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“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart…” Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters to a Young Poet, 1902-08. Miriam Cooper

“It seems my heart is made of tissue paper; I wish the world would handle it more delicately.”  Richelle E. Goodrich – A Heart Made of Tissue Paper. Henri Martin – Beauty, 1900.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.” Rumi Mary Cassatt – Red poppies, 1880.

“The earth laughs in flowers…”Ralph Waldo Emerson Gustav Klimt – Sunflower, 1906-7.

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.”T.S.Eliot Charles-Victor Guilloux – L’Allée d’Eau, 1895.

“Never look back. The past is done. The future is a blank canvas. Work on creating a masterpiece. Only you have the power to make your painting beautiful. Do not waste time chasing after success or comparing yourself to others. Every flower blooms at a different pace. Excel at doing…

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” Virginia Woolf – A Room of One’s Own, 1929. Alexander Akerbladh – Portrait in Blue and Gold, c.1920.

“Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic,…

“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.” Roy T. Bennett Berthe Morisot – The Bowl of Milk, 1919.

“…believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters…

“When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, there is always the garden.”Minnie Aumonier Henri Le Sidaner – Hydrangeas, 1918.

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”Roald Dahl Sir Frank Dicksee – The Sensitive Plant, 1820.

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you…

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, And next year’s words await another voice, And to make an end is to make a beginning.”T.S. Eliot – Four Quartets, 1936. Leo Gestel – Autumn,1909.

“I don’t pay attention to theworld ending.it has ended for memany timesand began again in the morning.”Nayyirah Waheed Frederick Carl Frieseke – The Pink Kimono, 1903.

“You’re waiting for that magical day when someone makes the connection and recognizes who you really are. Maybe they’ll first catch the sparkle in your eye. Or perhaps they’ll marvel at your insights and the depth of your spirit. Someone who will help you connect the dots, believe in yourself,…

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”Augusten Burroughs Richard Edward Miller – Sewing By Lamplight, 1904.

“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.” Khalil Gibran – The Prophet, 1923.Rudolf Ribarz – Branch of a Quince, (1848-1904).

“Yours is the light by which my spirit’s born: – you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.”e. e. cummings  Nils Asplund – Moonlit Night, 1915.

“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.” Kahlil Gibran – The Prophet, 1923. Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer – Eva, 1896.

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” W.B. Yeats Konstantin Makovsky – 1839-1915.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Jean-François Portaels – Portrait of a Young Girl with a Mask, 1886.

“We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be. To be what? To be…

“If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.” Masaru Emoto – Secret Life of Water, 2003….

“Tender words we spoke to one another are sealed in the secret vaults of heaven. One day like rain, they will fall to earth and grow green all over the world .” RumiHenri-Jean Guillaume Martin – Serenity, 1899.

“The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.” Marcus Aurelius Frederick Carl Frieseke – Afternoon, Yellow Room, 1910.

“Remember, happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think. So start each day by thinking of all the things you have to be thankful for. Your future will depend very largely on the thoughts you think today. So think thoughts…

“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,Love like you’ll never be hurt,Sing like there’s nobody listening,And live like it’s heaven on earth.” William W. Purkey Charles Daniel Ward – The Progress of Spring, 1905.

“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. Edwin Howland Blashfield – Spring Scattering Stars, 1927.

“What you do for yourself- any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honest and clear seeing toward yourself, will affect how you experience your world. In fact, it will transform how you experience the world.” Pema Chödrön Edgar Degas – Breakfast After Bathing, 1895.

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” Shel SilversteinLuther Emerson van Gorder – Japanese Lanterns (1857-1931).

“As Thoreau wrote, ‘It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” Matt Haig – The Midnight Library, 2020. Walter Gramatté – Moon Rising over Hiddensoe, 1922.

“Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.” Roy T. BennettEgon Schiele – Field of Flowers, 1910.

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.” Walt Whitman Thérèse Marthe Françoise Cotard-Dupré – Guiding the Geese, 1877-1921.

“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.” Ernest Hemingway Géza Faragó – Slim Woman With a Cat, 1913.

“To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed…That can make life a garden.” Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Catrin Welz Stein

“Let someone love you the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you think you are. To believe that you must hide all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is…

“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic…the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.”Charles de Lint  Charles Landelle – Juive de Tanger, 1866.

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.” Maya Angelou – Letter to My Daughter, 2009. Henry Herbert La Thangue – An Autumn Morning, 1859–1929.

“Softness is not weakness. It takes courage to stay delicate in a world this cruel.” Beau Taplin Raffaello Sorbi – An Italian Girl with Doves, 1866.

“Art is the conversation between lovers. Art offers an opening for the heart. True art makes the divine silence in the soul break into applause.” Hafiz – The Gift. Vittorio Zecchin – One Thousand and One Nights, 1914.

“She turned to the sunlightAnd shook her yellow head,And whispered to her neighbour:“Winter is dead.” A.A. Milne – When We Were Very Young. Berthe Morisot – Daffodils, 1885.

