Monday, February 28, 2005

A collection of quotes for grey days

"My heart is afraid it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."
--Paulo Coelho,
The Alchemist
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.
--Clarissa Pinkola Estes
stenciled flowerDo not wait to strike
till the iron is hot;
but make it hot
by striking.
--William Butler Yeats
I like Lech Walesa's answer to the question "How did Solidarity start?"
"By talking loud at the bus stop."
(first three via A Mindful Life; last from a comment at Body and Soul)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

oh, Yeats is such a stud.

But Emily Dickinson can match him line for line:

Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?Then crouch within the door -
Red - is the Fire's common tint -
But when the vivid Ore
Has vanquished Flame's conditions,
It quivers from the Forge
Without a color, but the light
Of unanointed Blaze.
Least Village has its Blacksmith
Whose Anvil's even ring
Stands symbol for the finer Forge
That soundless tugs - within -
Refining these impatient Ores
With Hammer, and with Blaze
Until the Designated Light
Repudiate the Forge -