#den

If you try to view yourself through the lenses that others offer you, all you will see are distortions; your own light and beauty will become blurred, awkward, and ugly. Your sense of inner beauty has to remain a very private thing. ↗

— John O'Donohue

#beauty

It answers the question that was tormenting you: my love, you are not 'one thing in my life' - not even the most important - because my life no longer belongs to me because...you are always me. ↗

— Jean-Paul Sartre

#love #personal-papers #life

To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry. ↗

— John Andrew Holmes

#always #apprehend #beautiful #beautifully #feel

Although healing brings a better life, it also threatens to permanently alter life as you’ve known it. Your relationships, your position in the world, even your sense of identity may change. Coping patterns that have served you for a lifetime will be called into question. When you make the commitment to heal, you risk losing much of what is familiar. As a result one part of you may want to heal while another resists change.” Courage to Heal Workbook by Laura Davis ↗

— Laura Davis

#child-sexual-abuse #commitment #copy #healing #identity

The ugliest thing in the world is a beautiful woman without the brains or courage to know that [beauty] is nothing more than an accident. ↗

— Charlie Fletcher

#beauty #courage #ugliness #beauty

A wild light came into Frodo's eyes. 'Stand away! Don't touch me!' he cried. 'It is mine, I say. Be off!' His hand strayed to his sword-hilt. But then quickly his voice changed. 'No, no, Sam,' he said sadly. 'But you must understand. It is my burden, and no one else can bear it. It is too late now, Sam dear. You can't help me in that way again. I am almost in its power now. I could not give it up, and if you tried to take it I should go mad. ↗

— J.R.R. Tolkien

#frodo #j-r-r-tolkien #sam #the-lord-of-the-rings #change

Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful!' and sitting in the shade. ↗

— Rudyard Kipling

#gardens #work #beauty

If you are ready to trade the hollow self-made beauty of this world for the glorious Christ-built beauty of a set-apart young woman, this is where it all begins. Denying self, taking up your cross, and following the Lamb wherever He leads. In other words, letting go of all preoccupation with self: our comfort, our pleasure, our agenda, our popularity, our ability to gain the world's approval, even our own dreams and desires. And, as Paul did, treating all those things as rubbish for the excellence of the knowledge of Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings (Philippians 3:7-9). ↗

— Leslie Ludy

#denying-self #letting-go #philippians #selflessness #set-apart-femininity

On the warm stone walls, climbing roses were just coming into bloom and great twisted branches of honeysuckle and clematis wrestled each other as they tumbled up and over the top of the wall. Against another wall were white apple blossoms on branches cut into sharp crucifixes and forced to lie flat against the stone. Below, the huge frilled lips of giant tulips in shades of white and cream nodded in their beds. They were almost finished now, spread open too far, splayed, exposing obscene black centers. I've never had my own garden but I suddenly recognized something in the tangle of this one that wasn't beauty. Passion, maybe. And something else. Rage. ↗

— Meg Rosoff

#edmond #garden #passion #rage #war

Happiness and confidence are the prettiest things you can wear ↗

— Taylor Swift

#happiness #inner-beauty #inspiring #beauty