“When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been. But she had wings.” Dean Jackson Jugend Cover(edit), The beautiful woman, no.24, 1927.

“Love is real only when a person can sacrifice himself for another person. Only when a person forgets himself for the sake of another, and lives for another creature, only this kind of love can be called true love, and only in this love do we see the blessing and…

“Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can; all of them make me laugh.” W.H. Auden Abram Arkhipov – Smiling Girl, 1920.

“Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.”Ben Okri Tavik Frantisek Simon – Vilma Reading on a Sofa, 1912.

“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”Iain Thomas – I…

“To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed…That can make life a garden.” Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheErnst Eitner – Painter in the Garden, 1894.

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky.” Rabindranath Tagore – Stray Birds. Felix Vallotton – Sunset at the Andelys, 1924.

“Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, sunlight turn to fog; but you’re never friendless ever, if you have a dog.” Douglas MallochThérèse Schwartze – Portrait of a Young Woman with Puck the Dog, 1879-85.

“It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.” Marcus Aurelius Alexandre Jacob – Early Morning, 1876-1972.

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.” Kahlil Gibran Peder Severin Krøyer – Summer evening on the beach at Skagen, 1909.

“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.” Gustave Flaubert – Madame Bovary, 1865. Amedeo Modigliani – Young Woman in a Yellow Dress, Madame Modot, 1918.

“Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.” Vincent Van Gogh Vincent Van Gogh – View of Arles, flowering orchards, 1889.

“Friendship takes work. Finding friends, nurturing friendships, scheduling face time, it all take a tremendous amount of work. But it’s worth it. If you put in the effort, you’ll see the rewards of positive friends who will make your life extraordinary.” Maya Angelou Marie Bashkirtseff – The Meeting, 1884.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Rumi John William Waterhouse – Windflowers, 1902.

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” Virginia Woolf – A Room of One’s Own, 1929. Harold Knight – The Green Book.

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have…

“We are friends for life. When we’re together the years fall away. Isn’t that what matters? To have someone who can remember with you? To have someone who remembers how far you’ve come?” Judy BlumeJens Ferdinand Willumsen – A Mountain Climber, 1922.

“There comes a time when we must stop crying and wringing our hands and get on with the healing that we are so much in need of”Art Solomon, Anishinaabe Elder. Roland Reed – Portrait of an Ojibway Girl, Minnesota, gelatin silver print, 1907.

“This is a momentto remember, this,our breaths still heavy,the smell of summer gentlethrough the window,the sound of the world,not even a distraction, the words ‘I love you’unneeded.” Edward Lee Spencer Gore – View from a Window, 1909.

“When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been. But she had wings.” Dean Jackson Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson – Butterflies, 1891.

“I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.” Anaïs NinRudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. – Evelyn Nesbit, 1901.

“A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body…

“”Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug,…

“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.” Pearl S. Buck Henri Lebasque – Afternoon Tea on the Terrace,1914.

“Beauty will save the world” Fyodor Dostoevsky Valerius de Saedeleer – Farm in the valley,1916.

“When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you…

“Softness is not weakness. It takes courage to stay delicate in a world this cruel.”Beau Taplin  Raffaello Sorbi – An Italian Girl with Doves, 1866.

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering… these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love… these…

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” Albert Camus Charles Daniel Ward – The Progress…

“You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants some magical solution to their problem and everyone refuses to believe in magic…”Lewis Carroll – The Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland, 1865.  Charles Robinson – “What day of the month is it?” he said, turning to Alice, 1907.

“The truly strong are always gentle.” Yuuki ObataCharlotte Wahlstrom – Summer Meadow, 1849-1924.

“Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation” Khalil Gibran – The Prophet, 1923. Charles Rennie Mackintosh – In Fairyland, 1897.

“I think that to one in sympathy with nature, each season, in turn, seems the loveliest.” Mark Twain Louis Welden Hawkins (1849–1910), Clytie

“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass, 1855. Ellen Thesleff – Kaiku, 1891. Comments

“Sometimes we can only find our true direction when we let the wind of change carry us.”Mimi Novic Arthur Wesley Dow – Spring Landscape, 1892.

“In the silence of loveyou will find the spark of life.”Rumi Galileo Chini – Primavera, 1914.

“You already have the precious mixture that will make you well. Use it.With life as short as a half taken breath, don’t plant anything but love.Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.There is a fountain inside you….

“I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young. They’re still princesses.” Frances Hodgson Burnett – A Little Princess, 1888.Thomas Hickey – Portrait of Three Princesses from Mysore, 1741-1824.

“I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.” Claude Monet Claude Monet from the Japanese bridge in his garden, 1918.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” Anaïs Nin Annie Louisa Swynnerton – Sense of Sight 1895.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Albert Einstein A.E.Jackson – The Water-Boy’s Visit To The Sea Fairy, 1922

“Dance like no one is watching Live like you’ll never be hurt Sing like no one is listening Live like it’s heaven on earth.” William Purkey Sir John Lavery – Anna Pavlova as a Bacchante, 1911.

“Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being.” Victor Hugo Stanisław Masłowski – Moonrise, 1881.

“The bitter wind blew birds like a smoke cloud into the garden. They came to rest on bare winter-boughs of a tree, filling the branches with feathered leaves. I stared at them and wondered, did they come here for me alone, to make music and undo the bleakness of my…

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.” Herman Hesse – Wandering, 1877-1962. Jan Mankes – Row of Trees, 1915.

“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – The Little Prince, 1943. Andrey Avinoff – Iridescence, 1925.

“I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on, The windows and the stars illumined, one by one, The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily, And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass; And when old Winter puts his…

“Life’s most precious moments are not all loud or uproarious. Silence and stillness has its own virtues.” Kilroy J. Oldster Kazimierz Sichulski – Angel, 1911.

“Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.”Alberto Mánguel John Singer Sargent -Girl Reading by a Stream, 1888.

“I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.” Leo Rosten – Captain Newman, M. D, 1962. Zinaida Serebriakova – Self-portrait with a brush, 1924

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” John Muir Eduard Hein – Winter in the Woods, 1890-1910.

“Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.” Vincent Van Gogh – The Letters of Vincent…

“Watch carefully, the magic that occurs, when you give a person just enough comfort to be themselves.” Atticus Bertha Lum – Land of the Bluebird, 1916.

“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.” Walt Whitman Pierre Adolphe Valette – A Lady Reading, (1876 – 1942)

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Edouard Frederic Wilhelm Richter – Oriental, 1875.

“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” John Steinbeck – The Winter of Our Discontent, 1961. William Rothenstein – Lady with a Hat, 1891.

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust Galileo Chini – La vida, 1919.

“Listen earnestly to anything (your children) want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.” Catherine M….

“…I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I… I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.”Robert Frost Félix Vallotton – Mist effect in Honfleur, 1917.

“Your truest friends are the ones who will stand by you in your darkest moments – because they are willing to brave the shadows with you – and in your greatest moments – because they are not afraid to let you shine.” Nicole Yatsonsky Dancer at the Casino de Paris,…

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.” Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace, 1865-69. Ivan Fedorovich Choultse – Winter Landscape in Sunlight,1903.

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” Carl Jung – Psychology and Alchemy. Janet Fisher – Distant Thoughts (1867-1926)

“I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.” Claude Monet Claude Monet from the Japanese bridge in his garden, 1918.

“Never are voices so beautiful as on a winter’s evening, when dusk almost hides the body, and they seem to issue from nothingness with a note of intimacy seldom heard by day. ” Virginia Woolf -Night and Day, 1919. Harald Sohlberg – Winter Night in the Mountains, 1914.

“How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak,…

“somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyondany experience, your eyes have their silence:in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose methough i have closed myself as fingers,you open always petal by petal myself…

“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.” Ernest Hemingway Catrin Welz Stein – Midnight Cat.

“Dogs, lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you’re going to lose a dog, and there’s going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight in her…

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.”Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters to a Young Poet. Émile Friant – The Lovers, Idyll on a Bridge, 1888.

“If you’re really listening, if you’re awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold evermore wonders”.Andrew Harvey Martin Johnson Heade – Cattleya Orchid and…

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realise they were the big things.”Robert Brault Marie Danforth Page – The Mother, 1916.

“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Joaquín Sorolla…

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”  Henry David Thoreau – Walden, 1845. Domenico Gatti – Purità, 1915-16.

“Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them are covered by moments of their own accomplishments.  It is not until much later, that children understand; their stories and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers…

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” e.e. cummings Jan van Beers – When Stars Set, 1874.

“It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.” Henry James Simon Maris – Young Woman with a Fan, 1906.

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are still alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them.” George Eliot George Henry – River Landscape by Moonlight, 1887. 

“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” Anne Frank Valentin Serov – Girl With Peaches, 1887.

“Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.” Theodore Roethke – Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke. Joan Brull – Crepuscle, 1899.

“A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.” Leopold Stokowski Gustav Klimt – Music, 1895.

“I like dogsBig dogsLittle dogsFat dogsDoggy dogsOld dogsPuppy dogsI like dogsA dog that is barking over the hillA dog that is dreaming very stillA dog that is running wherever he willI like dogs.” Margaret Wise Brown – The Friendly Book. Paul Gauguin – Still Life with Three Puppies, 1888.

“I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly’.” Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh – Still Life with Sunflowers, 1887.

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” Frances Hodgson Burnett – The Secret Garden. Egon Schiele – House with a Bay Window in the Garden, 1907.

“The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls” Friedrich Nietzsche Gaston de LaTouche – Bathers, 1900.

“The earth laughs in flowers…” Ralph Waldo Emerson Gustav Klimt – Sunflower, 1907.

“In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.” Rumi Gustav Klimt – Portrait of Beatrice Portinari.

“Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colours, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.”Rainer Maria Rilke  Galileo Chini – La primavera che perennemente si rinnova, 1914.

“I have named you queen.There are taller than you, taller.There are purer than you, purer.There are lovelier than you, lovelier.But you are the queen. When you go through the streetsNo one recognizes you.No one sees your crystal crown, no one looksAt the carpet of red goldThat you tread as you…

“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been…”Rainer Maria Rilke – Letter to Clara Rilke, 1 Jan 1907.  George Henry and Edward Atkinson Hornel – The Druids Bringing in the Mistletoe, 1890.

“The man who lies asleep will never waken fame, and his desire and all his life drift past him like a dream, and the traces of his memory fade from time like smoke in air, or ripples on a stream.” Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy, 1308-21. Lord Frederic Leighton…

“Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.”Carl Jung  Norah Neilson Gray – Exotic, 1924.

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”Ralph Waldo Emerson Jessie Willcox Smith – A Child’s Garden of Verses, 1905.

“Be happy, cried the Nightingale, be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart’s-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than…

“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,Love like you’ll never be hurt,Sing like there’s nobody listening,And live like it’s heaven on earth.” William W. Purkey Vittorio Zecchin – Salomé, 1913.

“We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be. To be what? To be…

“I know now, after fifty years, that the finding/losing, forgetting/remembering, leaving/returning, never stops. The whole of life is about another chance, and while we are alive, till the very end, there is always another chance.”Jeanette Winterson – Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Richard Bergh – Nordic Summer…

“Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all.” Emily Dickinson George Frederic Watts and assistants – Hope, 1886.

“But he who dares not grasp the thorn Should never crave the rose.” Anne Brontë Paul Rink – The Scent Painting, 1890.

“Rilke wrote: ‘These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their growth it too increased.”Gaston Bachelard – The Poetics of Space, 1957.  George Hawley Hallowell – Trees in Winter Snow Shadows, 1910.

“May Light always surround you;Hope kindle and rebound you.May your Hurts turn to Healing;Your Heart embrace Feeling.May Wounds become Wisdom;Every Kindness a Prism.May Laughter infect you;Your Passion resurrect you.May Goodness inspire your Deepest Desires.Through all that you Reach For, May your arms Never Tire.”D. Simone Noble Ives – The Night Before Christmas,…

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to…

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi Kazimierz Sichulski – Angel, 1911.

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” Anaïs Nin – The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 7: 1966-1974. Arvid Johansson – Fishing Boat at Sunset (1892-1964).

“The purpose of my work was never to destroy but always to create, to construct bridges, because we must live in the hope that humankind will draw together and that the better we understand each other the easier this will become.” Alphonse Mucha Alphonse Mucha – Winter, 1900.

“I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can’t tell fast enough, the ears that aren’t big enough, the eyes that can’t take in all of the…

“The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls”Friedrich Nietzsche Vittorio Gussoni – Reclining Nude (1893-1968).

“Hold on to what is good, even if it is a handful of earth. Hold on to what you believe, even if it is a tree which stands by itself. Hold on to what you must do, even if it is a long way from here. Hold on to life,…

‘In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty.” Phil Ochs Martin Johnson Heade – Blue Morpho Butterfly. 1865.

“The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” Rumi – The Illuminated Rumi. Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo – Love in Life, 1901-04.

“She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it).” Lewis Carroll – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass, 1865. Catrin Welz Stein – Hello Alice.

“Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad.”Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters to a Young Poet (1875-1926) Amedeo Modigliani – Young Girl Wearing a Rose, 1916.

“I was laying in bed one night and I thought ‘I’ll just quit…to hell with it.’ And another little voice inside me said ‘Don’t quit…save that tiny little ember of spark.’ And never give them that spark because as long as you have that spark, you can start the greatest…

“I’ve developed into quite a swan. I’m one of those people that will probably look better and better as I get older – until I drop dead of beauty.”Rufus Wainwright Frank Brangwyn – The Swans, 1921.

“They are embossed on every song that was a hit that summer, in every novel I read during and after his stay, on anything from the smell of rosemary on hot days to the frantic rattle of the cicadas in the afternoon…smells and sounds I’d grown up with and known…

“You’ll learn, as you get older, that rules are made to be broken. Be bold enough to live life on your terms, and never, ever apologize for it. Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take the road less traveled instead of the well-beaten path. Laugh in the face of…

“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, Love like you’ll never be hurt, Sing like there’s nobody listening, And live like it’s heaven on earth.” William W. Purkey Underwood & Underwood – Marion Morgan’s Dancers Barefoot in Snow, 1916.

“Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.” Claude Monet Claude Monet in his garden at Giverny, 1905.

“The sky was clear, remarkably clear and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.” Thomas Hardy – Far From the Madding Crowd, 1874. Jean-François Millet –The Sheepfold, Moonlight, 1856-60.

“Don’t be ashamed to weep; ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside…

“I wanted to communicate what I had seen so that others could see it.” Laurie Lee Rudolph Eickemeyer Jr. – Little Butterfly, 1903.

