Jessalyn Rivera > Jessalyn's Quotes

“I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Blue-Eyed Devil

“Sometimes we have thoughts that even we don't understand. Thoughts that aren't even true—that aren't really how we feel—but they're running through our heads anyway because they're interesting to think about.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well this isn't too bad, I don't have a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if I'm left-handed or right-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of, "Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm!”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it”
― Flannery O' Connor, Wise Blood

“She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place... Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got.”
― Flannery O'Connor , Wise Blood

“You will recognize your own path
when you come upon it
because you will suddenly have all the energy
and imagination you will ever need.”
― Sara Teasdale

“It is strange how often a heart must be broken
Before the years can make it wise.”
― Sara Teasdale, The Collected Poems

“I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.”
― Sara Teasdale, Love Songs

“Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves. No matter what corruption they're taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment - just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity! - an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exultation, only on the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces them to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and accept their real ego as their standard of value. They will always be attracted to the person who reflects their deepest vision of themselves, the person whose surrender permits them to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem .. Love is our response to our highest values - and can be nothing else.”
― Ayn Rand

“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.”
― Ayn Rand

“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"

I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?"

To shrug.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered-and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful, you offer her the great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake - and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself.”
― Ayn Rand

“You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Patience is always rewarded and romance is always round the corner!”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.”
― Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”
― Ayn Rand

“My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.”
― Ayn Rand, Anthem

“She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged