Quotations

"First we have to see. Or first we have to be taught to see. We have to be taught to see here, because here is everywhere, related to everywhere else, and if we don't see, hear, taste, smell and feel in this place - not only will we never know anything but the world of sense will be by that much diminished everywhere."

— William Carlos Williams, American poet, died March 4, 1963

"It is difficult to get news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there."

— William Carlos Williams, American poet, born September 17, 1883

"As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight."

— William Carlos Williams, American poet, born September 17, 1883

"The poem springs from the half spoken words of the patient. When asked, how I have for so many years continued an equal interest in medicine and the poem, I reply that they amount for me to nearly the same thing."

— William Carlos Williams, American poet, born September 17, 1883

"What power has love but forgiveness? In other words by its intervention what has been done can be undone. What good is it otherwise?"

— William Carlos Williams, American poet, born September 17, 1883

"Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here."

— Marianne Williamson, American author and activist, born July 8, 1952

"We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past, but by the love we're not extending in the present."

— Marianne Williamson, American spiritual teacher, born July 8, 1952

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond all measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

— Marianne Williamson, American spiritual teacher, born July 8, 1952

"On the spiritual plane you have no competitors. There is no competition for your position, as you are a unique expression of the Mind of God. You not only have a place in the universe; you have an essential function in the universe. Only you can do the job of being you, and the universe itself is left incomplete without you. It is not arrogant but humble to realize this as you place yourself in service of the greatest drama there is: the actualization of your own potential."

— Marianne Williamson, American spiritual teacher, born July 8, 1952

"As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others."

— Marianne Williamson, American spiritual teacher, born July 8, 1952

"The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain."

— Colin Wilson, English philosopher, born June 26 1931

"When I open my eyes in the morning, I am not confronted by a world, but by a million possible worlds."

— Colin Wilson, English philosopher, born June 26 1931

"Turning on the light is easy if you know where the switch is."

— Colin Wilson, English philosopher, born June 26 1931

"Life itself is an exile. The way home is not the way back."

— Colin Wilson, English philosopher, died December 5, 2013