Read, read, read. Read everything.

"Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we’re quoting." - John Green

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A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not in the branch but in her own wings.

unknown

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One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.

Paulo Coehlo, The Alchemist

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If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.

Charles Bukowski, Factotum

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Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.

William Martin, The Parent’s Tao Te Ching

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It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

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Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself.

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

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When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. When I pronounce the word Nothing, I make something no non-being can hold.

Wislawa Szymborska, “The Three Oddest Words”

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Maybe there's something you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid to go. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt because it matters.

John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

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The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it

Henry David Thoreau

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What matters most is how well you walk through the fire

Charles Bukowski

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I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it, on the inside.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday, and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

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I haven't the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

David Sedaris, Naked

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When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.

Malala Yousafzai

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The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend only a little of this mystery every day.

Albert Einstein

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There is no discovery without risk and what you risk reveals what you value.

Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

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May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears

Nelson Mandela