Hanson Love Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Hanson Love. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Nurturing your own development isn’t selfish. It’s actually a great gift to other people.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
The remedy is not to suppress negative experiences; when they happen, they happen. Rather, it is to foster positive experiences—and in particular, to take them in so they become a permanent part of you.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
All joy in this world comes from wanting others to be happy, and all suffering in this world comes from wanting only oneself to be happy. —Shantideva
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Only we humans worry about the future, regret the past, and blame ourselves for the present.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
I need the starshine of your heavenly eyes, After the day's great sun.
Charles Hanson Towne
Perhaps we only leave So we may once again arrive, To get a bird's eye view Of what it means to be alive. For there is beauty in returning, Oh how wonderful, how strange, To see that everything is different But know it's only you who's changed.
Erin Hanson
Why must it be so hard For us to come to understand, That there are things we cannot change Hidden amongst the things we can? For we can rearrange our hearts, Dust out the corners of our minds, We can teach our eyes to see Only the things we wish to find. Yet once we decorate our walls And sweep our sorrows off the floor, Why do we look to someone else, To show us how we can be more? For here is where the line Between our can and can't gets tough, Just the point at which we all must learn That we are already enough, That since we cannot choose the home, Our only soul was born into, We should rearrange its rooms But learn to love its window's view.
Erin Hanson
It’s easy to be kind when others treat you well. The challenge is to preserve your loving-kindness when they treat you badly—to preserve goodwill in the face of ill will.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
[I]f you can be with the pleasant without chasing after it, with the unpleasant without resisting it, and with the neutral without ignoring it - [...] that is an incredible [...] freedom.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
How about making a personal commitment never to go to sleep without having meditated that day, even if for just one minute?
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
I don't know how to love small so if I can't love you a lot I can't love you at all
Whitney Hanson (Home)
No, Hanson, this is not the scene where the girl puts on a skirt and some paint and her schoolmate, who’s a little thick, suddenly realizes that she is his true love.” “Oh,” Ash said. “Good to know.
Cinda Williams Chima (Flamecaster (Shattered Realms, #1))
Every time you take in the good, you build a little bit of neural structure. Doing this a few times a day—for months and even years—will gradually change your brain, and how you feel and act, in far-reaching ways.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each [person’s] life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm any hostility. —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Resentment is when I take poison and wait for you to die.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
First darts are unpleasant to be sure. But then we add our reactions to them. These reactions are “second darts”—the ones we throw ourselves. Most of our suffering comes from second darts.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Taking in the good is not about putting a happy shiny face on everything, nor is it about turning away from the hard things in life. It's about nourishing well-being, contentment, and peace inside that are refuges you can always come from and return to.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
you are not a second choice they didn’t choose you not because you are not worthy but because they weren’t built to love you i know their arms feel like they were supposed to carry you but their lack of strength is not a testimony of the weight of your soul but rather the weakness of theirs you are not too much
Whitney Hanson (Home)
It's impossible to change the past or the present: you can only accept all that as it is.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Whatever positive facts you find, bring a mindful awareness to them—open up to them and let them affect you. It’s like sitting down to a banquet: don’t just look at it—dig in!
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
You want me to be unselfish? A vampire is selfish. We kill so that we can survive, that is the ultimate selfishness.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
they told me my job description but i think i’ve got it wrong. they said i was supposed to man the lighthouse and save lost ships from going down. but every time i saw the ships i forgot about the light. i dove headfirst into the sea and swam to save their life.   i drowned us both in the process; the ships never found the shore. i ended up helping less when i meant to be helping more.   i think when they told me to save people with my light, i mistook their words and tried to save people with my life.   i know i should have turned the light on, i know i should have taken their advice, but i don’t know what love is if it is not sacrifice.
Whitney Hanson (Climate)
What we learned about love and relationships from our childhood feels normal. But just because something feels familiar doesn't mean it is healthy. Spend five minutes today quietly reflecting on one of your relationships. Does it enrich your life? If you find that it doesn't, consider what changes you need to make so the relationship feeds you.
Judith Hanson Lasater
i can’t tell if my expectations for love are far too high or far too low
Whitney Hanson (Climate)
all the parts you think are broken or missing, love will put them back.
