Swan Inspirational Quotes

If someone loves you, they should not be envious of you pouring your heart and soul and time and energy into the things that you are passionate about, but instead....they should love you MORE because you are so involved in those things.

To ugly ducklings everywhere, Don't worry about those fluffy yellow morons: They'll never get to be swans

Me, I want to bloody kick this moronic bloody world in the bloody teeth over and over till it bloody understands that not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more bloody important than being right.

She was so intelligent that she could think herself into beauty. Intelligence...they don't talk about it much, the poets, but when a woman is intelligent and passionate and good...

The world is full of talkers, but it is rare to find anyone who listens. And I assure you that you can pick up more information when you are listening than when you are talking.

There is probably no better or more reliable measure of whether a woman has spent time in ugly duckling status at some point or all throughout her life than her inability to digest a sincere compliment. Although it could be a matter of modesty, or could be attributed to shyness- although too many serious wounds are carelessly written off as "nothing but shyness"- more often a compliment is stuttered around about because it sets up an automatic and unpleasant dialogue in the woman's mind. If you say how lovely she is, or how beautiful her art is, or compliment anything else her soul took part in, inspired, or suffused, something in her mind says she is undeserving and you, the complimentor, are an idiot for thinking such a thing to begin with. Rather than understand that the beauty of her soul shines through when she is being herself, the woman changes the subject and effectively snatches nourishment away from the soul-self, which thrives on being acknowledged." "I must admit, I sometimes find it useful in my practice to delineate the various typologies of personality as cats and hens and ducks and swans and so forth. If warranted, I might ask my client to assume for a moment that she is a swan who does not realzie it. Assume also for a moment that she has been brought up by or is currently surrounded by ducks. There is nothing wrong with ducks, I assure them, or with swans. But ducks are ducks and swans are swans. Sometimes to make the point I have to move to other animal metaphors. I like to use mice. What if you were raised by the mice people? But what if you're, say, a swan. Swans and mice hate each other's food for the most part. They each think the other smells funny. They are not interested in spending time together, and if they did, one would be constantly harassing the other. But what if you, being a swan, had to pretend you were a mouse? What if you had to pretend to be gray and furry and tiny? What you had no long snaky tail to carry in the air on tail-carrying day? What if wherever you went you tried to walk like a mouse, but you waddled instead? What if you tried to talk like a mouse, but insteade out came a honk every time? Wouldn't you be the most miserable creature in the world? The answer is an inequivocal yes. So why, if this is all so and too true, do women keep trying to bend and fold themselves into shapes that are not theirs? I must say, from years of clinical observation of this problem, that most of the time it is not because of deep-seated masochism or a malignant dedication to self-destruction or anything of that nature. More often it is because the woman simply doesn't know any better. She is unmothered.

The poet dreams of the mountain Sometimes I grow weary of the days, with all their fits and starts. I want to climb some old gray mountains, slowly, taking The rest of my lifetime to do it, resting often, sleeping Under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks. I want to see how many stars are still in the sky That we have smothered for years now, a century at least. I want to look back at everything, forgiving it all, And peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know. All that urgency! Not what the earth is about! How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only. I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts. In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.

The sweetness of dogs (fifteen) What do you say, Percy? I am thinking of sitting out on the sand to watch the moon rise. Full tonight. So we go and the moon rises, so beautiful it makes me shudder, makes me think about time and space, makes me take measure of myself: one iota pondering heaven. Thus we sit, I thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s perfect beauty and also, oh! How rich it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile, leans against me and gazes up into my face. As though I were his perfect moon.

I want you to go back to Tucson and bring me the bottle of tequila I keep in my liquor cabinet. And don't scare Tim." Volusian remained motionless in that way of his. "My mistress grows increasingly creative in her ways to torment me." "I thought you'd appreciate it." "Only in so much as it inspires me to equally creative means to rip you apart when I am able to break free of these bonds and finally destroy you." "You see? There's a silver lining to everything. Now hurry up.

I discovered there was something else I had never considered-Plan C- don't turn to mush, don't leave, stay and resist. Tango's entire point.

I cry. Evil dissolves, and love, like foam; that love. Prattle of children powers me home, my heart claps like the swan’s under a frenzy of who love me and who shine.

In the story of Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly? When he realized that he was a Swan. Each of us has something Special, a swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere. But until we recognize that it's there, what can we do but splash around, treading water? The Wise are Who They Are. They work with what they've got and do what they can do.

Sure all life's highways at some point must end, so I plan to ride it in style and plummet in a swan dive when the pavement runs out... And hopefully leave behind artistically that which may make other roads an even better ride...

-Do you think artists are supposed to be happy? -Everyone is supposed to be. -I said staunchly,and I knew that I was indeed an idiot and that was my destiny and I didn't mind it

You can, of course, write to inspire others… but most importantly, you must write to inspire yourself.

