“ To live content with small means.
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion.
To be worthy not respectable,
and wealthy not rich.
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently,
act frankly, to listen to stars, birds, babes,
and sages with open heart, to bear all cheerfully,
do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual,
unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.
-William Ellery Channing
“ Sometimes we must let the blow fall by degrees.
— Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey
“ Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.
— Jhumpa Lahiri,The Namesake
“ I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I water’d it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veil’d the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree.
— William Blake, “A Poison Tree”
I have been in a New York state of mind lately.
“ Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
“ We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.
— May Sarton (via kari-shma)
This is just too adorable
I love my Toms, except for the weird tan it leaves on my feet.