Whitney Hanson (Climate)
i know that right now you want to run to them but closed arms will not hold you and careless hearts will not heal you
Whitney Hanson (Home)
Perhaps because when everyone they knew and loved continued to die, they realized the value of distance, of not losing one's self completely to love.
Caroline Hanson (Love Is Mortal (Valerie Dearborn, #3))
Three Poisons: greed makes me rigid about how I want things to be, hatred gets me all bothered and angry, and delusion tricks me into taking the situation personally. Saddest
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
it is impossible to unlace my heartstrings from yours how do I untangle a connection authored by the stars?
Whitney Hanson (Harmony)
Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them. —Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche Some
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
I think I am the kind of person that people fall in love with too quickly And I dont mean to complain because it is wonderful to be loved but I am also the kind of person that people walk way from when they realize the beautiful pool of water that they wandered into is actually an ocean with too many questions I wish my company didnt make people feel like theyre drowning mystery draws them in then mystery makes them leave
Whitney Hanson (Home)
See the collateral damage—the suffering—that results when you cling to your desires and opinions or take things personally. Over the long haul, most of what we argue about with others really doesn’t matter that much.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
If she was going to die she wanted to go out with chocolate in one hand and a shopping bag in the other.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
It’s a remarkable fact that the people who have gone the very deepest into the mind—the sages and saints of every religious tradition—all say essentially the same thing: your fundamental nature is pure, conscious, peaceful, radiant, loving, and wise, and it is joined in mysterious ways with the ultimate underpinnings of reality, by whatever name we give That.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Maybe the potential for agony and loss is what makes love itself that much stronger, knowing that it all can be gone in an instant, so you live life like there may not be a tomorrow.
Melissa A. Hanson (A Healing Heart (Riverview Series #1))
It helps to remember that kindness is its own reward, that consequences often come to others without you needing to bring justice to them yourself, and that you can be assertive without falling into ill will.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Loving you felt like leaving a book out in the wind the pages turned too fast for me to read I dient get enough time to adore you to explore you to trace your lines with my fingertips and reread my favorite parts to live the story I knew we we meant to be before I knew it the book was closed the story was over - unfinished
Whitney Hanson (Home)
Everything she knew about him rushed through her mind like a tidal wave.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
At some point I stopped writing you poems hoping that you'd fall in love and I started writing about how it felt when you didn't
Whitney Hanson
I'm so..." Heartsick. You took my insides and left me a little broken.
Caroline Hanson (Love Is Mortal (Valerie Dearborn, #3))
You keep seeking to redeem me. You keep looking and hoping. Painting me in emotions I do not have, nor can have.
Caroline Hanson (Love Is Mortal (Valerie Dearborn, #3))
You owe me." "What do I owe you? All the things I gave you. How I took care of you. Money, information...pleasure. I denied you nothing. If I could give it to you, I did." "You gave me things that cost you nothing. It certainly didn't seem to be a hardship to fuck me.
Caroline Hanson (Love Is Mortal (Valerie Dearborn, #3))
i told you that you remind me of springtime and i didn’t lie i just forgot that seasons are temporary you can’t tell spring to stay the same way you can’t ask the sun not to set but sometimes i can close my eyes and remember the feeling of sunlight the smell of a fresh start and the sound of birds singing again thank you for reminding me that things will be good again even if it was only for a season
Whitney Hanson (Home)
To become happier, wiser, and more loving, sometimes you have to swim against ancient currents within your nervous system. For example, in some ways the three pillars of practice are unnatural: virtue restrains emotional reactions that worked well on the Serengeti, mindfulness decreases external vigilance, and wisdom cuts through beliefs that once helped us survive.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
How come she couldn't have a nice supernatural life like the girls on Charmed or even Buffy? They all had friends. Even on Supernatural, the boys had each other. What did she have? Nothing, but one damed traitor after another.
