through.

Suffering is imposed on us time and again so that one day we would become brave wise masters. That is, a strong being who is confidently aware of their intended direction in life, and fearlessly adding value to the world and their future.

WILL YOU DANCE WITH MEAs we stand here,Hand in hand,Under the neon lightsOf Truth and Love.I'm asking you toDance with me.To twirl,Kick,Drop,Jump,And flyWith me.Skidding andSliding acrossThe dancefloor of life,I want you toGlide with me.Through theSaddest andHappiest songs,The fastest highsTo the longest andSlowest lows,I want you toFlow throughThem allWithMe.

We do not get to choose how we start out in life. We do not get to choose the day we are born or the family we are born into, what we are named at birth, what country we are born in, and we do not get to choose our ancestry. All these things are predetermined by a higher power. By the time you are old enough to start making decisions for yourself, a lot of things in your life are already in place. It’s important, therefore, that you focus on the future, the only thing that you can change.

Whenever I am in a difficult situation where there seems to be no way out, I think about all the times I have been in such situations and say to myself, "I did it before, so I can do it again.

To fall in love twice, with the same person, you need to grow another heart. That's all I do in my secret underground laboratory at night...

Take a shower. Wash away every trace of yesterday. Of smells. Of weary skin. Get dressed. Make coffee, windows open, the sun shining through. Hold the cup with two hands and notice that you feel the feeling of warmth. 
 You still feel warmth.
Now sit down and get to work. Keep your mind sharp, head on, eyes on the page and if small thoughts of worries fight their ways into your consciousness: threw them off like fires in the night and keep your eyes on the track. Nothing but the task in front of you. Get off your chair in the middle of the day. Put on your shoes and take a long walk on open streets around people. Notice how they’re all walking, in a hurry, or slowly. Smiling, laughing, or eyes straight forward, hurried to get to wherever they’re going. And notice how you’re just one of them. Not more, not less. Find comfort in the way you’re just one in the crowd. Your worries: no more, no less.Go back home. Take the long way just to not pass the liquor store. Don’t buy the cigarettes. Go straight home. Take off your shoes. Wash your hands. Your face. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. It’s still beating. Still fighting. Now get back to work.
Work with your mind sharp and eyes focused and if any thoughts of worries or hate or sadness creep their ways around, shake them off like a runner in the night for you own your mind, and you need to tame it. Focus. Keep it sharp on track, nothing but the task in front of you.Work until your eyes are tired and head is heavy, and keep working even after that. Then take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes.
Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more. 
You’re doing just fine.
You’re doing fine.I’m doing just fine.

Bond is stronger than blood. The family grows stronger by bond.

...we're not eighteen anymore. We've lived. We've created things that last – things of joy, and things of burden.

God helps them that help themselves.” When you begin to help yourself, which means to make the best of what is in yourself, you begin to attract to yourself more and more of those helpful things that may exist all about you. In other words, constructive forces attract constructive forces; positive forces attract positive forces. A growing mind attracts elements and forces that help to promote growth, and people who are determined to make more and more of themselves, are drawn more and more into circumstances through which they will find the opportunity to make more of themselves. And this law works not only in connection with the external world, but also the internal world. When you begin to make a positive determined use of those powers in yourself that are already in positive action, you draw forth into action powers within you that have been dormant, and as this process continues, you will find that you will accumulate volume, capacity and power in your mental world, until you finally become a mental giant.

Growing older is a blurred birth certificate that only can take us to this world’s perplexed journey, but it cannot smear the letters of the epitaph

Life isn’t about building something with someone else. It’s about building something for a cause greater than yourself, but if someone comes along and they’re worthy enough, we let them build with us.

You’re not supposed to be in a relationship because it’s comfortable, it’s supposed to be because they make you a better person.

