Hi, I’m Cathia, and I’m a quotes junkie.
I have been collecting quotes for 20+ years and have bits of paper and sticky notes stuffed in a bulging and horribly inelegant filing system. A few years ago I began assembling the scraps and pasting them onto full size cardstock paper just to reduce the chaos…but the improvement is only marginal. No matter, they are all at my fingertips when I need them.
As the quintessential word nerd, I have a deep appreciation for the nuance of language. Here is a smattering of my some of favorites on the topics of love, authenticity and awe. Consume with abandon!
LOVE
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ~ Rumi
I felt it shelter to speak to you. ~ Emily Dickinson
There are certain romances that belong in certain cities, in a certain atmosphere, in a certain time. ~ Sammy Davis, Jr.
Romantic love is mental illness. ~ Eric Fromm
Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time. ~ Maya Angelou
Two things only a man cannot hide: that he is drunk and that he is in love. ~ Antiphanes
Love is a river. Drink from it. ~ Rumi
The madness of love is the greatest of heaven’s blessings. ~ Plato
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life. ~ Oscar Wilde
The way the night knows itself with the moon, be that with me. ~ Rumi
AUTHENTICITY
When I follow my oughts, I may find myself doing work that is ethically laudable but not mine to do. ~ Parker Palmer
We can’t give our minds what our hearts reject. ~ Marcus Borg
Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Every time you find yourself following the manual instead of writing the manual, you’re avoiding the anguish and giving into the resistance. ~ Seth Godin
When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. ~ Maya Angelou
The unexamined life is not worth living. ~ Socrates
My life is my message. ~ Gandhi
To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer it to have kept your soul alive. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
I was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me. ~ Andrew Jackson
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. ~ Joseph Campbell
AWE
Barn burned down. Now I can see the moon. ~ Basho
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. ~ Soren Kierkegaard
We are one leaf on the great human tree. ~ Pablo Neruda
Life is a creative, intimate, and unpredictable conversation. ~ David Whyte
The universe can dream a bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself. ~ Oprah
Sell your cleverness and purchase bewilderment. ~ Rumi
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. ~ Carl Jung
When the soul wishes to experience something she throws an image of the experience out before her and enters into her own image. ~ Meister Eckhart
The well of Providence is deep. It’s the buckets we bring to it that are small. ~ Mary Webb
My soul is a Mosque for Muslims, a Temple for Hindus, an Altar for Zoroastrians, a Church for Christians, a Synagogue for Jews, and a pasture for gazelles. ~ Iba Arabi