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.” Edward Everett Hale Ernest Biéler – Girl from Valais in the Orchard, 1912.

“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” Dame Edith Sitwell Alvaro Guevara – Dame Edith Sitwell, 1916.

“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” Lucius Annaeus Seneca Jean Dunand – Screen Fish, 1922 .

“After a while you learn the subtle differenceBetween holding a hand and chaining a soul, And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaningAnd company doesn’t mean security. And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contractsAnd presents aren’t promises, And you begin to accept your defeatsWith your head up and…

“The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.” Khalil Gibran – The Prophet, 1923. Annibale Carracci – Portrait of an African Woman Holding a Clock, 1580.

“A dreamer, I walked enchanted, and nothing held me back.” Daphne du Maurier – Rebecca, 1938. Joseph Rodefer DeCamp – The Blue Mandarin Coat, 1922.

“There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than that of a beautiful woman in the act of cooking dinner for someone she loves.” Tom Wolfe Spencer Gore – Mollie Kerr, the Artist’s Wife, Cooking in their Camden Flat, 1913.

“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves”.Kahlil Gibran – The Prophet, 1923. Nicolai Fechin – Nude at the Toilette, 1918.

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.” Paulo Coelho – The Alchemist. Hugo Simberg – Towards the Evening, 1913.

“I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.” Hermann Hesse – Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend. Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann – An Egyptian Pot Seller at Gizeh, 1878.

“Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird, That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.”Langston Hughes – Dreams, 1923. Jan Mankes – Big Owl on Screen, 1913.

“A dog doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his.” John Grogan – Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World’s Worst Dog. Neils Pederson Mols – A Dog on the Beach, 1887.

“I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river, to me you’re everything that exists; the reality of everything.” Virginia Woolf – Night and Day, 1919. Rockwell Kent – Moonlight, Winter, 1940

“Once I knew only darkness and stillness… my life was without past or future… but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.”Helen Keller Akseli Gallen-Kallela – Lake Ruovesi in Winter, 1916.

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” J. M. Barrie – Peter Pan, 1911. Catrin Welz Stein – Star Sailor.

“It is often in the darkest skies that we see the brightest stars.”Richard Evans Ferdinand du Puigaudeau – Breton Girls with Chinese Lanterns, 1896.

“Love is the enchanted dawn of every heart.” Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine George Hitchcock – Calypso, 1906.

“Blessed are those who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.”Camille Pissarro Camille Pissarro – Two Women Chatting by the Sea, St. Thomas, 1856.

“After the pain of this disappointment her heart once more stood empty, and the succession of identical days began again.”  Gustave Flaubert – Madame Bovary, 1856. Anna Airy – Monica Burnand, 1916.

“…how I feel autumn’s ache.” Virginia Woolf – from a letter to Violet Dickinson, September, 1907. Étienne-Jules Marey – Flight of a Heron, 1882.

“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.”Rainer Maria RilkeWarwick Goble

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”Marcel Proust Georges Rochegrosse – The Knight of the Flowers (detail), 1894.

“Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.” Marcus Aurelius – Meditations, 161-180. Martin Johnson Heade – Orchid with Two Hummingbirds, 1871.

“Beauty: it curves, curves are beauty. Shapely goddesses, Venus, Juno: curves the world admires.” James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922. Henri Caro-Delvaille – La Brune in the Mirror, 1906.

‘Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.But no, that is not quite accurate. There is one place where her absence comes locally home to me, and it is a place I can’t avoid. I mean my own body…Now it’s like an empty house.” C.S. Lewis Edward Robert Hughes…

“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – The Little Prince, 1943. Andrey Avinoff – Iridescence, 1925.

“The secrets inside her mind are like flowers in a garden at nighttime, filling the darkness with perfume.”Fumiko Enchi Count Jean de Strelecki – The Orientalist Dancer Roshanara (Olive Craddock) 1918.

“It’s the hard things that break; soft things don’t break. It was an epiphany I had today and I just wonder why it took me so very, very long to see it! You can waste so many years of your life trying to become something hard in order not to…

John Dickson Batten – The Garden of Adonis–Amoretta and Time, 1887.  “A sensitive plant in a garden grew,And the young winds fed it with silver dew,And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,And closed them beneath the kisses of night. And the spring arose on the garden fair, Like the spirit of…

“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.” Anaïs Nin Thomas Bromley Blacklock – Sea Maidens.

“I am not crying, but have tears in my heart.” Vaslav Nijinsky – The diary of Vaslav Nijinsky, 1939. George Barbier Vaslav Nijinsky and Ida Rubinstein in Schéhérazade, 1913.

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.’Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Henri Martin – The Lovers, 1877.

For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair. I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days – three such days with you I could fill with more…

“The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.” Sigmund Freud Paul Swan – Water Nymph, 1907.

“Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.” Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890. William-Adolphe Bouguereau – Dawn, 1881.

“Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.” William Butler Yeats John Atkinson Grimshaw – Spirit of the Night, 1879.

