#elf

My father was the editor of an agricultural magazine called 'The Southern Planter'. He didn't think of himself as a writer. He was a scientist, an agronomist, but I thought of him as a writer because I'd seen him working at his desk. ↗

— Tom Wolfe

#because #called #desk #editor #father

Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison. ↗

— Mary Wollstonecraft

#beauty #body #cage #gilt #infancy

You know, acting is very fascinating. But being an actress is not, because you become so concentrated on yourself. ↗

— Beatrice Wood

#actress #because #become #being #concentrated

What, but the rapacity of the only men who exercised their reason, the priests, secured such vast property to the church, when a man gave his perishable substance to save himself from the dark torments of purgatory. ↗

— Mary Wollstonecraft

#dark #exercised #gave #himself #his

With this album, I tried not to think too much. If I heard a song that I loved, I promised myself I wouldn't over-think it. If I loved it and if I wanted to cut it, I would. ↗

— Lee Ann Womack

#cut #heard #i #i tried #loved

When you aren't drinking or using drugs or spending lots of money on fancy toys or basking in the glow of fame or working all the time or eating your way through the refrigerator, being hateful and angry is a very handy shield from the truth. It lets you focus on everyone else's shortcomings, and all the ways they have let you down. You can bemoan how all these broken people keep finding you somehow. That way you don't have to focus on what really matters -- the tough work of fiing what is broken inside you. ↗

— Glenn Beck

#blaming-others #broken #self-reflection #anger

Not even analysis, by itself, can transform you. You must still do the changing yourself. ↗

— Natalie Wood

#changing #even #itself #must #still

Students of public speaking continually ask, "How can I overcome self-consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me before an audience?" Did you ever notice in looking from a train window that some horses feed near the track and never even pause to look up at the thundering cars, while just ahead at the next railroad crossing a farmer's wife will be nervously trying to quiet her scared horse as the train goes by? How would you cure a horse that is afraid of cars—graze him in a back-woods lot where he would never see steam-engines or automobiles, or drive or pasture him where he would frequently see the machines? Apply horse-sense to ridding yourself of self-consciousness and fear: face an audience as frequently as you can, and you will soon stop shying. You can never attain freedom from stage-fright by reading a treatise. A book may give you excellent suggestions on how best to conduct yourself in the water, but sooner or later you must get wet, perhaps even strangle and be "half scared to death." There are a great many "wetless" bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one ever learns to swim in them. To plunge is the only way. ↗

— Dale Breckenridge Carnegie

#public-speaking #self-consciousness #art

Storytellers have as profound a purpose as any who are charged to guide and transform human lives. I knew it as an ancient discipline and vocation to which everyone is called. ↗

— Nancy Mellon

#self-transformation #storytelling #art

...that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignoranve, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves ↗

— Garth Stein

#life #self-awareness #art