Inspiration

Words, written by others, that inspire me to think, dream, change, challenge, make art, contemplate, and live life as completely as I can. This page will be evolving and added to periodically as I continue to find words of inspiration.

Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.~e. e. cummings

I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems; You shall possess the good of the earth and sun—(there are millions of suns left) You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books; You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me: You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself.

~Walt Whitman

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.

~ Frederick Buechner

I learned I was not, as most Africans believed, the victim of my circumstances but the master of them.

~ Legson Kayira

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

~Vincent Van Gogh

I shut my eyes in order to see.

~Paul Gauguin

I believe the universe is one being; all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole … The whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it, and to think of it as divine. It seems to me that this whole alone is worthy of the deeper sort of love; and there is peace, freedom, I might say a kind of salvation, in turning one’s affections outward toward this one God; rather than inwards on one’s self, or on humanity, or on human imaginations and abstractions- the world of spirits.

~Robinson Jeffers

The forests are the flags of nature. They appeal to all and awaken inspiring universal feelings. Enter the forest and the boundaries of nations are forgotten. It may be that some time an immortal pine will be the flag of a united peaceful world.

~ Enos A. Mills

For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.

~ Henry Beston

Each day affirm that there is nothing in this world that can stop you from transforming your life, opening your heart, loving yourself, and sharing your love with everyone you encounter.

~Yogi Amrit Desai

If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution

~Emma Goldman

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.

~Ansel Adams

The world is but a canvas to the imagination.

~Henry David Thoreau

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

~ Zora Neale Hurston

The lifetime crusade of your days must be to develop a new energy ethic to sustain life on earth. Cherish sunsets, wild creatures and wild places. Have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of the earth.

~ Stewart Udall

  1. Jake Zimmerman
    May 27, 2008 at 8:42 pm | #1

    The Laughing Heart
    by Charles Bukowski

    your life is your life
    don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
    be on the watch.
    there are ways out.
    there is a light somewhere.
    it may not be much light but
    it beats darkness.
    be on the watch.
    the gods offer you chances.
    know them.
    take them.
    you can’t beat death but
    you can beat death in life, sometimes.
    and the more often you learn to do it,
    the more light there will be.
    your life is your life.
    know life is your life.
    know it while you have it.
    you are marvelous
    the gods wait to delight
    in you.

  2. tokenhippygirl
    May 28, 2008 at 7:34 am | #2

    Jake, I love Bukowski, and this is a great bit from him. Thanks for adding it here!

  3. August 16, 2009 at 2:08 pm | #3

    Good post, as usual. Thanks. Along the same lines but with an opposite tilt: here’s an interesting review of iPhone apps you should not buy: http://www.krazyworks.com/more-bad-iphone-apps/ I thought people here may find this useful.

  4. August 19, 2009 at 1:50 am | #4

    New Twitter Buttons Invite to tweet

    http://twitooters.com

  5. January 3, 2010 at 9:53 am | #5

    Do you like Robert Frost?

    Spring Pools

    These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
    The total sky almost without defect,
    And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
    Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
    And yet not out by any brook or river,
    But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.

    The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
    To darken nature and be summer woods –
    Let them think twice before they use their powers
    To blot out and drink up and sweep away
    These flowery waters and these watery flowers
    From snow that melted only yesterday.

    All the best

    Jeremy

  6. tokenhippygirl
    January 7, 2010 at 2:11 pm | #6

    Jeremy… Yes, I do like Robert Frost. Thanks for adding.

  7. January 15, 2010 at 9:47 am | #7

    Jake, I love Bukowski, and this is a great bit from him. Thanks for adding it here!

    i like it.! thanks. nice post.

  8. January 23, 2010 at 2:32 pm | #8

    cool pics

  9. March 28, 2010 at 12:21 pm | #9

    Hey, I just found your blog. You post some really great material here, and I really hope to visit again. Thanks!

  10. August 6, 2010 at 1:01 pm | #10

    Hello, I just stopped by your blog and wanted to say hi. You have a lot of really great content here, I can’t wait to read more. Have a great day!

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