“If Light Is In Your HeartYou Will Find Your Way Home.” Rumi Léo Gausson – The Red Tree House.

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it” Gustave Flaubert Zinaida Serebriakova – Reclining Nude, 1935.

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” Aristotle Gustav Klimt – Girlfriends, 1916-18.

“Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.” Oscar Wilde Alfred Eberling – Portrait of Ballerina Tamara Karsavina, 1911.

“You will have memoriesBecause of what we did back thenWhen we were new at this, Yes, we did many things, then – allBeautiful…” Sappho – Come Close. Frantisek Kupka – Autumn Sun, Three Goddesses, 1906.

“Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never bloomsbut carries in…

“That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away…

“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”Khalil Gibran Harold Harvey – Anenomes, 1926.

“All the flowers of the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.”Indian Proverb Mughal miniature – Babur supervising the laying out of the Garden of Fidelity | Baburnama, 1483-1530.

“Well, now If little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little If suddenly you forget me Do not look for me For I shall already have forgotten you If you think it long and mad the wind of Banners that passes through my…

“Be not the slave of your own past…plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”Ralph Waldo Emerson George Barbier – Nymphes, 1922.

“One of the greatest tragedies in life is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is expected by everyone else.” K.L. Toth Catrin Welz Stein

“And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, ‘You let me play once in your garden, today you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.” Oscar Wilde – The Selfish Giant, 1888. Kate Cameron – Hush.

“Once I knew only darkness and stillness… my life was without past or future… but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.”Helen Keller Akseli Gallen-Kallela – Winter Landscape.

“To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed…That can make life a garden.” Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Ernst Eitner

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup….

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About…

“I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.” Hippolyte A. Taine Geza Farago – Slim Woman With a Cat, 1913.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Jules Bastien-Lepage – The Wood Gatherer, 1881.

“If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present.” Roy T. Bennett Christian Schloe

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand…

“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be…

“The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you….

“We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be. To be what? To be…

“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world, For I would ride with you upon the wind, Run on the top of the disheveled tide, And dance upon the mountains like a flame.” William Butler Yeats William Heath Robinson – The Fairy’s Birthday, 1925.

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new a day with no mistakes in it” L.M. Montgomery – Anne of Green Gables, 1908. Frederick Sandys – Gentle Spring(detail), 1865.

“You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.” Alain de Botton Harold Harvey – Picking Daffodils, 1874-1941.

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” Bernard M. Baruch Ferdinand Max Bredt – Confidence, 1868–1921.

“I can live alone, if self-respect and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot…

“I loved her not for the way she danced with my angels, but for the way the sound of her name could silence my demons” Christopher Poindexter Edward Cucuel – Wood Nymph (1875-1951)

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” Augusten Burroughs Richard Edward Miller – Sewing By Lamplight, 1904.

“Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being.”Victor Hugo Paul Ranson – Apple Tree with Red Fruit, 1902.

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”Walt Whitman Edvard Munch – Separation, 1896.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”Albert Camus Gaston la Touche – A Maiden…

“Speaking, when you have something to say, is like looking. But who looks? If people could see properly, and see whole, they would all be painters. And it’s because people have no idea how to look that they hardly ever understand.” Pierre Bonnard Pierre Bonnard -The Letter 1906.

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”Albert Camus Richard Riemerschmid – In the Countryside, 1895.

“Blessed are those who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.”Camille Pissarro Camille Pissarro – Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep, 1886.

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” Charles W. Eliot Christian Krohg – Oda with Lamp, 1852 – 1925.

“A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets.”Gloria Stuart  Harold Gaze – Ocean Fairy, 1919

“Be still and the earth will speak to you…”Navajo wisdom Carl Moon – Navajo boy ,1904.

“Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall see the moonlight with you.” Sheridan le Fanu – Carmilla, 1872. Arkhip Kuindzhi – Darial gorge, 1890-1895.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anaïs Nin Ludwik Stasiak – Blooming Orchids, 1900.

“So let us welcome peaceful evening in” William Cowper Akseli Gallen-Kallela – Stockflotte, 1908.

“Don’t be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.” Oscar Wilde  Artuš Scheiner -The Little Stars of Gold, 1921.

“The alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the…

“Oh! that gentleness! how far more potent is it than force!” Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre, 1847. George Hendrik Breitner – Girl in a White Kimono, 1894.

“Somewhere in every one of us, no matter how deep it may be hidden, is a latent germ of beauty. We dance because this germ of beauty demands such expression, and the more we give it an outlet the more we encourage our own instinct for graceful forms.” Anna Pavlova Zinaida…

“Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a…

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.” August Wilson Paul Albert Besnard – Truth, Leading the Sciences, Giving Light to Man, 1891.

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Friedrich Nietzsche Savely Sorine – Costume portrait with a falcon, 1930.

“I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.” Helen Keller Odilon Redon – Violette Heymann, 1910.

“Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.” Marcel Proust – Swann’s Way, 1913. The Comet Book(Kometenbuch),1587.