I went into the new year loving myself in different ways, in a different possibility. It was then that I understood things I hadn’t. It was then that I understood people I hadn’t. We work in ways where sometimes we don’t align because our intersections lead us elsewhere. We find ourselves in rapids which lead to lightning, in beds that leave us homesick. We lust after the impetuous, in hopelessness, and sometimes in the reactive. We like things and people who are bad for us and that’s fine. It’s fine because it’s life. It happens. They exist. We exist. We all exist together in this world where nothing seems to make sense. Where everything is nothing but imaginary because it’s what we imagine it to be. Reality exists and it’s there, but life is what you make it. Your actions ask for it. How you exist is how you exist.We take every new year and give it a theme because we’re scared of how it could be. You change in the moment, not by years. You be to become and becoming is something which frightens people. Lead by example instead of letting the example lead you. Take this new year and find yourself in people who question it because questioning is how you gain from it.

Maybe the problem isn’t everything and everyone around you, but what lies within you.

He was beautiful and still is, we just couldn’t flow within the same constellation.

You have to grow. You have to be. You have to love yourself unconditionally.

You can’t just be. You have to become.

Sometimes relationships aren’t meant to be forever. We stumble upon one another to learn, to love, to appreciate and become who we’re supposed to be.

Some people make you want to be a better person, and that, for me, is the purest form of love.

Being a Christian is about living an inviting example.

Your footsteps will have more to say about your spiritual life than knowledge attained.

God isn't a place of fresh starts. He isn't a hideout. He is not a destination. He is not a clean break. He is not a cop out for indecision. He is not a straight line. He is a circle. He will take you back to whatever you ran from if he needs you to heal your scars and others. He is a God of justice and compassion. The greatest growth a soul can experience doesn't come from doing service to strangers that have no impact on your life. It comes from doing service to people that have hurt you or you have hurt them. To truly devote yourself to God is to travel down roads that are hard to revisit. However, he will keep taking you there, until you have healed yourself or others.

You have two choices in life when it comes to truthful observations by others that anger you: You can be ashamed and cover it up by letting your pride take you in the extreme opposite direction, in order to make the point that they are wrong. Or, you can break down the walls of pride by accepting vulnerability as a strength, not a weakness. As you walk through your vulnerability, you will meet humility on the way to courage. From here, courage allows us to let go of shame and rise higher into the person we are meant to be, not the person that needs to be right. This is the road to confidence and self worth.

We often lose ourselves to where we think we should be, rather than celebrate where we already are.

So much has been done to my body, and still, somehow, not enough.

I tried to push my body through his and completely disappear.

What separates people who made their dreams come true is not setting goals to achieve a life the way they expect it to be, but how they expect to be, in order to achieve it.

Happiness grows best in the soil of contentment.

Many people define who they are, based upon what the world sees when it looks at them. They build themselves with their foundation set upon the perceptions of others. Do others think they are good, kind, smart, loving? But I define who I am, based upon the person who looks back at me in the mirror. If you were the only person on Earth, with nobody to see you, know your name, or ever be aware of your existence; what kind of person would you be? Live for the person who looks back at you in the mirror and be that person even if you are the last human being on Earth. Too many people live for what the world will think and will see; too few people live for their own soul. Are you smart, successful, got lots of super ideas? But those are not important questions. This is the most important question: do you know how to love? I do not care if nobody on Earth were to know my name; do I know my own soul? Do I know how to love? These are the questions I ask myself.

Growth of human hair is the absolute blessing for a barber

The question is never 'who am I?' It's 'who do I want to be?

Consistency is good, but progress is better.

Stories are like children. They grow in their own way.

We were wiser as children if not for anything else but for our ability to always reflect. Reflection is a powerful tool to move forward into an enlightened stage of wisdom. Children reflect everyday about being reprehended, what made them happy, something new they discovered. This constant state of reflection is what makes them grow and unfortunately the arrogance of adulthood brings reflection to a halt and puts a stop to a continual growth that we should pursue, as we once did.

When i was a child, i liked tasting any candy i happened to see, but as i grew older, i realized those are a great meal to the worms in my innards. Will you shun old habits or nay? That's the question.

A mother is a child's first looking glass into the world.

