“As the thing more perfect is, the more it feels of pleasure and of pain.”

“Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit….
I doubt that such pain makes us ‘better’; but I know that it makes us more profound.”

“The more things you own, the more they own you.”

“Healing hurts. But what hurts more is the refusal of the call. The true pain of living is the abandonment of self, the mind-body split that makes us fear life. Our ache may be heavy and our souls tired today, but resistance makes it all feel a thousand times worse. Rejection of where we are amplifies suffering. Until we cannot take it anymore. Until there is no way out but in. Diving into the blackness, we discover not death but more abundant life. This is the great paradox of healing, which all great artists and poets and seers have known. We die into our trauma and discover our courage. The fiercest warriors are the ones who have let life break and remake them a thousand times over. The gods of healing are calling through your pain today. Healing hurts, yes, but the hurt itself may eventually heal you.”

“The more you love, the more you suffer.”

“Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being's suffering. Nothing. Not a career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we're going to survive with dignity.”

“Sometimes you have to break a little more to heal a little more.”

“Toxic positivity is a cultural force that reinforces: "If you believe it you can achieve it!" "The only thing in your way is you!" "The key to success is a positive mindset!" "If you want to be healthy you must be positive!" "God will never give you more than you can handle!" …
Toxic Positivity leaves us feeling alone, and disconnected. It stops us from communicating. It stifles creativity and change. It silences people. It labels things as "happiness inducing" and “happiness preventing."”

“What, if some day or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence — even this spider and this moonlight between the trees and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again—and you with it, speck of dust!’ Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!’ If this thought were to gain possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, “do you want this once more and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?”

“Love life more than the meaning of it.”