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Inner Life Quotes

Browse 295 quotes about Inner Life.

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Inner Life Quotes

“The profound political changes we need in order to heal our planet will not come about through fragmented problem solving or intellectual analyses that overlook the deepest yearnings and intuitions of the heart....As we begin to cultivate a rich inner life and experience our connection with all life, we realize how little of what society tells us we need is actually important for our well-being....Green politics must address the spiritual vacuum of industrial society.”

NeedsWellsHeartLittlesImportantProblemSpiritualPoliticalOrderRealizingRichPlanetsIntellectualConnectionsGreenProfoundIntuitionHealWell BeingAnalysisAddressesYearningProblem SolvingOur PlanetVacuumsInner LifeFragmentedPolitical Change
Author:Petra Kelly
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“Stories set the inner life into motion, and this is particularly important where the inner life is frightened, wedged, or cornered. Story greases the hoists and pulleys, it causes adrenaline to surge, shows us the way out, down, or up, and for our trouble, cuts for us fine wide doors in previously blank walls, openings that lead to the dreamland, that lead to love and learning, that lead us back to our own real lives as knowing wildish women.”

WayImportantRealStoriesShowsLife IsCausesKnowingCuttingTroubleDoorsWallFineWideReal LifeOpeningFrightenedBlankInner LifeAdrenalineGreaseCorneredDreamlandPulleys
Author:Clarissa Pinkola Estes
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“Thou shall love the Lord with thy whole heart, soul, and mind. This is the commandment of the Great God, and he cannot command the impossible. Love is a fruit in season at all times and within reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set. Everyone can reach this love through meditation, spirit of prayer, and sacrifice by an intense inner life. There is no limit because God is love, love is God, God's love is infinite. But part is to love and to give until it hurts. That's why it is not how much you do, but how much love you put into the action.”

GivingMindHeartMaySoulWholeHandsActionSpiritHurtPrayerLove IsLordMeditationImpossibleSacrificeLove YouLimitsSeasonsInfiniteFruitIntenseCommandAll TimeCommandmentsIt HurtsGod's LoveInner LifeGod Is LoveMuch LoveWithin ReachImpossible Love
Author:Mother Teresa
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“To me, feminism in literature deals with the female characters being in some way central to the thematic concerns of the book, or that they are agents of change to some degree. In other words, the lens is focused deeply and intensely on the female characters and doesn't waver, which allows for a glimpse into the rich inner lives of the characters.”

WayBookCharacterLiteratureDealsRichFeminismDegreesConcernFemaleFocusedAgentsGlimpseLensesInner LifeFemale CharactersThematic
Author:Laurie Foos
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“Those stories weren't being written at all - stories about women's inner lives and outer activism. We've come miles and miles, but we still don't have an equal rights amendment yet. We don't have equal pay yet. There's a lot of blind misogyny that's not personal, but institutionalized. We still have work to do, but even just looking at those old Ms. Magazines is a cool thing to do - to see how daring they were. They just went right into the belly of the beast.”

StillsStoriesPayRightsWrittenEqualBlindActivismMilesMagazinesThings To DoBeastDaringAmendmentsMisogynyBellyEqual RightsInner LifeCool ThingsEqual PayEqual Rights Amendment
Author:Marisa Tomei
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“We often hear the teachers of all creeds lamenting the difficulty of keeping up in the minds of believers a lively apprehension of the truth which they nominally recognize, so that it may penetrate the feelings, and acquire a real mastery over the conduct.... When it has come to be a hereditary creed, and to be received passively, not actively ... there is a progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except the formularies ... until it almost ceases to connect itself at all with the inner life of the human being.”

MindHumansMayRealFeelingsBeliefHuman BeingsForgetTeacherDifficultyBelieverCeaseTendenciesAcquireProgressiveMasteryCreedsPenetrateLivelyInner LifeApprehensionHereditary
Author:John Stuart Mill
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“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”

BelieveKindSelfMotivationalHappinessBeliefAchieveSelf EsteemPossibilityAcceptanceTrustConfidenceAchievementComfortableSelf ImprovementEthicsTransformationHappySelf ConfidenceTinyEsteemLive LifeFlamesBelieve In YourselfSparksLove YourselfBeing HappyLiving My LifeDistrustInner SelfTrue HappinessTrust YourselfBe True To YourselfInner LifeHave ConfidenceListen To Your HeartBoostSelf TransformationBoost Self ConfidenceListen To YourselfBoost Self EsteemBelief In SelfSelf Esteem And ConfidenceSelf-importanceConfidence In YourselfSelf TrustLive Life HappyConfidence BoostingBoost Your ConfidenceHappiness Is A ChoiceBoost Your Self EsteemI Trust YouBelief In YourselfTrust And RespectInspirational ConfidenceSelf Confidence MotivationalInspirational Self EsteemInspirational Self ConfidenceSelf InspirationalProud Of YourselfTrusting YouLive For YourselfTrust RespectTrusting Each Other
Author:Golda Meir
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“From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.”

KnowsMenLifeInspirationalGivingWellsSoulLife IsOrderRealizingMy OwnFateOne ThingDependsReturnGratitudeBuiltLaborFellowsSmileSakeConnectedHappyWell BeingDaily LifeSympathyBeing HappyFellow ManStandpointInner LifeCaring For OthersPeople In Your LifeMy Sympathy
Author:Albert Einstein
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“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said that you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWritingFirstsDoeMadeSaidFeelingsHateTurnsDealsRichAssumingLikesPriestsTomsElegantEnthusiasticInner LifeGreat WritersLike Her
Author:Anne Lamott
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“How aware are we of our own inner life, our spirituality-something so intangible yet so priceless? How much effort do we make to perceive that which is not obvious, which can neither be seen nor heard? I believe the exploration and enrichment of the human spirit is what determines our very humanity. Such enrichment provides an inner compass that can lead civilizations to greatness.”

