Friday, August 03, 2007

You must want to fly so much...

How does one become a butterfly?
You must want to fly so much
that you are willing to give up
being a caterpillar.

~Trina Paulus

“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan, 'press on' has solved, and always will solve, the problems of the human race.
~Calvin Coolidge

That's it, that's all. Have a great weekend and happy writing.

14 comments:

Kelly (Lynn) Parra said...

Love the quotes, Nienke! Have a great weekend!

Anonymous said...

Hi Nienke, I am stopping by to see how you are doing. I don't believe I returned your message before. Thanks for the kind comments. I am running quite a few blogs in hopes I will get a high page rank like what your blog and journal has-that is for a reason page rank thing; paid blogging you know. Aren't you interested? You should join if you have time for extra money. Anyway, making my blogs are good as they look takes time, but since I know a little, I manage. I have just been busy with paid blogging for extra money since I am a stay at home mother. Okay, till here, kind regards.

Anonymous said...

What a great set of quotations you've chosen! I especially like Nathaniel Hawthorne's quote about how words can neutral, wonderful, or terrible depending on how they are used. (He said it much better, of course.) So true!

Anonymous said...

What fantastic quotes. Here's one of my favorites by Samuel Kiser (though technically, I think it's a poem):

"I have hoped, I have planned, I have striven; To the will, I have added the deed; The best that was in me I've given, I have prayed to God for my need. I have dared and reached only disaster, I have battled and broken my lance, I am bruised by a pitiless master that the Weak and the Timid call Chance. I am old, I am bent, I am cheated of all that Youth urged me to win; But name me not with the defeated; tomorrow again, I begin."

Nienke Hinton said...

I love it, brown. Very hopeful and inspiring.

Josephine Damian said...

Great quotes Nienke and Brown. You know how much I looooooove the quotes.

Hope all is well, and that the WIP is progressing.

Daniel said...

The first one, by Trina Paulus, is from a wonderful little book called Hope for the Flowers. I don't have any idea where it came from, but one day my kids dug it out of their big pile of books and brought it for me to read. Within the first two chapters I was choked up with tears. Before the end, I was breathless. It was such a gift, to be able to read it. Now my kids always bring it to me to read, not because it means the same thing to them that it does to me, but because it means something different, and some of that is that it means so much to their dad that he can't even read it without crying.
This book is why I want to "be a writer." I want to make things like this book, that won't change many peoples' lives, but it will change some of their hearts, sometimes.

Nienke Hinton said...

Wow. Thanks for sharing that, Daniel.

Flowerpot said...

yes, I'd go along with the persistence one, particularly!

smr said...

I'm enjoying your blog -- happy to have discovered it. Love the Hawthorne quotes, too. :^) ~Su

Shesawriter said...

I like the first one. Scary prospect indeed. Give up being a caterpillar (what you know) to become a butterfly (the unknown). Wow.

Angela Young said...

What a lovely discovery your blog is. I love the butterfly quote ... and did you know that the Greek word 'psyche' means both 'butterfly' and 'soul'. The discovery has left me breathtaken ever since.

Anonymous said...

I like the one about persistence. If it's true, then there's still hope for all of us struggling in the dark. Just keep pressing on.

IRS Tax Relief said...

These quotes are beautiful!