Caroline Hanson (Love Is Mortal (Valerie Dearborn, #3))
Equanimity is neither apathy nor indifference: you are warmly engaged with the world but not troubled by it. Through its nonreactivity, it creates a great space for compassion, loving-kindness, and joy at the good fortune of others.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Love and hate: they live and tumble together in every heart, like wolf cubs tussling in a cave. There is no killing the wolf of hate; the aversion in such an attempt would actually create what you’re trying to destroy. But you can watch that wolf carefully, keep it tethered, and limit its alarm, righteousness, grievances, resentments, contempt, and prejudice. Meanwhile, keep nourishing and encouraging the wolf of love.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
If you can break the link between feeling tones and craving—if you can be with the pleasant without chasing after it, with the unpleasant without resisting it, and with the neutral without ignoring it—then you have cut the chain of suffering, at least for a time.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
When the raw pain is so unbearable and unbelievable, you may wonder if you can go on. But, you can, and will. And life can be good again—when you work at it." "It’s a conscious choice to decide to move through grief, mourn the loss of the person you love, and heal.
Chelsea Hanson (The Sudden Loss Survival Guide: Seven Essential Practices for Healing Grief (Bereavement, Suicide, Mourning))
Nervousness made her feel nauseous, almost like she had two hearts frantically beating in her chest, instead of one.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
General George S. Patton may have been uncouth, but he wasn’t wrong when he bellowed, “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.
Victor Davis Hanson (The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern)
love is not just excitement, tenderness, feeling special; it is also a bone-crushing reality of pain.
Melissa A. Hanson (A Healing Heart (Riverview Series #1))
Because I feel as if I've known you my entire life. I feel as if there are unfinished things between us.
Caroline Hanson (Love Is Mortal (Valerie Dearborn, #3))
Of course it was, this was perfect Jack. She could tear his fucking heart out and he'd want to know is she broke a nail.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
One way the self grows is by equating itself to things—by identifying with them. Unfortunately, when you identify with something, you make its fate your own—and yet, everything in this world ultimately ends. So be mindful of how you identify with positions, objects, and people.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
It’s sometimes said that the greatest remaining scientific questions are: What caused the Big Bang? What is the grand unified theory that integrates quantum mechanics and general relativity? And what is the relationship between the mind and the brain, especially regarding conscious experience?
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Think about the many ways that others will benefit from you being more good-humored, warm-hearted, and savvy. Nurturing your own development isn’t selfish. It’s actually a great gift to other people.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
You know what I know? I know that whenever someone tells you they are doing 'what's best for you', you're screwed. Those are not words you want to hear. It's right up there with 'it's not you it's me'.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
Do you remember the night the moon dropped from the sky? And we ran through the forest to find where it lie, I was tripping on tree roots and slipping on snow, You were holding my hand sayig not to let go, When we found it at last there were twings in our hair, A rose on our cheeks and our breath in the air, And the words to describe it got caught in our throats, As its silver light danced through the threads of our coats, We knew that our eyes had not seen such a view, You were looking at it, I was looking at you.
Erin Hanson
Cer sighed. “The bravado of you, Lucaius,” he said, like a father disappointed in his son. “This time will be different because you are in my land, at my mercy, and stripped of all defenses.” “You will make me blush.
Caroline Hanson (Love Is Mortal (Valerie Dearborn, #3))
most of the shaping of your mind remains forever unconscious. This is called implicit memory, and it includes your expectations, models of relationships, emotional tendencies, and general outlook. Implicit memory establishes the interior landscape of your mind—what it feels like to be you—based on the slowly accumulating residues of lived experience. In
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
We develop mental resources in two stages. First, we need to experience what we want to grow, such as feeling grateful, loved, or confident. Second—critically important—we must convert that passing experience into a lasting change in the nervous system.
