This is the pruning period, when life can look pretty drab; the dead branches of our old habits will be lying all around us and the new leaves will not yet have begun to grow.
But for all of us, if we keep at our pruning carefully, the spring is bound to come.
There will still be gardening to do, but when we see our new ways blossoming and the good fruit we have begun to bear for others, this pruning of self-will will be a source of lasting satisfaction.
~ Eknath Easwaran
Most of the time the universe speaks to us very quietly
in pockets of silence
in nature
in the shape of clouds
in coincidences
in forgotten memories
in moments of solitude
in small tugs at our hearts.~ Yumi Sakugawa, Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One With the Universe
Truly, there is magic in fairy tales. For it takes but a simply-uttered ‘Once upon a time…’ to allure and spellbind an audience.
~ Rachelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
The unrealistic nature of these tales (which narrowminded rationalists object to) is an important device, because it makes obvious that the fairy tales’ concern is not useful information about the external world, but the inner process taking place in an individual.
~ Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment
We are all leaves on different branches of the same tree.
~ Laura Lynne Jackson
In order to survive, a plurality of true communities would require not egalitarianism and tolerance but knowledge, an understanding of the necessity of local differences, and respect. Respect, I think, always implies imagination – the ability to see one another, across our inevitable differences, as living souls.
~ Wendell Berry
It isn’t the oceans which cut us off from the world — it’s the American way of looking at things.
~ Henry Miller
Life is life’s greatest gift. Guard the life of another creature as you would your own because it is your own. On life’s scale of values, the smallest is no less precious to the creature who owns it than the largest.
~Lloyd Biggle Jr.
