I’m a very introspective person who always tries to figure out why things happen and what my life purpose is. (Especially after experiencing a few significant life altering situations).  I don’t mind admitting that I got one of my only “A” letter grades in college in a philosophy course.  I had spent the first three years in college taking science and  other required classes for my nursing major. Finally, senior year, I got to take some elective classes that I thoroughly enjoyed.  Over the many years, I have collected various quotes that resonate with me from favored literature and elsewhere. Here are some of them:

“Ah but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?”- Robert Browning

“It’s never a good idea to give up on your dreams.”-Barbara Stamp

“This too shall pass.”

“Life is brief but love is LONG.”-Alfred Lord Tennyson

“I hold it true whate’re befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”-Alfred Lord Tennyson

“And was the day of my delight As pure and perfect as I say?  The very source and fount of Day  Is dashed with wandering isles of night. If all was good and fair we met, This earth had been the Paradise  It never looked to human eyes  Since our first Sun arose and set.  And is that the haze of grief  Makes former gladness loom so great?  The low less of the present state.  That sets the past in this relief  Or that the past will always win, A glory from its being far;  And orb into the perfect star  We saw not, when we moved therein?” -Alfred Lord Tennyson – In Memoriam

“For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.”- William Wordsworth

“It’s your life but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and what is false, what is important and what is trivial.  When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else or a community or a pressure group, you surrender your own integrity.  You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”- e.e. Cummings

“It takes courage to become who you really are.”- e.e. Cummings

“Whenever you think or believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people:but the moment you feel, you’re nobody but yourself.” – e.e. Cummings

“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.” – e.e. Cummings

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that something deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch.  Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” -e.e. Cummings

“Sometimes, you have to step outside the person you believe yourself to be. And remember the person you were meant to be.  The person you wanted to be.”- H.G. Wells

“Everything will be ok in the end.  If it’s not ok, it’s not the end.”-

“Stories do not end.” -Anais Nin

“We must accept finite disappointment,  but never lose infinite hope.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I believe challenging situations are easier to navigate when you don’t feel alone.” -Me

“I haven’t a clue how my story will end but that is all right.  When you set out on a journey and night covers the road, that’s when you discover the stars.” -Nancy Willard

“It’s pediatrics 1-0-1, listen to the Mother.”- Dr. Amar Gajjar

“Carpe Diem”

“Rules are made to be broken.”

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius.  And it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”- Marilyn Monroe

“Be certain that you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity.”-Maya Angelou

“Happiness is pretty simple-someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to.”- Rita Mae Brown

“Let it unfold.”- John Remington

“Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.”- Aristotle

“Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.”-Coco Chanel

“I am not young but I feel young.  The day I feel old, I will go to bed and stay there.  J’aime la vie! I feel that to live is a wonderful thing.”-Coco Chanel

“A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.”-Coco Chanel

“A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.”-Coco Chanel

“The Truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed.”-Eminem

“Anything I’ve ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.”-Eminem  

“I believe in the sun, even when it’s not shining.  I believe in love, even when I feel it not.  I believe in God, even when he is silent.”-Anonymous

LOVE QUOTES:

“The Greek philosopher Aristotle, thought the heart, not the brain, was the location of intelligence and thought.”

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”-Aristotle

“Unless you love someone, nothing else makes sense.”-e.e. Cummings

“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward.”-e.e. Cummings

“You don’t find love, it finds you.  It’s got a little bit to do with destiny, fate and what’s written in the stars.”-Anais Nin

“Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.”-Anais Nin

“Love is joy. Don’t convince yourself that suffering is part of it.”-Paulo Coelho

“Great loves too must be endured.” -Coco Chanel

“If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues.”-Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

“Only do what your heart tells you.”-Princess Diana

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries, without them humanity cannot survive.”-Dalai Lama

“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”-Mother Teresa

“A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to-letting a person be what he really is.”-Jim Morrison

The following quotes are some of my favorite “pulls” from FaceBook posts over the past several years.  I hope they might provide any of you with some inspiration!!!