Elizabeth Lesser Quotes
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There is no one alive who has not wanted to go back to sleep.
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It is such a teaching in itself for us, all of us, every moment when we're with anyone.
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I think if you asked people "what's the biggest problem in your life?" They'd say, "I just don't have time for anything!" And at our fingertips, if it isn't e-mail, it's our Blackberry, and it's our iPods and telephones - we never stop. We never take those moments to stop the stimulus to find out "what's going on in there? What's really happening?" And then things start to build up. And then we are almost afraid to slow down.
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I'm not naive. I know how hard it is to get along.
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It is the acceptance of death that has finally allowed me to choose life.
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One can be a full-fledged Christian and at the same time, enjoy the reality of a universal spiritual truth.
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If I pull from places of faith, joy and gratitude, then I have the wind of creativity behind me. And, my work in the world is much more effective.
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What wants to live in you may be waiting...at the end of a long loneliness.
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I hope this is the lesson we women really commit to memory - we learned that it doesn't work to try be someone other than who you really are.
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How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.
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We must pay attention to the voice that calls us out of the safety zone.
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Don't persuade, defend or interrupt. Be curious, be conversational, be real. And listen.
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How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change.
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The soul is the river of energy that animates who we are.
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When you approach spirituality as an adventure of being alive, you start as you would any adventure--with a sense of mystery and not-knowing. Instead of searching for answers that make you feel safe, you set out into the vastness of life and death, with a willingness to continually grow. You open up to the possibility that your ordinary life is an extraordinary adventure, and that your joys and sorrows have meaning. Spiritual practice becomes your rudder, offering direction and insight and discretion as you venture into the unknown.
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Life is like a school; one can learn, one can graduate, one can skip a grade or stay behind.
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As humans try to evolve out of greed, let's put aside some wild places, protected lands, protected farms, things like that, since we may not evolve fast enough to protect nature.
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In the true spirit of the holidays, let the darkness of your moods lead you back up to the light, and when New Year's rolls around, your resolution will be tinged with new authenticity and power.
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There's something in our makeup and in our bodies that really wants to luxuriate more in just the joy of being alive and not always consuming, creating, building. There's something inside of us that wants desperately to stop and experience and just be - not just always do.
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What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do.
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But when I learned about the dangers of rejection or attack, I thought, it's time to change this. What if we faced any pain we had caused each other and, instead of rejection or attack, could we listen? Could we forgive? Could we merge?
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Anyone whose lifestyle may frighten you or whose point of view makes smoke come out of your ears.
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First we forgive ourselves, then we forgive others and life itself.
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There is an art to grieving. To grieve well the loss of anyone or anything--a parent, a love, a child, an era, a home, a job--is a creative act. It takes attention and patience and courage. But many of us do not know how to grieve. We were never taught, and we don't see examples of full-bodied grieving around us. Our culture favors the fast-food model of mourning--get over it quick and get back to work; affix the bandage of "closure" and move on.