Down the hall the children slept three to a bedroom; Hattie could almost hear them growing, their wrists lengthening and poking out beyond the cuffs of their sleeves, their feet outgrowing their shoes, their shoulders widening and pulling the fabric of their coats taut.

I am a strong and powerful woman.I am proud to be a woman and I celebrate the qualities that I have as a woman.I am not defined by other people’s opinion of who I should be or what I should do as a woman. I determine that, not anyone else.I am not passed up for a position, title, or promotion because I am a woman.I fully deserve all the good things that comes my way.Irrespective of what anyone might think, being a woman places no boundaries or limits on my abilities.I can do anything I set my mind to.I celebrate my womanhood and I am beautiful both inside and out.

Seek more strength for weaker spine No grape grows on sinner’s vine

Gather the scattered fragments of your broken heart. Pick them up off the floor and weave them into the tapestry of your life so that when you find the light again-and you will- you'll remember that love can only be lost because it was once found. You are healing and you are growing and everything you are is good enough.

My innocence is not lost—it has been converted into wisdom. The sensation we call "breaking" is the pain that comes from resisting the truth. Life broke parts of me that needed to fall away for me to live an open and truthful life.

Exist with me. We'd do so beautifully.

Check yourself often and correct your faults. Quit blaming others. Take responsibility for your own life. That's the only way you can grow!

Your identity is not in who you can be. It is in who you always have been

We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.

If one comes to the sense that they have arrived, they no longer feel the need to submit themselves to the process of learning and growing. This is a dangerous mindset to carry. The day that we stop learning is the day we stop living.

I write letters to you that you’ll never see.

He looked at me, that first day, like he had just found something he’d lost a thousand years ago.

But I love you and I want you and I need you. Can’t you see that? This world has nothing to offer me if it doesn’t include you.

The Fall will always be yours and mine…

Time' is the most threatening four letter word.

I’m tired of justifying why I love someone. I’m done with the explaining.

That last time you kissed me my heart slid past your teeth down into the center of your chest… trapping us both in a stainless cage.

If I had an .MP3 of your heartbeat… I might actually get some sleep.

I kept waiting for the part where I’d finally know who I was — some flashing, neon moment of relief, but it never came.

In the old days, when travelers would get lost, they would follow the stars and I love that idea. I wish that I could rely on something as simple and magnificent as a star for all of my aching questions.

I ruin everything. I think that a bullet must have passed through my heart when I was very young, causing me to bleed out slowly, over things and people and every white surface that I’d ever come across.

I wish that love could be broken down the way it breaks me down.

I don’t ever want to hurt anyone, but I really wish there was something like a reset button on my life.

He could pour himself into my little paper cup heart and my emptiness would finally have a meaning.

It feels like the world is folding up around me, like origami paper, and I’m trapped inside of its breathless center.

I want to understand the strings that are tied between me and certain other people and if they really can stretch through infinite time and space without ever breaking. Are soul mates real, and is my life ever going to make sense?

I feel like a paper cut just waiting to bleed.

I wish on one of the stars for divine orchestration and save the rest of them for all of the other girls in the world who will feel like I do tonight.

Standing naked on the beach with all of my secrets between my legs, I look out into the water and up deep into the stars. I beg the sparkling lanterns of light to cure me of myself…

Intellectual growth is when you surpass the barrier of puerility, puzzling people with your dazzling creativity.

Preparation time is necessary for your growth. Trust and believe everything you're going through is preparing you for some request you put out into the Universe.

Our experiences are the building blocks of the future hewn out of the granite of the present.

If the past never helped you why would you ever take it into the future with you?

I have hopein who I am becoming.I have belief in every scar and disgraceful wordI have ever spokenor been toldbecause it is still teaching meand I have hope in who I am becoming.They say it takes 756 days to run to someone you loveand they also say that the only romance worth fighting foris the one with yourselfand I know by nowthat they say a lot of things,people talking everywherewithout saying a word,but if it took me all those years to learn myselfor teach myselfhow to look into the mirrorwithout breaking itI know for a fact that it was a fight worth fighting.I stood up for my own head and so did my heartand we are coming to terms with ourselves.Shaking hands, saying ”let’s make this workfor we have places to goand people to seeand we will need each other”So I have hopein who I am becoming.It’s Julyand I have hope in who I am becoming.

