Quotes About Appreciation

No one sees trees. We see fruit, we see nuts, we see wood, we see shade. We see ornaments or pretty fall foliage. Obstacles blocking the road or wrecking the ski slope. Dark, threatening places that must be cleared. We see branches about to crush our roof. We see a cash crop. But trees—trees are invisible (p. 423).

And then the words that would never weaken and never go away: Can you believe where we are?

Ese es el problema de la gente, la raíz de todo. La vida pasa a su lado desapercibida. Aquí mismo, muy cerca de ellos. En la creación del suelo. En el ciclo del agua. En el intercambio de nutrientes. En la formación del clima. En la construcción de la atmósfera. En la alimentación, curación y refugio de más tipos de criaturas de las que son capaces de contar.

You have a right to be present. A right to attend. A right to be astonished.

Your concern is not so much to have what you love anymore, but to love what you have—right now. This is a monumental change from the first half of life, so much so that it is almost the litmus test of whether you are in the second half of life at all.

In my experience, if you are not radically grateful every day, resentment always takes over.

I am not preoccupied with collecting more goods and services; quite simply, my desire and effort—every day—is to pay back, to give back to the world a bit of what I have received.

Your concern is not so much to have what you love anymore, but to love what you have—right now.

We are here to witness the creation and to abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other.… Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house."266

I doubt if you can see the image of God (Imago Dei) in your fellow humans if you cannot first see it in rudimentary form in stones, in plants and flowers, in strange little animals, in bread and wine, and most especially cannot honor this objective divine image in yourself.

You cannot know anything spiritually by saying it is a not-that : you can only know it by meeting it in its precise and irreplaceable thisness and honoring it there.

Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher, said that what he resented in most Christians was what he perceived as a constant underlying resentment: (1) a denied resentment toward God for demanding sacrifice, (2) toward others for not appreciating our sacrifice, (3) sacrificing as much as we sacrifice, (4) and a resentment toward others for not having to do it!

Don't start by trying to love god, or even people. Love rocks and elements first. Move to trees, then animals, and then humans… It might be the only way to love, because how you do anything, is how you do everything.

Albert Einstein is supposed to have said, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

The resolution of earthly embodiment and divinization is what I call incarnational mysticism. As has been said many times, there are finally only two subjects in all of literature and poetry: love and death. Only that which is limited and even dies grows in value and appreciation; it is the spiritual version of supply and demand. If we lived forever, they say, we would never take life seriously or learn to love what is. I think that is probably true.

It was a scary thought. A man could be surrounded by poetry reading and not know it.

she'd come to believe life was like that: you could enjoy almost anything if you gave it enough time.

A man could be surrounded by poetry readings and not know it.

you missed what you didn't have far more than you appreciated what you did have. It was for this reason he'd always felt that owning things was overrated. All you were doing was alleviating the disappointment of not owning them.

He talks about you...he thinks you're beautiful...

It doesn't matter if they hate you, or embarrass you, or simply don't appreciate your genius for inventing the internet- You invented the internet? It was my idea , Martha said. Rats are delicious , George said. It was my idea! Hermes said. I mean the internet, not the rats. But that's not the point.

She looked at me, like she was drinking in the fact that I was still here. And I realized I was doing the same thing. The world was collapsing, and the only thing that really mattered to me was that she was alive.

Tyson thought Annabeth was just about the coolest thing since peanut butter, and he SERIOUSLY loved peanut butter.

I'd come to respect the bag.