Favourite Quotes - Part 3

[Kizzie]

Follow on to Parts 1 and 2

[Three Roses]

"What you are is an expression of history." Robert Penn Warren, World Enough And Time

[woodsgnome]

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."

--Elbert Hubbard

[woodsgnome]

"No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve in quality as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing it is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it.

It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them."

Alan Watts
      ------------------------------------------
Much of what Watts had to say in this and other quotes of his resonates strongly with my experience on this road called cptsd. He has a lot of wisdom nuggets tucked around his writings.

This one I've found helpful whenever I sense an urge to rush to the cure (rush? I've been searching for nearly 50 years of if only thinking!). And sometimes I'm crushed realizing that, well, there may never be a defined 'cure' that I'll even recognize. Then I remember to slow down and truly 'live in the moment'--all of them, even the painful ones. Tricky to say that, though; 'now' and 'in the moment' have become such buzzwords in an age of celebrity psychobabble still promising that elusive cure-all. Anyway, I'm still learning to play this symphony en route, as it is, without regard for that defined endpoint where perfection breaks out and saves me. 

[Three Roses]

Love this! Thanks for posting

[Dutch Uncle]

Thanks for some great quotes! 

While I'm looking for confirmation of a quote made by Niels Bohr (the Nobel Prize winning physicist who stood at the cradle of quantum mechanics) I came across this gem:

"No, no, you're not thinking — you're just being logical."
— Bohr

(the unverified quote I'm looking for is something like this:
"To understand nuclear physics is child's play compared to understanding child's play.")

[woodsgnome]

"If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's."
     ---Joseph Campbell

I used to spend a lot of time searching for the way, an all-inclusive path that I could jump on, like an automated walkway, and easily find all the answers. The more I did that the more disappointed I became. Why couldn't I do this better, etc.?

Now I realize the value in knowing that recovery is a work-in-progress, with no set destination--whatever I discover might even contain a pleasant surprise; even if I only come to it through more pain, anxiety and depression. Whatever I'm finding often brings more questions than pat answers. As Campbell pointed out, our individual paths are sometimes anything but clear. And that's fine.

[woodsgnome]

If we run away from our sadness,
If we turn our backs on anger,
If we deny fear its inherent right to be here,
If we kick our pain out onto the cold, dark streets,
How will we ever know
That these weren't precious gifts made of gold,
Forged in the fires of ourselves long ago?

...Jeff Foster

[Kizzie]

"Put down the shovel of self-blame and stop digging"

Sonia Connelly, Sundown Healing - http://traumahealed.com/articles/prefer-narratives-with-hope/

[Dutch Uncle]

I'm in a bit of limbo today... up, down.

*** trigger warning: this is a bit dark***

edited it out.

[Dutch Uncle]

The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size.

Albert Einstein

[Dutch Uncle]

silence cannot be misquoted..... anonymous.

(why No Contact is so important)

[woodsgnome]

"...don't add legs to a snake..."---anonymous.

My take: Cptsd abuse is like a poisonous snake and we only make it worse by adding power (obsessing, trying to undo, fighting back, etc) to its venomous abilities to hurt those in its way. We've already suffered and need to be careful we're not adding to the injury instead of dealing with the recovery.

[woodsgnome]

"I don't want to be perfect. I want to be real."  ...Jeff Foster
     

[sanmagic7]

 -- wisdom and talent are the lowest tiers of usefulness  --  samurai wisdom

without action, there is still nothing accomplished.