Reflections Quotes

“Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face--there’s nothing more sinister. Nature gave him the gift of not being able to see it, and of not being able to stare into his own eyes.

Only in the water of rivers and ponds could he look at his face. And the very posture he had to assume was symbolic. He had to bend over, stoop down, to commit the ignominy of beholding himself.

The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.”
― François de La Rochefoucauld

“There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“Honest self-reflection is true self-reflection.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: A Guide to Maintaining Civil Discourse in an Increasingly Divided World

“Adrian von Trotha was thinking, “Soldiers must obey their officers and I shall enforce that! As well, the enemy will not obtain any leniency from me!”
― Michael G. Kramer, His Forefathers and Mick

“It is when you lose sight of yourself, that you lose your way. To keep your truth in sight you must keep yourself in sight and the world to you should be a mirror to reflect to you your image; the world should be a mirror that you reflect upon.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Life is so outrageous I could not have imagined it, made all the
sweeter because it cannot last. It is all about today. Today is the
best day ever because tomorrow might not happen.”
― Hendri Coetzee, Living the Best Day Ever

“It's in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the earth people who make you feel right at home.”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“Life's trials will test you, and shape you, but don’t let them change who you are.”
~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“All is as if the world did cease to exist. The city's monuments go unseen, its past unheard, and its culture slowly fading in the dismal sea.”
― Nathan Reese Maher

“Again, the exercise begins. For me, the American in me, the city of Detroit comes to mind. A house, once within the bustling city, now lies on the outskirts. Industry has come and gone, and the car manufacturers have relocated. I recall images of the rough lifestyles south of 8 Mile. The city’s borders have changed. Post-apocalyptic, long grasses sway with the wind. The house is melancholy and lonely. The owners: maybe there, maybe not.”
― Colin Phelan, The Local School

“To reiterate: not all things need to be finished, and free reading is a prime example of this. Writing – or the composition of words which are intended to be read – just like painting, sculpting, or composing music, is a form of art. Typically, not all art is able to resonate with each and every viewer – or, in this case, reader. If we walk through a museum and see a boring painting, or listen to an album we don’t enjoy, we won’t keep staring at said painting, nor will we listen to the album. So, if we don’t like a book, if we aren’t learning from it, dreaming about it, enjoying its descriptions, pondering its messages, or whatever else may be redeeming about a specific book, why would we waste our time to “just finish it?” Sure, we may add another book to the list of books read, but is more always better?”
― Colin Phelan, The Local School

“True friends don't come with conditions.”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“Self-reflection improves civil discourse by pushing you toward reason.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: A Guide to Maintaining Civil Discourse in an Increasingly Divided World

“Everyone is recharged for the second half, no bell, no forced learning, no principal’s office for tardiness or absenteeism; instead, a voluntary return to our collective pane of learning. Final conversations simmer down and the attention is refocused.”
― Colin Phelan, The Local School

“From this point forward, you don’t even know how to quit in life.”
~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive”
― Aaron Lauritsen

“Those who achieve the extraordinary are usually the most ordinary because they have nothing to prove to anybody. Be Humble.”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“At some point, you just gotta forgive the past, your happiness hinges on it.”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“Explore, Experience, Then Push Beyond.”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“Silence. How long it lasted, I couldn't tell. It might have been five seconds, it might have been a minute. Time wasn't fixed. It wavered, stretched, shrank. Or was it me that wavered, stretched, and shrank in the silence? I was warped in the folds of time, like a reflection in a fun house mirror.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

“Anya looked upon Nin admirably. Having him as a partner-in-crime—if only on this one occasion, which she hoped would only be the start of something more—was more revitalizing than the cheap thrills of a cookie-cutter shallow, superficial romance, where the top priority was how beautiful a person was on the outside.”
― Jess C Scott, The Other Side of Life

“There's more to a person than flesh. Judge others by the sum of their soul and you'll see that beauty is a force of light that radiates from the inside out.”
― Aaron Lauritsen

“If you didn't earn something, it's not worth flaunting.”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“Building bridges is the best defence against ignorance.”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven't found meaning. Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can't wait until sixty-five.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“The difference between darkness and brightness is how you thrive on those moments and how you use such circumstances with goodwill in your spirit.”
― Angelica Hopes

“Resilience is an important key.
Protect the key to your peaceful heart.”
― Angelica Hopes

“Never underestimate the grace of bouncing back from a fallen heart.”
― Angelica Hopes, Rhythm of a Heart, Music of a Soul

“Did I ever tell you that my mother and father started out as pen pals? They wrote these long, unabashedly affectionate love letters to one another, peppered with clichés and pie-in-the-sky proclamations of eternal devotion. Despite my father’s eventual dishonesty and unfaithfulness, I have to believe he meant every word he wrote at that time, and it was admittedly romantic, uncovering my parents’ yellowed letters, all soft, crumbling corners and black ink stains, one rainy afternoon. Because how can anyone scrawl lies, really, in their own handwriting, the evidence of your own betrayal right in front of you? I sat cross-legged on the floor, holding my breath as I unfolded each letter, fragile and expectant, like a little girl opening her presents on Christmas morning. I sat there and soaked up my parents’ love for each other, and then I wondered where all those feelings had escaped to. I wondered where love went when it was lost—did it travel far, across miles and oceans and forests and deserts, or did it linger somewhere nearby, just waiting for a chance to be summoned again? Wherever it was, I could only hope it had ended up settling somewhere quieter, safer.”
― Marla Miniano, From This Day Forward