“when you are broken
and he has left you
do not question
whether you were
enough
the problem was
you were so enough
he was not able to carry it”
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey (Page 103)
“you mustn’t have to
make them want you
they must want you themselves”
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey (Page 96)
“love will come
and when love comes
love will hold you
love will call your name
and you will melt
sometimes though
love will hurt you but
love will never mean to
love will play no games
cause love knows life
has been hard enough already”
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey (Page 60)
“i do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own
i want to be so complete
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of us combined
could set it on fire”
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey (Page 59)
“he placed his hands
on my mind
before reaching
for my waist
my hips
or my lips
he didn’t call me
beautiful first
he called me
exquisite”
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey (Page 54)
“the thing about having
an alcoholic parent
is an alcoholic parent
does not exist
simply
an alcoholic
who could not stay sober
long enough to raise their kids”
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey (Page 39)
“you tell me to quiet down cause
my opinions make me less beautiful
but i was not made with a fire in my belly
so i could be put out
i was not made with a lightness on my tongue
so i could be easy to swallow
i was made heavy
half blade and half silk
difficult to forget and not easy
for the mind to follow”
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey (Page 30)
“there is no bigger illusion in the world
than the idea that a woman will
bring dishonor into a home
if she tries to keep her heart
and her body safe”
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey (Page 24)
“Seneca reminded himself that before we were born we were still and at peace, and so we will be once again after we die. A light loses nothing by being extinguished, he said, it just goes back to how it was before.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 256)
“A person who makes selfish choices or acts contrary to their conscience will never be at peace. A person who sits back while others suffer or struggle will never feel good, or feel that they are enough, no matter how much they accomplish or how impressive their reputation may be. A person who does good regularly will feel good. A person who contributes to their community will feel like they are a part of one. A person who puts their body to good use—volunteering, protecting serving, standing up for—will not need to treat it like an amusement park to get some thrills.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 250)
“Stillness is not an excuse to withdraw from the affairs of the world. Quite the opposite‚ it’s a tool to let you do more good for more people.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 249)
“Those who think they will find solutions to all their problems by traveling far from home, perhaps as they stare at the Colosseum or some enormous moss-covered statue of Buddha, Emerson said, are bringing ruins to ruins. Wherever they go, whatever they do, their sad self comes along. A plane ticket or a pill or some plant medicine is a treadmill, not a shortcut. What you seek will come only if you sit and do the work, if you probe yourself with real self-awareness and patience.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 245)
“We must be disciplined about our discipline and moderate in our moderation. Life is about balance, not about swinging from one pole to the other. Too many people alternate between working and bingeing, on television, on food, on video games, on laying around wondering why they are bored. The chaos of life leads into the chaos of planning a vacation. Sitting alone with a canvas? A book club? A whole afternoon for cycling? Chopping down trees? Who has the time? If Churchill had the time, if Gladstone had the time, you have the time.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 240)
“Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death. The higher the interest rate and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.”
Arthur Schopenhauer, via Stillness is the Key (Page 230)
“People say, ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ as they hasten that very death, both literally and figuratively. They trade their health for a few more working hours. They trade the long-term viability of their business or their career before the urgency of some temporal crisis. If we treat sleep as a luxury, it is the first to go when we get busy. If sleep is what happens only when everything is done, work and others will constantly be impinging on your personal space. You will feel frazzled and put upon, like a machine that people don’t take care of and assume will always function.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 230)
“Good decisions are not made by those who are running on empty. What kind of interior life can you have, what kind of thinking can you do, when you’re utterly and completely overworked? It’s a vicious cycle: We end up having to work more to fix the errors we made when we would have been better off resting, having consciously said no instead of reflexively saying yes. We end up pushing good people away (and losing relationships) because we’re wound so tight and have so little patience.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 225)
“Breakthroughs seem to happen with stunning regularity in the shower or on a long hike. Where don’t they happen? Shouting to be heard in a bar. Three hours into a television binge. Nobody realizes just how much they love someone while they’re booking back-to back-to-back meetings. If solitude is the school of genius, as the historian Edward Gibbon put it, then the crowded, busy world is the purgatory of the idiot.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 215)
“It is difficult to think clearly in rooms filled with other people. It’s difficult to understand yourself if you are never by yourself. It’s difficult to have much in the way of clarity and insight if your life is a constant party and your home is a construction site. Sometimes you have to disconnect in order to better connect with yourself and with the people you serve and love.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 215)
“Monks and priests take vows of poverty because it will mean fewer distractions, and more room (literally) for the spiritual pursuit to which they have committed. No one is saying we have to go that far, but the more we own, the more we oversee, the less room we have to move and, ironically, the less still we become. Start by walking around your house and filling up trash bags and boxes with everything you don’t use. Think of it as clearing more room for your mind and your body. Give yourself space. Give your mind a rest. Want to have less to be mad about? Less to covet or be triggered by? Give more away.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 210)
“No one dogged by creditors is free. Living outside your means is not glamorous. Behind the appearances, it’s exhausting. It’s also dangerous. The person who is afraid to lose their stuff, who has their identity wrapped up in their things, gives their enemies an opening. They make themselves extra vulnerable to fate.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 209)