I think all of us have a connection with quotes.  Everywhere I look, I see quotes posted on someone’s Facebook wall and we connect with those quotes which affirm what we are feeling at the time.

In the grand scheme of things, I wish for this page to be a collection of my favorite quotes which validate my existence and remind me to take chances, risk my heart, and live my life.

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” – Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

When effort is needed, effort will appear. When effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself. You need not push life about. Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment. – Nisargadatta Maharaj

We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us. – Joseph Campbell

Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.  – Rumi

What if all of life really wants you to succeed and be your absolute happiest and the only barriers are in your mind? What if life is conspiring at this SECOND to hear your dreams and make them reality? What if all you have to do is ask, believe and receive? — Unknown

“We don’t have to be afraid of dying because it’s not really death that scares us.  We are afraid of not having lived.” – Harold S. Kushner, Conquering Fear

“We have to cleanse our souls of accumulated bitterness, envy, and resentment.  We have to get over our anger at people who may have hurt, cheated, or betrayed us, most of whom may be long dead themselves or long gone from our lives.  I would say to people, Why do you insist on carrying that heavy baggage into whatever is waiting for you?  Why are you giving those people such power over you, to define you as a loser, a bitter, jealous person?  Let go and travel light.” – Harold S. Kushner, Conquering Fear

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” — Mark Twain

“Life is not a race-but indeed a journey. Be honest. Work hard. Be choosy. Say “thank you”. “I love you”, and “great job” to someone each day. Take time for prayer. Be thankful. Love your life and what you’ve been given, it is not accidental. Search for your purpose and do it as best you can. Dreaming does matter. It allows you to become that which you aspire to be. Laugh often. Appreciate the little things in life and enjoy them. Some of the best things really are free. Do not worry. Forgive, it frees the soul. Take time for yourself. Plan for longevity. Recognize the special people you’ve been blessed to know. Live for today, enjoy the moment.” — Bonnie Mohr

“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“Just to be clear, I don’t want to get out without a broken heart.  I intend to leave this life so shattered there’s gonna have to be a thousand separate heavens for all of my flying parts.” — Andrea Gibson

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” — Theodore Roosevelt