#yours

Don't look for society to give you permission to be yourself. ↗

— Steve Maraboli

#life #permission #society #experience

Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that's why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that's why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living. ↗

— Alysha Speer

#finding-yourself #friends #life #living #lost

We must be free, but to have real freedom, you must be wild and free yourself. ↗

— Bryant McGill

#freedom #love-yourself #out-of-the-box #freedom

I was the Duff. And that was a good thing. Because anyone who didn't feel like the Duff must not have friends. Every girl feels unattractive sometimes. Why had it taken me so long to figure that out? Why had I been stressing over that dumb word for so long when it was so simple? I should be proud to be the Duff. Proud to have great friends who, in their minds, were my Duffs. ↗

— Kody Keplinger

#friends #friendship #self-confidence #yourself #youth

My parents say you’re no good, Elijah.” I exhaled and killed the cigarette in the grass. Laughing, Eli’s eyes went to my lips and his hands touched my bare midriff. “Really? And what do you say?” He had brought his lips so close to mine that it became hard to think about my next words when all I wanted to do was crush my mouth to his. I wanted him to completely consume me. “I think you’re broken,” I finally got out, and Eli arched a brow. “But I think I’m broken too. I just don’t know it yet. ↗

— Nadège Richards

#death #discovery #falling-in-love #finding-yourself #growing-up

But how could he admire Joyce’s lengthy, libidinal ‘yes’ so fervently and end up saying ‘no’ to his own life? I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one’s erotic truth could have a cumulative renunciatory effect. Sexual shame is in itself a kind of death. ↗

— Alison Bechdel

#death

Never complain, never explain. Resist the temptation to defend yourself or make excuses. ↗

— Brian Tracy

#life #remaining-silent #reticence #wisdom #life

Imitation is suicide. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#creativity #life #life

Giving materialistically is the soft option, but when you give from what you do for others then your reward is immeasurable contentment. ↗

— Stephen Richards

#giving-love #giving-your-best #giving-yourself #stephen-richards #stephen-richards-self-help

We carried bottled water and day packs and cameras, except for Fred, who said he didn’t believe in taking photographs; he planned to store his memories in his head, an idea I found incomprehensibly radical. My impulse to record was almost on par with my impulse to travel ↗

— Elisabeth Eaves

#love