#pta

Sometimes we fight who we are, struggling against ourselves and our natures. But we must learn to accept who we are and appreciate who we become. We must love ourselves for what and who we are, and believe in our talents. ↗

— Harley King

#appreciation #belief #character #identity #love

Falling in love was simple; one had only to yield. Digesting another person, however, and sustaining love, was bloody work, and not a soft job. ↗

— Hanif Kureishi

#commitment #love #perseverance #love

You can argue that it's a different world now than the one when Matthew Shepard was killed, but there is a subtle difference between tolerance and acceptance. It's the distance between moving into the cul-de-sac and having your next door neighbor trust you to keep an eye on her preschool daughter for a few minutes while she runs out to the post office. It's the chasm between being invited to a colleague's wedding with your same-sex partner and being able to slow-dance without the other guests whispering. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#gay-rights #love #relationships #tolerance #love

If you will tell me when God permits a Christian to lay aside his armour, I will tell you when Satan has left off temptation. Like the old knights in war time, we must sleep with helmet and breastplate buckled on, for the arch-deceiver will seize our first unguarded hour to make us his prey. The Lord keep us watchful in all seasons, and give us a final escape from the jaw of the lion and the paw of the bear. ↗

— Charles H. Spurgeon

#temptation #vulnerability #temptation

One should not honour one's own religion and condemn the religions of others, but one should honour other's religions for this or that reason. So doing, one help's one's own religion to grow and render service to the religions of others too. In acting otherwise one digs the grace of one's own religion and does harm to other religions. Whosoever honours his own religion and condemns other religions, does so indeed through devotion to his own religion, thinking 'I will glorify my own religion'. But on the contrary, in so he injures his own religion more gravely. So concord is good: Let all listen, and be willing to listen to the doctrines professed by others. ↗

— Emperor Ashoka of India

#buddhism #listening #religion #respect #tolerance

We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#affirmation #insecurity #self-esteem #status #uncertainty

it's best to accept life as it really is and not as I imagined it to be ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#life #imagination

Reading is important. Books are important. Librarians are important. (Also, libraries are not child-care facilities, but sometimes feral children raise themselves among the stacks.) ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#librarians

Trying to eliminate worldly temptations only makes our spiritual growth limited. ↗

— Toba Beta

#versus #wordly-temptation #spiritual-growth

I still remember her meandering Mississippi kiss. I sipped it like a riverboat captain in the desert. Ah, to be young and naughtily nautical. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#kiss #mississippi #naughty #nautical #riverboat-captain