“The only journey is the one within.” Rainer Maria Rilke Philipp Otto Runge – Arion’s Sea Journey (detail),1809.

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890. Paul Landacre – Sultry Days,1935.

“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.” Antoine de Saint – Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943. Henri Boulanger Gray – Pétrole Stella poster(detail), 1897.

“In your life, you meet people. Some you never think about again. Some, you wonder what happened to them. There are some that you wonder if they ever think about you. And then there are some you wish you never had to think about again. But you do.”C.S Lewis  Georges-Marie-Julien…

“Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being.” Rumi Sir John Lavery – Ariadne, 1886.

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”Aristotle Dugald Stewart Walker’s Dream Boats and Other Stories, 1920.

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” John Muir Nikolai Astrup – Foxgloves, 1920.

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust Claude Monet – Waterlilies and a Japanese Bridge, 1899.

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”  Anatole France Mr. Fox at Munkholmen Island, Norway, c1900.

“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days – three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.” John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne, 1820. Andrey Avinoff – Iridescence,…

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair” Khalil Gibran – The Prophet, 1923.Bertha Lum – Wind Sprite, 1920.

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” Haruki Murakami – Kafka on the Shore, 2002.Ida Rentoul Outhwaite – The Storm.

“We should not judge people by their peak of excellence, but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.” Henry Ward Beecher Felix Vallotton – Bridge Over the Bèal, 1922.

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” Albert Camus František Kupka – Autumn Sun, Three Goddesses, 1906.

“Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.” Vincent Van Gogh Vincent Van Gogh –…

“No one worth possessingCan be quite possessed;Lay that on your heart,My young angry dear;This truth, this hard and precious stone,Lay it on your hot cheek,Let it hide your tear.Hold it like a crystalWhen you are aloneAnd gaze in the depths of the icy stone.Long, look long and you will be…

“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and…

“Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.”Elizabeth Gaskell – Wives and Daughters, An Everyday Story, 1866. W. Heath Robinson – The Moon’s First Voyage (reworked), 1916.

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who…

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive….”Anaïs Nin Laura Daub – Secrets on the Terrace. ​

“She was beautiful, but not like those girls in magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad….

“‘Who are you?’ said the Caterpillar.This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ‘I…I hardly know, sir, just at present …at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.’”Lewis…

“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.”  John Donne Samuel Palmer – Harvest Moon, 1833.

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days… Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever…

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.” Henry David Thoreau Catrin Welz Stein

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take…

“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.”Ralph Waldo Emerson Anna Ancher – Sunlight in the blue room, 1891.

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.” Coco Chanel F. X. Leyendecker – The Flapper, 1922.

“Write it on your heartthat every day is the best day in the year.He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the daywho allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it.You have done what you could.Some blunders and…

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.” Hermann Hesse – Siddhartha, 1922. Guruji – Lake Chapala, Mexico 1929.

“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves”.Kahlil Gibran Jan van Eyck – Man with Pinks (detail), 1436.

“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 Christian Schloe

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.”Ralph W. Sockman Martin Munkacsi – The Lark Lover, 1923.

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”Helen Keller Henri Le Sidaner – The Garden Door, The Console, 1924.

“Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad.”Rainer Maria Rilke Odilon Redon – Melancholy, 1876.

“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.” Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass, 1850. Gaston Bussière – Isolde, 1911.

“We are the music-makers,And we are the dreamers of dreams,Wandering by lone sea-breakers,And sitting by desolate streams.World-losers and world-forsakers,Upon whom the pale moon gleams;Yet we are the movers and shakers,Of the world forever, it seems.”  Arthur O’Shaughnessy – Poems of Arthur O’Shaughnessy, Music and Moonlight, 1874. Felice Casorati – Dreaming…

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a…

“Don’t be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.”Oscar Wilde Nadezhda Illarionova – Thumbelina, Fairy Tales: Hans Christian Andersen.

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” L.M. Montgomery Edmund Gwerk – Stredoslovenská krajina, 1925.

“To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed…That can make life a garden.” Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Summer Landscape, 1875.

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” Sarah Williams – Twilight Hours, 1868. Boris Kustodiev – After the storm, 1921.

“I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.” Jane Austen – Sense and Sensibility, 1795. Edvard Munch – Summer Night by the Beach, 1902-03.

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving…

“Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.” Claude Monet Cluade Monet – Water-Lily Pond and Weeping Willow, 1916–19.

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup….

“Re-examine all that you have been told… dismiss that which insults your soul.”Walt Whitman  H.S. Eakins – Walt Whitman 1891.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”  George Bernard Shaw Louis Welden Hawkins – The Haloes 1894.

“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Richard Edward Miller…

“Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie, 1847. Vincent Van Gogh – Starry Night, 1889.

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.” Khalil Gibran – The Prophet, 1923. Konstantin Korovin – Hammerfest. The Nothern Lights – 1894.

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.” John Keats Henri Le Sidaner – Hydrangeas, 1918.

