“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)
Inspirational thoughts
Reflecting on your own mortality
“The best way to prepare for death is to spend every day of life as though it were the last.” ― St. Philip Neri
Serving the poor
“Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and cleanse not only your own sins but the sins of others.” Fyodor Dostoevsky
Jesus
“If Christ Jesus dwells in a man as his friend and noble leader, that man can endure all things, for Christ helps and strengthens us and never abandons us. He is a true friend.” St. Teresa of Avila
Looking for Jesus?
“Perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols; vagabond-language scrawled on gate-posts and paving-stones along the weary road that others have tramped before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
Sticking with it
“It is only by being obstinate that anything is got, or done.” Rumer Godden
Telling the truth
“If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory!” Mark Twain
Stronger in the broken places
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway
Finding balance
“There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone is a house with four rooms: a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.” Rumer Godden
Working hard for holiness?
“I have never understood why ‘hard work’ is supposed to be pitiable. True, some work is soul destroying when it is done against the grain, but when it is part of “making” how can you grudge it? You get tired, of course, but the struggle, the challenge, the feeling of being extended as you never thought you could be is fulfilling and deeply, deeply satisfying.” Rumer Godden