BelieveHumansSpiritHumanitySpiritualityI BelieveEffortHeardGreatnessCivilizationDetermineObviousKarmaPerceiveExplorationHuman SpiritCompassPricelessInner LifeIntangibleEnrichmentSelf Reformation
Author:Daisaku Ikeda
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“Please allow me to wipe the slate clean. Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the alpha and omega. An end in itself. Florentino Ariza, Love in the Time of Cholera”

ThinkingWorldLoveHumansMeanEndsStatesRealityAgeSpiritHuman BeingsGracePleaseEternalEssenceCleanPassagesWipeVigorousInner LifeSlatePassage Of TimeAlphasCholeraAlpha And OmegaAging Process
Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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“Knot the tie and go to work, unknot the tie and go to sleep. I sleep. I dream. I wake. I sing. I get out the hammer and start knocking in the wooden pegs that affix the meaning to the landscape, the inner life to the body, the names to the things. I float too much to wander, like you, in the real world. I envy it but that’s the dealio—you’re a train and I’m a trainstation and when I try to guess your trajectory I end up telling my own story.”

WorldTryingRealEndsStoriesDreamBodyNamesMy OwnSleepToo MuchLike YouTrainEnvyWanderLandscapeTiesReal WorldFloatsHammersGoing To SleepInner LifeKnockingKnotsTrajectoryPeg
Author:Richard Siken
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“Vonnegut's war was necessary. And yet it was massacre and screaming and confusion and blood and death. It was the mammoth projection outward of the confused inner life of men. In war, the sad tidy constructs we make to help us believe life is orderly and controllable are roughly thrown aside like the delusions they are. In war, love is outed as an insane, insupportable emotion, a kind of luxury emotion, because everywhere you look, someone beloved to someone is being slaughtered, by someone whose own beloved has been slaughtered, or will be, or could be.”

MenBelieveLooksKindHas BeensWarHelpingLife IsLove IsEmotionBloodConfusionInsaneLuxuryBelovedConfusedThrownDelusionConstructsProjectionInner LifeOrderlyTidyMassacresWar Love
Author:George Saunders
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“Faith is the door to the full inner life of the Church, a life which includes not only access to an authoritative teaching but above all to a deep personal experience which is at once unique and yet shared by the whole Body of Christ, in the Spirit of Christ.”

WholeBodySpiritChristChurchDoorsTeachingUniqueAccessInner LifePersonal ExperiencesBody Of Christ
Book:The Golden Age of Zen: Zen Masters of the T'Ang Dynasty
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“The academic bias against subjectivity not only forces our students to write poorly ("It is believed...," instead of, "I believe..."), it deforms their thinking about themselves and their world. In a single stroke, we delude our students into believing that bad prose turns opinions into facts and we alienate them from their own inner lives.”

ThinkingWorldWritingBelieveHeartFactsTurnsForceI BelieveOpinionStudentsProseAcademicBiasStrokesInner LifeSubjectivity
Book:The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal
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“Most of us love a non-self, or something extrinsic and apart from our inner life; but a mother's love during the time she is a flesh-and-blood ciborium is not for a non-self but for one that is her very self, a perfect example of charity and love which hardly perceives a separation. Motherhood then becomes a kind of priesthood. She brings God to man by preparing the flesh in which the soul will be implanted; she brings man to God in offering the child back again to the Creator.”

MenKindChildrenSoulSelfMotherPerfectBloodExampleAnd LoveCharityCreatorMotherhoodFleshSeparationPerceiveOfferingPreparingInner LifeBack AgainPriesthoodFlesh And BloodMother's LoveCharity And Love
Author:Fulton J. Sheen
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“If we want to grow as teachers -- we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives -- risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract.”

IfsWantCultureGrowsStuffTeacherSafetyProfessionAliensAbstractAcademicInner Life
Book:The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life
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“All I’ve ever done is dream. That, and only that, has been the meaning of my existence. The only thing I’ve ever really cared about is my inner life. My greatest griefs faded to nothing the moment I opened the window onto my inner self and lost myself in watching. I never tried to be anything other than a dreamer. I never paid any attention to people who told me to go out and live. I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be. Anything that was not mine, however base, always seemed to be full of poetry. The only thing I ever loved was pure nothingness.”

PeopleHas BeensSelfDoneMomentsDreamLostGriefExistenceAttentionMinesPureWindowPaidDreamerNothingnessInner SelfInner LifeFadedLost Myself
Book:The Book of Disquiet
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“The director’s task is to recreate life, its movement, its contradictions, its dynamic and conflicts. It is his duty to reveal every iota of the truth he has seen, even if not everyone finds that truth acceptable. Of course an artist can lose his way, but even his mistakes are interesting provided they are sincere. For they represent the reality of his inner life, of the peregrinations and struggle into which the external world has thrown him.”

IfsWorldWayRealityArtistCoursesLosesInterestingMistakeStruggleMovementDutyDirectorsConflictTasksContradictionThrownSincereAcceptableInner Life
Author:Andrei Tarkovsky
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