Rick Hanson (Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness)
He was beautiful, like looking at a favorite piece of artwork. Not something one can own, but something in a faraway museum, where she would have to go halfway around the world, push through crowds on people, just to catch a glimpse of his unreal splendor.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Fear (Valerie Dearborn, #2))
bring to mind the feeling of being with someone who loves you, while calling up heartfelt emotions such as gratitude or fondness. Next, bring empathy to the difficulties of the other person. Opening to his (even subtle) suffering, let sympathy and goodwill naturally arise. (These steps flow together in actual practice.) Then, in your mind, offer explicit wishes, such as May you not suffer.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
She tried to think of the right thing to say - something that would make him leave her alone. If she said she could defend herself he'd want her to prove it. But if she said she couldn't defend herself, then he'd take her out there to learn. This is so messed up.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
Positive experiences can also be used to soothe, balance, and even replace negative ones. When two things are held in mind at the same time, they start to connect with each other. That’s one reason why talking about hard things with someone who’s supportive can be so healing: painful feelings and memories get infused with the comfort, encouragement, and closeness you experience with the other person.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Stage one—you’re caught in a second-dart reaction and don’t even realize it: your partner forgets to bring milk home and you complain angrily without seeing that your reaction is over the top. Stage two—you realize you’ve been hijacked by greed or hatred (in the broadest sense), but cannot help yourself: internally you’re squirming, but you can’t stop grumbling bitterly about the milk. Stage three—some aspect of the reaction arises, but you don’t act it out: you feel irritated but remind yourself that your partner does a lot for you already and getting cranky will just make things worse. Stage four—the reaction doesn’t even come up, and sometimes you forget you ever had the issue: you understand that there’s no milk, and you calmly figure out what to do now with your partner. In education, these are known succinctly as unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence. They’re useful
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Her gaze shifted away. "I don't remember my dreams anymore." It was like she was confessing a dirty secret. And maybe it was, because even though he hated the dreams, each time he had them, he was with his parents again. Hearing their laughter. Watching them live. But when he woke up they were really gone.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
It's a general moral principle that the more power you have over someone, the greater your duty to use that power benevolently. Well, who is the one person in the world you have the greatest power over? It's your future self. You hold that life in your hands, and what it will be depends on how you care for it.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
my biggest fear is that we were meant to be. what if we were wrong, and we missed out on all the ways we were supposed to love each other. what if timing and space was just an excuse that we used to separate two hearts that beat simultaneously. maybe we are going to live the rest of our lives watching the wrong story unfold.
Whitney Hanson (Home)
In regard to leaving, your options are limited. Dismemberment is one, but I have a hard time imagining you hacking Cerdewellyn into pieces, even if you had the strength. Bone is…difficult.” She ran her hands through her hair, feeling nervous. Yeah, that’s what’s keeping me from dismembering him, pulling a muscle as I cut through bone.
Caroline Hanson (Love Is Mortal (Valerie Dearborn, #3))
The calmness was fracturing, tendrils of fear seeping through her mind like ivy. Once the fear consumed her, she'd run.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
In a way, empathy is a kind of mindfulness meditation focused on someone else’s inner world.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
People will do more to avoid a loss than to acquire a comparable gain
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
in relationships, it typically takes about five positive interactions to overcome the effects of a single negative one (Gottman 1995).
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Mindfulness just means being fully aware of something, in the moment with it, and not judging or resisting it.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Most fears are exaggerated. As you go through life, your brain acquires expectations based on your experiences, particularly negative ones.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
I love you. Come back. -He sends me a message six months later
Sophia Elaine Hanson (hummingbird)
The vampire who lived here was either a total loser or really liked the monster image. Really, if he couldn't be a rich vampire, then he was a moron.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
your fundamental nature is pure, conscious, peaceful, radiant, loving, and wise, and it is joined in mysterious ways with the ultimate underpinnings of reality, by whatever name we give That. Although your true nature may be hidden momentarily by stress and worry, anger and unfulfilled longings, it still continues to exist. Knowing this can be a great comfort.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
[K]eep in mind the big picture, the 1,000-foot view. See the impermanence of whatever is at issue, and the many causes and conditions that led to it. See the collateral damage - the suffering - that results when you cling to your desires and opinions or take things personally. Over the long haul, most of what we argue about with others really doesn't matter that much.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Whatever their temperament, if children are part of your life, encourage them to pause for a moment at the end of the day (or at any other natural interval, such as the last minute before the school bell) to remember what went well and think about things that make them happy (e.g., a pet, their parents’ love, a goal scored in soccer). Then have those positive feelings and thoughts sink in.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
If you're like me you struggle with walking away from situations that aren't healthy for you If you're like me it is hard to see the line between I care for you and I will put your needs before mine until my feet are blistered from racing to catch you every time you fall If you're like me then listen Walking away from situations that are hurting you does not mean that you are heartless It means that you have outgrown the shoes you've been using to chase unreciprocated love It means that you are learning to value yourself You have not lost your capacity to love You are discovering how to love you.
