Here are some quotes which I have found meaningful and inspiring and influence the way that I work:
‘Grief is the price we pay for commitment, the consequence of investing emotions and affection in another.’ – Gertrud Mander
‘Every human being is born a prince or princess; early experience convinces some that they are frogs.’ – Eric Berne
‘It is in suffering that we discover the strength of our being. It is through wounds that we we test the boundaries of who we are. It is in coming to terms with our own weakness that we grow strongest.’ – Margot Cairnes
‘We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the frost time’ – TS Elliott
‘It is difficult to find happiness in oneself but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.’ – Shopenhauer
‘When a man projects his vulnerability and intuition onto women he is left in a cut-off, disconnected world of his analytic mind, unable to relate.
When a woman projects out her wild animal self, she becomes afraid of the fur on her face, the hair on her body, her flesh, her instincts, her body.’ – Mary-Jane Rust
‘…room full of neglected, imprisoned dogs; the longer they are shut away, the more urgently they press for attention and release.’ – Sigmund Freud (on repressed feelings):
‘…if psychotherapists and clients spent less time looking in the mirror and more looking through the window, they might better attend to the world.’ – James Hillman
‘The mind is it’s own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’ – John Milton
‘It is not things themselves that disturb people but their judgements about those things.’ –Epictetus
‘If you can solve your problem,
Then what is the need of worrying?
If you cannot solve it,
Then what is the use of worrying?’ – Shantideva
‘Technological progress has merely provided us with a more efficient means for going backwards.’ – Aldous Huxley
From Carl Jung:
‘Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble’
‘It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves’
‘Everything that irritates us about others can lead to an understanding of ourselves’
‘The greatest and most important problems in life are fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown’
‘Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious’
‘Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside, awakes.’
‘One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.’
‘Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of it’s purpose.’
From Marion Woodman:
‘…remember the moment in your own childhood when you hoped and you loved and you gave your all and nobody received you. That’s death.’
‘The little soul bird that was put away in a dark box in childhood needs time and silence to learn to trust again.’
‘An addict attempts to fill a terrible emptiness inside. But it’s spiritual emptiness, not physical emptiness.’
‘ I think there is some addiction in most families; our culture is addicted. The addiction can cover a broad range of problems: parents that are involved with another partner, a relationship addiction, a food addiction, gambling, sleeping, an addiction to TV…’
‘ As long as addicts are trying to transcend themselves, reaching for the sky, pulling away from Earth into spirit, they’re like some hero carved in stone, standing on top of the pillar alone, blind to the pigeon shit. Instead of transcending ourselves, we need to move into ourselves. We’re talking about human unsuccess – not failure, but the unsuccess that is human, in contrast to the perfection that rapes the soul. ‘
From Tulku Thondup:
‘Food, clothing, shelter, health, care and education are necessary to sustain one’s precious life…Beyond that, nothing external is worth our time, peace, energy and wisdom…The other commodities of living are mostly tools to satisfy our craving mind, worship and polish our ego, and tighten our grasping.’
Hindu saying:
‘Life is like a bridge, cross it, but do not build a house on it.’
From William Blake:
‘If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, til he sees all things through narrow chinks in his cavern.’
‘He who binds himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.’
From Kahil Gibran:
‘Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding…
Much of your pain is self chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.’
‘Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.’
‘Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit even in your dreams.’
From the Buddha:
‘Every life has a measure of sorrow. Sometimes it is this that awakens us.’
‘As you walk and eat and travel be where you are
Otherwise you will miss most of your life.’
‘The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?’
‘No matter how difficult the past, you can always begin again today.’
‘In life we cannot avoid change, we cannot avoid loss. Freedom and happiness are found in the flexibility and ease with which we move through change.’
‘Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness’ – James Thurber
From Rumi:
‘Close the language door, and open the love window
The moon wont use the door, only the window’
‘Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your search for wisdom.’
‘Each act of man is the twist and double of an hare
Love and Death are the hounds that course him…
…This is the comedy of Pan, that man should think that he hunteth, while those hounds hunt him’ – Aleister Crowley
‘What if you slept, and what if in your sleep you dreamed, and what if in your dreams you went to heaven and there you plucked a strange and beautiful flower, and what if when you awoke you had the flower in your hand. Ah, what then?’ – Samuel Taylor Coleridge