“Your children are not your children.They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.They come through you but not from you,And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.You may give them your love but not your thoughts,For they have their own thoughts.You may house…

“To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.In order to arrive at what you do not knowYou must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.In order to possess what you do not possessYou…

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.” George Eliot – The Mill on the Floss, 1860. Dora Carrington – The Mill at Tidmarsh, 1920.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson Felice Casoati – Dreaming of Pomegranates, 1912.

“I have named you queen.There are taller than you, taller.There are purer than you, purer.There are lovelier than you, lovelier.But you are the queen. When you go through the streetsNo one recognizes you.No one sees your crystal crown, no one looksAt the carpet of red goldThat you tread as you…

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” Aristotle Abram Arkhipov – Visit, 1915.

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”Friedrich Nietzsche Christian Schloe

“My paintings of the world around me reflect my longing to find a sense of peace and shelter. The forest, the transitions of colors in the sky, the quiet watchfulness of deer and of birds, the flow of time and seasons…these are where I often look for refuge. My hope…

“Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.”Carl Jung  Norah Neilson Gray – Exotic, 1924.

“…Bright hopes and pure delights     Upon his course may beam,And there, amid the sternest heights     The sweetest flowerets gleam. On all her breezes borne,     Earth yields no scents like those;But he that dares not grasp the thorn     Should never crave the rose…” Emily Brontë – (from) The Narrow Way, 1820-1849….

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” Rumi Katsushika Hokusai – Feminine Wave, 1840.

“The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls”Friedrich Nietzsche Gerald Festus Kelly – Gillian John, Kneeling, 1930.

“Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens.” Maria von Trapp Gustav Klimt – Music 1, 1895.

“Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.” William Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – In Bed, The Kiss, 1892.

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life…”Herman Hesse Gustav Klimt – Birch Forest, 1902-3.

“…believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters to…

“Let the music speak to us of tonight, in a happier language than our own.” Wilkie Collins – The Woman in White, 1859. Jean Delville – Parsifal, 1890.

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass, 1855. Baron Adolf De Meyer – Dolores, 1919.

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days… Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever…

“Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.” Hans Christian Andersen Nadezhda Illarionova

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.” Alfred Lord Tennyson Gustav Klimt – Farm Garden with Sunflowers, 1907.

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.”Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters to a Young Poet, 1902-1908. Émile Friant – The Lovers, Idyll on a Bridge, 1888.

“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.” Ernest Hemingway Catrin Welz Stein

“A dog will teach you more about yourself than you ever knew possible. Through their boundless enthusiasm, tail wagging and play you’ll learn the language of ‘canine’. Canine is very simple, it the language of unconditional love.”Lisa Azarmi Amy Kathrine Browning – Lime Tree Shade,1913.

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.’ Virginia Woolf – A Room of One’s Own, 1929. Gisele Freund – Virginia Woolf, Smoking, 1939.

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.” Herman Hesse, Siddhartha, 1922. John William Waterhouse – The Danaides, 1903.

“It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.”E.M. Forster – A Room with a View, 1908….

“What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create.” Buddha John de Mirjian – Marguerite Agniel, The Art of the Body, Buddha Position, 1931.

“On a midsummer night, on a night that was eerie with stars, In a wood too deep for a single star to look through, You led down a path whose turnings you knew in the darkness, But the scent of the dew-dripping cedars was all that I knew. I drank…

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”Kahlil Gibran Le Charmeur d’oiseaux, Paris 1910.

“Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad.” Rainer Maria Rilke Amedeo Modigliani – Female Nude, 1916.

“Don’t be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.” Oscar Wilde Henri-Joseph Harpignies – Moonlight, 1889.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Albert Einstein A.E.Jackson – The Water-Boy’s Visit To The Sea Fairy, 1922.

“The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls” Friedrich Nietzsche Elin Danielson-Gambogi – To Bed, Levolle, 1897.

“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves”. Kahlil Gibran – The Prophet. André Felix Roberty – Woman at the Toilet, 1922.

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” Helen Keller Henri Le Sidaner – The Garden Door, The Console, 1924.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand…

“If I had a single flower for every time I think of you, I could walk forever in my garden” Claudia Adrienne Grandi. Edvard Munch – Woman with Poppies, 1918.

“She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head, And whispered to her neighbour: “Winter is dead.” A.A. Milne – When We Were Very Young. Berthe Morisot – Daffodils, 1885.

“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld or offered only at a price I cannot…

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living, I want to know what you ache for. It doesn’t interest me how old you are, I want to know if you are willing to risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being…

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” Franz Kafka Charles Landelle – Juive de Tanger, 1874.

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take…

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” Vincent Van Gogh Vincent Van Gogh – Road with Cypress and Star, 1890.

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”  C.J.Jung Vojtech Preissig – Meditation, 1899/1900.

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving…

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” Mary Oliver – The Uses of Sorrow, Thirst, 2007. Beacon Press, ©. John William Waterhouse – Pandora, 1896.

“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and…