Whitney Hanson (Home)
One way to focus and express kind intentions is through these traditional wishes, which you can think, write down, or even sing: May you be safe. May you be healthy. May you be happy. May you live with ease.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Now, well beyond my teens, I feel that there is no such thing as wasted love. Any love that we experience holds great power - the power to transform both us and those we love. In fact, without love we cannot be transformed.
Judith Hanson Lasater (Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life)
The brain has a wonderful capacity to simulate experiences, but there´s a price: the simulator pulls you out of the moment, plus it sets you chasing pleasures that aren´t that great and resisting pains that are exaggerated or not even real
Richard Mendius (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Trees surrounded them from all sides, casting long inky shadows that would, at another time, have been scary. But there was no point in being scared of what might be lurking in the shadows when the biggest bad, of all big bads, was gazing at her intently.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
Maybe you have to know the darkness to truly appreciate the light.”—Madeline L’Engle “There is freedom waiting for you on the breezes of the sky. And you ask, What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?” —Erin Hanson “Break the rules. That’s my number one rule. I know the rules [of grammar] and I know how to break them.” “Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.” – Carol Burnett “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Robin E. Mason
Maybe that was one of the problems with these men who lived forever, they'd built up an immunity or resistance to affection. Perhaps because when everyone they knew and loved continued to die, they realized the value of distance, of not losing one's self completely to love.
Caroline Hanson (Love Is Mortal (Valerie Dearborn, #3))
All that crap about love and fairness and doing something with your life, Bruno ... Those are luxury problems. The CEO’s wife can go around worrying about that stuff. People like us from the projects have to play by a different set of rules.” George Hanson In The Shadow of Sadd
Steen Langstrup (In The Shadow of Sadd)
She took a deep breath, inhaling the musty smell of books. Truth be told, she thought the smell was kind of sexy. She'd had fantasies of having sex in a library. That was probably what happened when one spent those crucial hormone-filled years surrounded by books instead of boys.
Caroline Hanson (Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn, #1))
Humans who attend directly to vivid cases [of inequality] are capable of great empathy with inequality losers. They are also capable of great compassion and even a desire to help. However, we humans are also quite capable of avoiding contact and exposure that might produce such compassion, and of numbing ourselves to the plight of losers about whom it would be inconvenient to feel empathy. So rich people avoid visiting poor neighborhoods and nations, attractive people avoid socializing with the ugly, and pretty young women become numb to the losses of the men they reject.
Robin Hanson (The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life When Robots Rule the Earth)
As you become a happier person, the left frontal region of your brain becomes more active (Davidson 2004). What flows through your mind sculpts your brain. Thus, you can use your mind to change your brain for the better—which will benefit your whole being, and every other person whose life you touch.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Pay attention to the number of times a day you categorize someone as “not like me,” particularly in subtle ways: not my social background, not my style, and so on. It’s startling how routine it is. See what happens to your mind when you consciously release this distinction and focus instead on what you have in common with that person, on what makes you both an “us.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
Well-being comes from meeting our needs, not denying them. When we experience that our needs are sufficiently met, the body and mind enter the “green zone” Responsive mode, and there is a sense of peace, contentment, and love. When needs feel unmet, we’re disturbed into the fight-flight-freeze “red zone” Reactive mode, and there is a sense of fear, frustration, and hurt.
Rick Hanson (Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness)
It does not matter what I believe. The past is done. Hope is irrelevant. We measure success and failure in history with a cost of lives. Penicillin saved people, and the world wars exterminated them. Success and failure. Feelings, regrets, the point where they knew they made mistakes...it is interesting but unfortunately, irrelevant. Did they go to their death and grieve for what they did? Did the makers of the atomic bomb grieve for the destruction they dedicated their lives towards creating? Who cares? They did it. Whether they knew what they were creating, or whether they talked themselves into believing it was for the best, the glory of history is being able to view it in black-and-white. However honorable one's initial intention, a villain will always be a villain.
