tell me what you know

This blog takes its name from a quote attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: "I hate quotations, tell me what you know." It exists simply as a place to collect sayings and lyrics, poems and thoughts I find inspiring, amusing, or clever. None of these words are original to me, and you won't find my thoughts interjected.

[ihatequotations]

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”

Martha Graham

[ihatequotations]

-Pietro Belluschi

[ihatequotations]

Once you decide on your occupation you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That's the secret of success and is the key to being regarded honorably.

Jiro Ono

[ihatequotations]

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement, [to] get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed. Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness. Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge. Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being. Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song. When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power… Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

[littlefootlove]

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (via serialchillin)

[ihatequotations]

but God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

romans 5:8

[ihatequotations]

Be not afraid.

John Paul II (originally attributed to Jesus Christ)

[ihatequotations]

I have often repented of having spoken, but never of having remained silent.

Arsenius

[ihatequotations]

[creativesomething]

I imagine that most people who arrive at writing as a hobby, and then as a craft, and then as a career, begin the journey from a place of buzzing, appreciative idealization….They perceive in literature, in its expression of human hopes and limits, everything they’d like to be, yet they respect it as something beyond their capabilities, something larger and greater than themselves.

Matthew Wade Jordan shares insights on being a writer (via creativesomething)

[ihatequotations]

Beloved, let us love one another because love is from God everyone who loves is born of God and knows God

1 john 4:7, NIV

[ihatequotations]

A poem is never finished, only abandoned.

Paul Valery

[ihatequotations]

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

R. Buckminster Fuller

[ihatequotations]

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass

[ihatequotations]

[ihatequotations]

To love is to will the good of another.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

[ihatequotations]

One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.

Iris Murdoch