We don't need to save the world; we need to love people. We can't fix anything for anyone, but we can listen. We can love. We can empathize. And as long as we can, we should.

I couldn't say the real reason for my call when he asked me, 'Anything else?' It was hard for me to end the call. There was nothing I could say to him directly, but there were tons of things I could say to him in my mind. I wanted to tell him how much I would like to talk with him. "Bye," was all I could say aloud.

Tomorrow always has the potential for sunshine.

Where the world sees an ugly duckling, the universe sees a beautiful swan.

Dreamers don't abandon their dreams, they flare and continue the life they have in the dream…tell me how you lived your dream in a certain place and I'll tell you who you are. And now, as you awaken, remember if you have wronged your dream. And if you have, then remember the last dance of the swan.

Don’t always trust what you see. In a bull market even a duck looks like a swan.

Soul mates don’t finally meet somewhere at a certain place at a certain time, they’re in each other, all along.

nothing worth doing is hard to do. Inspiration is your higher self calling you forward toward action, and when your higher self is initiating an action, it is effortless.

There is something explicity satisfying about people who observe you for just who you are.

Recall the confirmation fallacy: governments are great at telling you what they did, but not what they did not do. In fact, they engage in what could be labeled as phony “philanthropy,” the activity of helping people in a visible and sensational way without taking into account the unseen cemetery of invisible consequences. Bastiat inspired libertarians by attacking the usual arguments that showed the benefits of governments. But his ideas can be generalized to apply to both the Right and the Left.

Raw, alive and honest to the point of disgusting it's listener, Placebo set out to inspire mystery and confusion. Admitting to relishing groups who could make their audience vomit with the sheer intensity of their musical vibrations, Brian clearly knew how to make an impact. Discussing sonic overload with unsettling enthusiasm, he claimed "Some frequencies can make you physically ill or make your bowels loose. The Swans used to do it. By the end of gigs people would vomit because the frequencies were so nasty.

The old man, who shuffled along with great difficulty, bent double, was blind. To attract the attention of passersby,he sang a heart wrenching tune. Every time my father heard the song, he said to himself that society must change.

The thing about pain, whether physical or emotional, is there's no running away. You can't escape it and you can't hide from it. Not by ignoring it, not by drugging it, not by doing a swan dive into a bottle. Sooner or later you'll have to take a breath, let the pain rush in and get to the other side like your life depends on it. Because it does.

It is hard to do nothing, especially in this physical world that is addicted to the drug of action. You think that when you are not doing something, you are wasting your time. But your time exists for the sole reason for you to be, not for you to do. The fertile ground for inspired action is to first be.

But there comes to birth no common spawn From the love of a priest for a leprechaun, And you never have seen and you never will see Such things as the things that swaddled me!

And to my soul mate,” he raises his glass, “who has been with me all along, but is absent from my side.

Whenever you hear a snotty (and frustrated) European middlebrow presenting his stereotypes about Americans, he will often describe them as “uncultured,” “unintellectual,” and “poor in math” because, unlike his peers, Americans are not into equation drills and the constructions middlebrows call “high culture”—like knowledge of Goethe’s inspirational (and central) trip to Italy, or familiarity with the Delft school of painting. Yet the person making these statements is likely to be addicted to his iPod, wear blue jeans, and use Microsoft Word to jot down his “cultural” statements on his PC, with some Google searches here and there interrupting his composition. Well, it so happens that America is currently far, far more creative than these nations of museumgoers and equation solvers. It is also far more tolerant of bottom-up tinkering and undirected trial and error. And globalization has allowed the United States to specialize in the creative aspect of things, the production of concepts and ideas, that is, the scalable part of the products, and, increasingly, by exporting jobs, separate the less scalable components and assign them to those happy to be paid by the hour. There

Of the nine million Harlequin Romance and Silhouette Ecstasy books for women today, sold and read by the ton, no hero appears whose primary quality isn’t arrogance. If any man appears at first helpful, cheerful, and polite, he’s the villain. The man who at first appears hopelessly mean and insensitive, he’s the hero. It’s cornography. Margaret Mitchell’s inspiration for Rhett Butler was Valentino in that tango. It’s a twentieth-century malaise.

Not a ripple could be noticed on the surface of the green waters; the swans themselves, even, reposing with folded wings like ships at anchor, seemed inspirations of the warmth of the air, the freshness of the water, and the silence of the beautiful evening

My very first necklace, from my grandmother, had a swan pendant. Now, as an adult, I do still wear a swan pendant and it's my favourite one. I have been on dates wearing it and always get the same comment: "Did you know that swans may look graceful and elegant but they can break your arms with their wings?" They always say it like it's a bad thing. I think it's one of the most fantastic things in nature!

