"The carefree timelessness of my youth was rattled in my twenties. A kind of panic set in. Time became visible. Each choice I made began to feel more and more final, as if every choice was the death of all the others. Millions of doors were locking behind me as I passed them in the hallway. I felt that age thirty – adulthood – was coming like winter. Am I missing out? Am I making the right decisions? Am I becoming the person I want to be? It often dawns too late that we have only one life, only one path, and the choices we make become the story line of our lives." — Jedidiah Jenkins To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret
"The journey you travel on your feet is less important than the distance you cover in your head." — Mishka Shubaly
"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order." — John Burroughs
"We’re all aging—what can we do with that? How can we look at it differently? How can we take care of ourselves, push ourselves, or just constantly work on getting to know ourselves better?" — Hilaree Nelson
"I believe that fear is the most powerful and detrimental emotion in life and the biggest culprit keeping us from our dreams...Fear can keep you alive, but it can also keep you from living." — Jeremy Jones The Art of Shralpinism
"There's usually a great outcome if you train your mind to look for one." — Jeremy Jones The Art of Shralpinism
"...each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself...To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top." — Robert M. Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
"I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes." — Charles Swindoll
"We realize that every day is a gift. To become who we are and share what we do is a gift. To help one another is a gift." — Lonnie Kauk Alpinist Magazine, Issue 66, "Magic Line"
"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime." — Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
"Never be certain of anything. It's a sign of weakness." — 4th Doctor Doctor Who, "The Face of Evil"
"Such illusions, depending on how the eye is placed and used, drive home the truth that our habitual vision of things is not necessarily right: it is only one of an infinite number, and to glimpse an unfamiliar one, even for a moment, unmakes us, but steadies us again." — Nan Shepherd The Living Mountain
"If I had other senses, there are other things I should know. It is nonsense to suppose, when I have perceived the exquisite division of running water, or a flower, that my separate senses can make, that there would be nothing more to perceive were we but endowed with other modes of perception. How could we imagine flavour, or perfume, without the senses of taste and smell? They are completely unimaginable. There must be many exciting properties of matter that we cannot know because we have no way to know them." — Nan Shepherd The Living Mountain
"This is not a book that relishes its own discoveries; it prefers to relish its own ignorances." — Nan Shepherd The Living Mountain
"But I was never sure what I was passionate about. Growing up, I was fiercely shy. I liked going outside and playing make-believe. The rush of [puberty] hormones brought with them depression and body-related insecurities. I ran track and cross-country in high school, focused on good grades and good running times. I didn’t really indulge in my own interests. To be honest, I felt a little directionless." — Gale Straub She Explores, Episode 4, "Origin Story"
"And perhaps the body is our final frontier. It’s the one place we can’t leave. We’re there till it goes. Most women and some men spend their lives trying to alter it, hide it, prettify it, make it what it isn’t, or conceal it for what it is. But what if we didn’t do that?" — Cheryl Strayed Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
"Trusting yourself means living out what you already know to be true." — Cheryl Strayed Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
"A smile can be a kind of yoga practice, yoga of the mouth. You just smile, even if you don’t feel joy. And after you smile, you’ll see you feel differently. Sometimes the mind takes the initiative, and sometimes you have to allow the body to take the initiative. ... If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace." — Thich Nhat Hanh How to Relax and Being Peace
"In order to be happy, we need first of all to let go of our ideas of happiness. It’s difficult. Each one of us has an idea of happiness; we think that we must have this or that to be happy, or that we have to eliminate this or that to be happy. We think that we have to have certain conditions. ... If we haven’t been able to be happy and joyful, it’s because we’re caught in our ideas. So we have to be able to let them go. Our idea of happiness is the main obstacle to happiness." — Thich Nhat Hanh How to Relax
"As you learn how to be in the present moment, you’ll gain faith and trust in your ability to handle the situation. ... That makes you confident; and as your confidence grows, you’re no longer the victim of your worries." — Thich Nhat Hanh How to Relax
