x "We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies."
— Roderick Thorp

x "Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste."
— Charlotte Brontë, who was born today, on the 21st April 1816

x "I want to feel what I feel. What’s mine. Even if it’s not happiness …"
— Toni Morrison

x "But you can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. We don’t have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses that we were told not go in to. When we have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in – then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home."
— Anne Lamott, with thanks to journalofanobody

x "It is the body that is old. Sometimes I am afraid I will break off a finger as one breaks a stick of chalk. And the spirit is no older and not much wiser.”
“You are wise.”
“No, that is the great fallacy, the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful."
— Ernest Hemingway, from A Farewell to Arms, with thanks to softwhisper and lydianea

x "… we know what we are, but know not what we may be."
— Ophelia, in Hamlet, adapted and rediscovered with thanks to journalofanobody

(Source: aladdertothestars)

x "Sometimes, in doing philosophy, one just wants to utter an inarticulate sound."
— Ludwig Wittgenstein (with thanks to journalofanobody)

x "The world to me is a dream and the people in it are sleepers. I have known a few instances of intensity but that is all. I want to find a world in which these instances are united. Shall I succeed? I scarcely care. What is important is to try & learn to live, and in relation to everything – not isolated."
— Katherine Mansfield

x "The work of an unknown good man is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green."
— Thomas Carlyle

x "A man’s age is something impressive, it sums up his life: maturity reached slowly and against many obstacles, illnesses cured, griefs and despairs overcome, and unconscious risks taken; maturity formed through so many desires, hopes, regrets, forgotten things, loves. A man’s age represents a fine cargo of experiences and memories."
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, from Wartime Writings: 1939-1944, translated by Norah Purcell  (with thanks to hateshiploveship)