I Saw a Giraffe.

What you’re going through right now may be the hardest battle yet to be won. But in the grand scheme of things, when you look back at it, you’ll realise you had the necessary tools to conquer your darkest demons.

literarylezbian asked: I did, but that picture is from four years ago now. I don't really look like that anymore, which is why I no longer have it up.

Plus your arm was in the way. Legit tattoo though.

Anais Nin and Jalal ad-Din Rumi

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”

 

“It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before… to test your limits… to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

 

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

 

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.”

 

“Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?
You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.”

 

“How will you know the difficulties of being human, if you are always flying off to blue perfection?”

“Days of wanting.
Let them go by without worrying
that they do.
Stay where you are
inside such a pure, hollow note.”

 

No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, … That is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. … The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.