Caroline Hanson (Love Is Mortal (Valerie Dearborn, #3))
Two-year-old Christine Hanson and four-year-old Juliana McCourt would never visit Disneyland. Neither they nor David Gamboa-Brandhorst would know first days of school, first loves, or any other milestone, from triumph to heartbreak, of a full life. Andrea LeBlanc would never again travel the world with her gregarious, pacifist husband, Bob. Julie Sweeney wouldn’t bear children, grow old, and feel safe with her confident warrior husband, Brian. Delayed passengers wouldn’t hear recitals of Forrest Gump dialogue from Captain Victor Saracini. First Officer Michael Horrocks’s daughter wouldn’t rise from bed with the promise that her daddy loved her to the moon. Ace Bailey and Mark Bavis would never again share their gifts with young hockey players or with their own families. Retired nurse Touri Bolourchi, who’d fled Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini, wouldn’t see her grandsons grow up as Americans.
Mitchell Zuckoff (Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11)
The autobiographical self (D’Amasio 2000) incorporates the reflective self and some of the emotional self, and it provides the sense of “I” having a unique past and future. The core self involves an underlying and largely nonverbal feeling of “I” that has little sense of the past or the future. If the PFC—which provides most of the neural substrate of the autobiographical self—were to be damaged, the core self would remain, though with little sense of continuity with the past or future. On the other hand, if the subcortical and brain stem structures which the core self relies upon were damaged, then both the core and autobiographical selves would disappear, which suggests that the core self is the neural and mental foundation of the autobiographical self (D’Amasio 2000). When your mind is very quiet, the autobiographical self seems largely absent, which presumably corresponds to a relative deactivation of its neural substrate. Meditations that still the mind, such as the concentration practices we explored in the previous chapter, improve conscious control over that deactivation process.
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
When Ash said nothing, Lila growled, “You broke her heart, you know. The least you can do is talk to her.” “I have talked to her. I tried, anyway. I told her up front that I wasn’t looking for a long-term sweetheart. I thought we both agreed to that.” “Did you make her sign a bloody contract?” Lila laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. “‘I promise that I won’t fall in love with the moody, mysterious Ash Hanson. I will enjoy his rangy body, his broad shoulders, and shapely leg, all the while knowing it’s a lease, not a buy.’” “Shapely leg?” Ash thrust out his leg, pretending to examine it, hoping to interrupt the litany of his physical gifts. But Lila was on a roll. “‘I will not fall into those blue-green eyes, deep as twin mountain pools, nor succumb to the lure of his full lips. Well, I will succumb, but for a limited time only. And the stubble—have I mentioned the stubble?’” Ash’s patience had run out. Lila was far too fluent in Fellsian for his liking. “Shut up, Lila.” “Isn’t there anyone who meets your standards?” “At least I have standards.” He raised an eyebrow. “Ouch!” Lila clutched her shoulder. “A fair hit, sir. A fair hit.” Her smile faded. “The problem is, hope is the thing that can’t be reined in by rules or pinned down by bitter experience. It’s a blessing and curse.” For a long moment, Ash stared at her. He would have been less surprised to hear his pony reciting poetry. “Who knew you were a philosopher?” he said finally. “Now. If you’re staying, let’s talk about something else. Where’s your posting this term?” “I’m going back to the Shivering Fens,” Lila said, “where the taverns are as rare as a day without rain. Where you have to keep moving or grow a crop of moss on your ass.” Good-bye, poetry, Ash thought. “Sounds lovely.
Cinda Williams Chima (Flamecaster (Shattered Realms, #1))
The boxers were banging away at each other. Go on, go on, go on, keep punching, Antonio, keep punching. I'm blasting away at the Cuban guy. He can't hurt me. I'm made of iron. His fists feel like friendly pats when he manages to land a punch, which he doesn't do too often, 'cause I'm fast on my feet, and I duck and weave. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. But I'm punching the hell out of him. I'm creaming the bastard, creaming the Cuban, creaming my old man... What?!... Creaming my boss,I mean. That son-of-a-bitch Mr. Hanson. For an instant he saw Janey at the receiving end of his fists. Again. He pushed the image from his mind. It was Mr. Hanson. It was the Cuban champion. And the crowd was cheering. They were on their feet and screaming. They love me. Yes, they love me. Yes they do. They really do.
Clark Zlotchew (Once upon a Decade: Tales of the Fifties)