You’re lonely,” they say,but it doesn’t scare me anymorefor it teaches me,and maybe that’s the biggest win from these years:I don’t need anyone else to distract me from myself anymore,like I always thought I would.I don’t break mirrors anymore,like I always thought I would. I can finally stand myself,and I never thought I would.

Our desire to say more grows bigger and what to say about it, except that saying is not always about saying, growing is not always about growing.

You haunt my days and dreams.

The height of your maturity and sagacity depends on your ability to see the beauty in ugly situations.

Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.

Our parents can show us a lot of things: they can show us how we are to be and what things we ought to strive for, or they can show us how not to be and what things we ought to stray from, then you may have the kind of parents that show you all the things about you that you want to get rid of and you realize those traits aren't yours at all but are merely your parents' marks that have rubbed off onto you.

This flawless night sky adorned with crystal pendant stars is nothing more than a fragile glass of potential - shattered only to those who dare to break through it.

The best thing I’ve learned, and still believe, is that I don’t have to be perfect to start, I have to start... so I can begin learning and growing.

it's always good to know that you have been the best even though deep inside you know you will never be better than that.

On athleticism, God knows no favor. It seems rather he is in the business of teaching winners how to lose and losers how to win.

Don't ever get to the point where you can't be taught because life is a classroom and everyone owns a pen.

Sometimes your belief system is really your fears attached to rules.

Win or lose, good or bad, the experience will change you.

Hope, in anything but myself, is just way too dangerous right now…

Growing up doesn't mean that you are older than someone, it means that you are no longer an amateur.

There is enough mystery in human nature to keep the world stuck in a perpetual state of righteous speculation. Only the wise and compassionate will rise above it, with enough vision to see that inconsistency is a normal occurrence, during the spiritual battle of forgiveness and justice.

If you look at today through the eyes of the past, you can never see what the present moment has to offer.

Shame without repentance doesn’t lose power when it is spoken, it only seeks approval.

No one is born a sprinter. We all learn to push ourselves up from the floor and then balance before taking that first, wobbly step. It is an individual choice where to go from there.

Life isn't a lazy cruise on some endless, calm, and temperate sea. Life is a raging ocean with swells and tidal waves that wreck and sink your boat. Life is a series of storms―overcast skies, fierce winds, and pelting rain. You were meant to be immersed in it all―first to float, then swim, and eventually to walk on water.

Most of all, differences of opinion are opportunities for learning.

I hope that you will be faced with difficult choices and decisions, trials that won’t undo you, but that will drive you toward reflection and understanding. Trust that your fears will sometimes tell you about your desires. You will see that you can survive the terror that comes with growth and change, with vulnerability and risk.

Never stop learning. Never stop growing.

This time around I was so lonely that I was forced to be face to face with myself. Realizing at the end of the day I only have me and I didn't seem to like my own company. I decided to I had to make myself into someone I can live with.

Love has something to do with recognition, We can be fascinated by the unknown, we can be attracted by it, but love is something that grows, slowly, in an atmosphere of trust.

Who has believed in the world and died with its name on his lips?

I seek to be moved, my imagination reborn.Let me feast on poems that feed my hunger.

I am a M.A.G.I.C. child.. Motivated And Growing In Christ! …I hope you too are a M.A.G.I.C. dreamer!

Love is eternal, and growing with each breath, every kind thought, word and deed.

Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes, it'll on'y be one. If I go ahead on all of 'em, it's too much. You got to live ahead 'cause you're so young, but—it's jus' the road goin' by for me.

Black hawk down.Black eagle up.

It is in building the best of our abilities that we ultimately destroy the worst of our liabilities.

What books can you read to learn about this part of your life? What people do you need to confide in to grow deeper? What things do you need to stop doing in order to grow? What things do you need to start doing?

I am not where I need to be, but, thank God, I am not where I used to be.

