BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Inspiration Inspiration Quote

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Carl Jung

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung is best known for his theories concerning the unconscious — our personalities, dreams, and intuitions. He believed that to develop a “true self,” each person had to distinguish the ego (individual identity) from the collective unconscious (shared symbols and patterns over human history). In that vein, Jung helped establish psychotherapy for people who felt their lives had lost meaning, guiding them to examine their individuality. His studies are a testament to the power of looking inward: When we understand ourselves and our place in the world, it gives us the clarity and insight we need to live with purpose.

There is no such thing as the future until it is the present.
~Bernard Shaw

Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.
~Pierce Harris

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness.

Thích Nhất Hạnh

Renowned Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh traveled widely to spread his teachings on mindfulness and nonviolence. His persistent peaceful campaigns calling for an end to the Vietnam War in the 1960s brought him worldwide recognition, as well as nearly 40 years of exile from his home country. Here, he advises us to let go of our attachments in order to find happiness. He writes that to cling to anything — “anger, anxiety, or possessions” — can encumber our experience of freedom. Thích Nhất Hạnh once said “letting go is a practice,” and an art that can be cultivated daily. By recognizing and releasing our desires, fears, hurt, and resentment, we can live our lives more freely and joyfully.

The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.

Esther Perel

Esther Perel is one of America’s leading couples therapists, known for her two bestselling books on desire in partnerships and the popular podcast “Where Should We Begin?” which documents her real counseling sessions. Perel’s curiosity about how relationships are evolving in a rapidly changing world has led to several viral TED Talks, and her books have been translated into 25 languages. She reminds us here that our day-to-day happiness relies heavily on the people we surround ourselves with, and how much time and effort we invest in those connections.

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Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison wrote 11 novels during her lifetime and received a number of prestigious honors and accolades for her body of work, including the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the Nobel Prize for literature. Centering her novels on the lived experiences of Black Americans, Morrison highlighted the realities of her characters’ lives through intimate explorations of identity, race, gender, and economic class. This compelling quote comes from Morrison’s preface in “The Black Book,” an encyclopedic exploration of the Black experience in America, edited by Morrison and published in 1974. Her words here are a profound reminder that we are each a compilation of everything we have ever known and loved, connected to our ancestors and our descendants by our experiences and memories.

Better bread with water than cake with trouble.
~Russian proverb

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.

Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy is widely regarded as one of the greatest living American writers. His 12 novels — many of which have been made into movies — include “All the Pretty Horses,” “The Crossing,” his magnum opus “Blood Meridian,” and “The Road,” which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The author is known for his sparse style and what he calls “simple declarative sentences.” Thematically, his work is highly complex, ranging from borderline nihilism to deep examinations of human morals. In his novel “No Country for Old Men,” in which this quote appears, McCarthy tackles the conflicting ideas of fate, luck, and choice.

So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.
~Gaston Bachelard