Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in the scheme of things - these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance,  no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes. True ambition is not what we thought it was. True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly...

- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, adapted

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy:
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.

- William Blake, English poet, painter and printmaker

The book of love is written in the language of wonder – our best means of loving life more deeply. To love anything – a person, a pond, the world – is to see the wonder in it, to hear the music in it. Both love and wonder are in mysterious conversation with the deepest substrate of us, the complete message of which is unintelligible to the analytical mind, inaccessible by any explanatory model. Both require a surrender to the musicality of the experience – a trust that the music is the message.

- Maria Popova, a Bulgarian-born, American-based essayist, book author, poet, and writer of literary and arts commentary and cultural criticism that has found wide appeal both for her writing and for the visual stylistics which accompany it.

We typically think that experiences such as sadness, tiredness, or loneliness  are temporary feelings that qualify us as human beings, but we can go a step further. Even the experience of being human is a temporary state of pure being. At the deepest level, we are not human beings; we are pure being, temporarily clothed in human experience.

It is this recognition, the recognition of the divine in us that makes us truly humane. The qualities that are innate in being, such as peace, happiness, and love, inspire actions in our lives such as creativity, kindness and compassion.

- Rupert Spira, English artist, author, teacher, and practitioner of Sufism, Mystical Christianity, Kashmir Shaivism, and Advaita Vedanta

Between the here, between the now
Between the North, between the South
Between the West, Between the East
Between the time, between the place
 
From the shell
The song of the sea
Neither quiet nor calm
Searching for love again
 
Mo ghra (My love)
 
Between the winds, between the waves
Between the sands, between the shores
 
From the shell
The song of the sea
Neither quiet nor calm
Searching for love again
 
Between the stones, between the storms
Between belief, between the seas
 
Ta me I dtiuin (I am in tune)

- Lisa Hannigan, Irish singer-songwriter and musician

If you want to be free, learn to live simply. Use what you have and be content where you are. Leave your car in the garage. If you have a gun put it away. Sell that complex computer and go back to using pencil and paper. Rather than read every new book that comes along, reread the classics. Eat food grown locally. Wear simple, durable clothing. Keep a small home, uncluttered and easy to clean. Keep an open calendar with periods of uncommitted time. Have a spiritual practice and let family customs grow. Of course the world is full of novelty and adventures. New opportunities come along everyday. So what?

In contrast to people who repress trauma and are unable to heal from it, these survivors revisited, reworked, and transformed their horrible experiences into creative projects and through helping others. Maintaining fidelity to the trauma, they charted a new life course and took risks to fulfill their highest potentials. Finding a mission or meaning in trauma is life giving in a way that revenge and bitterness are not.

- Dr. Mary M. Baures, psychologist, writer, and artist

Instead of asking for advice, learn to become more conscious of what is actually happening. Then you will be able to see for yourself how things happen. You can make your own decisions about what to do.

Life does not preach sermons or dictate behavior. What people do is their own responsibility. But the pattern of their behavior follows natural law. This law is so general, it covers every possible event. It is so specific, it applies to every instance of every event.

But no on can decide for you what to do in a given situation. This is up to you.

On an extraordinary scale, the species that were the most flexible, most adaptable to environmental changes, survived and thrived. A supple mind can help us reconcile the external changes going on all around us.

- Dr. Howard Cutler, American author and psychiatrist

I’m concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood and sisterhood; I’m concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.
 
And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about it in some circles today. And I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love; I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate…and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we aren’t moving wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and political philosopher, who was the leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.