Plants can be affected by stray voltage and they may show stunted growth, deformed growth, or go dormant. In extreme cases they may die.

[With comedy and wanting to make people laugh,] when you're a child, all you want is ANY kind of laugh. You get them to laugh, and great! - you've succeeded. And then it's "How FAST can I get them to laugh?" "How LONG can I get them to laugh?", "How HARD can I get them to laugh?". And then it becomes: "Can I laugh at something that makes them uncomfortable?", "Can I get them to laugh at something that challenges their beliefs?

And I went into the new year loving myself a little less, but a little more where it actually mattered.

You have to get clear in your present life — clear of the junk from your past.

All levels of ascension involve letting go of things that hold you back.

It was painful to contemplate the distance between the future of accomplishment I'd imagined for myself twenty years earlier...it was painful to understand that the cushion of exceptionality invoked by the drug had made me oblivious to my inertia. And it was painful to have to define myself again, at an age when most people are happy in their own skins.

At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four good things had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for someone.

No matter what happens i choose to value the memories of the good times, grow from the lessons of the bad times because i don't regret a single moment of it, every detail made me who i am.

That is another chamber of my heart that shows no electrical activity - the chamber that used to flicker into life when I saw a film that moved me, or read a book that inspired me, or listened to music that made me want to cry. I closed that chamber myself, for all the usual reasons. And now I seem to have made a pact with some philistine devil: if I don't attempt to re-open it, I will be allowed just enough energy and optimism to get through a working day without wanting to hang myself.

Youth is wasted on the young.

Be game--take a chance--don't hide behind veils and veils of discretion... Go forward with what you have to say, expressing things as you see them. You are new evidence, fresh and young. Your work, the spirit of youth, you are the progress of human evolution. If age dulls you it will be time enough then to be ponderous and heavy--or quit. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to be young, to continue growing--not to settle and accept.

There were so many places in my time with Rogerson that I wished I could go back to, hitting the stop button at just one moment to stop everything that came after. I had so many If Onlys, but each place I thought to stop meant missing something that came later. I needed it all, in the end, to make my own story find its finish.

Your obsession with being in control of your mind makes you so stiff all the times; that is why our egos are growing, and our sense of humor is shrinking.

Coming out of the Tunnel....I am bursting with a new found feeling of my own existence.Strong and powerful frequencies.My mind is wandering to wide open fields and long-forgotten lands with limitless possibilities. I am not quite there yet.Holding still in anticipation,don’t want to miss hearing my inner voice – soft and deep.With me are friendly skies on rainy days and my life is getting warmer.

If you can’t find any fun during childhood, you naturally won’t look for it as you grow up to maturity. You will grow ‘hard,’ and look upon fun as foolish. Also, if you don’t furnish fun for a child, don’t look for it to grow up bright, happy and loving. So, always put in a child’s path an opportunity to watch, talk about, and know, as many good things as you can.

God always has a plan. This isn't his fault. This is a test, something designed to help you grow closer to God. And. I know, somehow, God will use it.

And in Kandahar he was taught about survival, about fighting and killing and hunting, and he learned much else without being taught, such as looking out for himself and watching his tongue and not saying the wrong thing, the thing that might get him killed. About the dignity of the lost, about losing, and how it cleansed the soul to accept defeat, and about letting go, avoiding the trap of holding on too tightly to what you wanted, and about abandonment in general, and in particular fatherlesness, the lessness of fathers, the lessness of the fatherless, and the best defenses of those who are less against those who are more: inwardness, forethought, cunning, humility and good peripheral vision. The many lessons of lessness. The lessening from which growing could begin.

Is it possible that we never feel grown-up because, as our capabilities increased with age, so increased our responsibilities?

Though people are laughing at the dirt surrounding you, they are missing to see the seeds also planted, growing silently within.

Any parents are as ordinary human beings as others, making them angels or even more is up to their next generation.

Your life was meant for more than being a life-long doormat for deadbeats, losers, gossipers, nay-sayers, dream-crushers, energy vampires, users, abusers, ragers and passive-aggressive backstabbers.