Quotes About Growth

It is tempting to think that in order to change our experience of our world we need to force others to change. Such thinking is an abdication of our power to change ourselves.

As my daddy said, soil is the basis of everything.

You raise them half-decent, and they grow up and leave. They move to Miami or California-- someplace with gourmet groceries and nude beaches because you've reared them to cook good and be liberal minded. It's just the opposite with your failures-- them kids stick to your tail like a cocklebur. You'd think it would be the other way around, but it's not. No matter how old I get, this will always amaze me.

Now that Olive was grown, I didn't know what to do with myself. You could build your life around one single thing, like a view or a child, but that was risky. You had so much to lose.

There is something soothing about working in the yard. Planting seeds and seeing them poke green out of the dirt. And it gets you out of the house with out going too far.

I wondered if small town people became smaller in order to fit. Perhaps they had to.

The choice, though, is not between scrupulous obedience and ecstatic abandon. The choice runs right down the middle. If you really want to know how to fly, you need to know how to walk.

When the heart Is cut or cracked or broken Do not clutch it Let the wound lie open Let the wind From the good old sea blow in To bathe the wound with salt And let it sting. Let a stray dog lick it Let a bird lean in the hole and sing A simple song like a tiny bell And let it ring Let it go. Let it out. Let it all unravel. Let it free and it can be A path on which to travel.

Everything you've done, everything you've seen, everything you've become, remains. You never can go back, only forward, and if you don't bring the whole of yourself with you, you'll never see the sun again

When you meet someone you love, then you change for good. That's why the other person will never know or understand the earlier you, and why you can never change back. And why, when that person starts to go, you'll feel the tear deep in your heart long before your head has the slightest clue what's going on.

Waiting on God is hard when you are dispirited by illness. But part of waiting on God, learning to be passive in a way creative for your inner life, is not a question of thinking about God, but of growing in stillness. It has to do with prayer, and with music or from the simple contemplation of the world about you.

Michael McCloskey

Michael McCloskey

Wallace Stegner once wrote that the lessons of life amount to scar tissue.

You cant start the next chapter of your life, if you keep re-reading the last one

Education at a deep level means to 'lead out' what is trying to be born from within. The job of a true teacher is to help awaken the inner pupil that has its own way of being and unique way of perceiving the world.

At critical junctures, outer trouble and the inner need to grow conspire to set each of us on a path of awakening and initiation.

The old idea is that when tragedy strikes or when an obstacle blocks us, there are only two possibilities. We either become a smaller person or we become a bigger person. If it's a real life change you cannot come out the same. So therefore, you're either going to come out smaller or you are going to rise up and ultimately come out of it a bigger person.

A genuine education must somehow serve the wings of spirit and imagination that each child brings to life.

The purpose of conflict is to create.

Every mistake is a new style.

Wisdom can reveal the light hidden in dark times; but it requires that we face the darkness in ourselves. People may desire pearls of wisdom, yet most are unwilling to descend to the depths where the pearls wait to be found. Wisdom involves a necessary descent into the depths of life, for that alone can produce 'lived knowledge' and a unified vision.

If we want the world to change, it has to start inside the human soul.

Sometimes, the greatest safety can be found in taking the right risk. Whether it be an individual, a community or a country, when faced with tragedy or fearful uncertainty, we either become bigger and enter life more fully, or else we accept a diminished life and resign ourselves to a smaller way of being.