The paradox of an illness which can present as wellness - as a wonderful feeling of health and well-being, and only later reveal its malignant potentials - is one of the chimaeras, tricks and ironies of nature. It is one which has fascinated a number of artists, especially those who equate art with sickness: thus it is a theme - at once Dionysiac, Venerean, and Faustian - which persistently recurs in Thomas Mann - from the febrile, tuberculous highs of The Magic Mountain, to the spirochaetal inspirations in Dr Faustus and the aphrodisiac malignancy in his last tale, The Black Swan.

to be ultra is to go beyond. is to attack the scepter in the name of the throne, and the miter in the name of the alter; it is to mistreat the thing you support; it is to kick in the traces; is is to cavil at the stake for undercooking heretics; it is to reproach the idol for lack of idolatry; it is to insult through an excess of respect; it is to find to little papistry in the pope; in the king to little royalty, and too much light in the night; it is to be dissatisfied with the albatross, with snow ,with the swan, and the lily for not being white enough; it is to champion things to the point of becoming their enemy, it is to become so pro you become con.” ~Victor Hugo

Fig-tree, for such a long time I have found meaning in the way you almost completely omit your blossoms and urge your pure mystery, unproclaimed, into the early ripening fruit. Like a curved pipe of a fountain, your arching boughs drive the sap downward and up again: and almost without awakening it bursts out of sleep, into its sweetest achievement. Like the god stepping into the swan. ......But we still linger, alas, we, whose pride is in blossoming; we enter the overdue interior of our final fruit and are already betrayed. In only a few does the urge to action rise up so powerfully the they stop, glowing in their heart's abundance, while, like the soft night air , the temptation to blossom touches their tender mouths, touches their eyelids, softly: heroes perhaps, and those chosen to disappear early, whose veins Death the gardener twists into a different pattern. These plunge on ahead: in advance of their own smile like the team of galloping horses before the triumphant pharaoh in the mildly hollowed reliefs at Karnak. The hero is strangely close to those who died young. Permanence does not concern him. He lives in continual ascent, moving on into the ever-changed constellation of perpetual danger. Few could find him there. But Fate, which is silent about us, suddenly grows inspired and sings him into the storm of his onrushing world. I hear no one like him. All at once I am pierced by his darkened voice, carried on the streaming air. Then how gladly I would hide from the longing to be once again oh a boy once again, with my life before me, to sit leaning on future arms and reading of Samson, how from his mother first nothing, then everything, was born. Wasn't he a hero inside you mother? didn't his imperious choosing already begin there, in you? Thousands seethed in your womb, wanting to be him, but look: he grasped and excluded—, chose and prevailed. And if he demolished pillars, it was when he burst from the world of your body into the narrower world, where again he chose and prevailed. O mothers of heroes, O sources of ravaging floods! You ravines into which virgins have plunged, lamenting, from the highest rim of the heart, sacrifices to the son. For whenever the hero stormed through the stations of love, each heartbeat intended for him lifted him up, beyond it; and, turning away, he stood there, at the end of all smiles,—transfigured.

You should have to wait for inspiration.' 'I'd rather make inspiration wait for me. If one has a gift, it should be one's servant and not one's master,' said Doris meditatively. 'The only way to accomplish good and thorough work is to have some kind of method.

This is the Beginning of Anything YOU Want

A swan-maiden came and filled the young sailor’s cup. She bowed her head and went to leave, but before she could Batward grabbed her arm. “A cup for me, too, if you don’t mind,” said the warrior. “Please.” “Are you sure?” asked the woman. Batward nodded. “For too long have I rested these feet on firm land. The sea; she calls to me. I am ready.” “As you wish, m’lord.” The maiden filled Batward’s cup, and then the man stood and raised it high. “A toast to me, and a parting glass to you all — for this drink shall, in Seolho’s fine hall, be my last.” The guests did not cheer or hoot at Batward’s words, for it was known that he had arrived at the hall long before the rest of them. Instead, they bowed their heads and raised a solemn toast. Batward gave a nod to Seolho, and the prince nodded back. And the next day, as the gulls called at dawn, Batward was gone. For a sailor cannot be kept from the sea for long.

You see, when we allow God’s love to shine from us, we have the blessing and joy of seeing the awkward duckling turn into the beautiful swan.

Giving only what we’ve been given—God’s love—lets others dance their own Swan Lake. — Gloria Ashby

In The End of Jobs, Taylor Pearson calls this The Turkey Problem, inspired by a clever analogy found in Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan. Taleb writes: “Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird's belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.” Bye-bye Mr. Turkey. The turkey thinks he’s safe, until he realizes at the last minute that he’s not. We tend to believe that working at big corporations keeps us safe. But in reality, it’s the job of the HR department to make you feel that way, even if it’s not true. Every day you work at a large corporation, you’re building up silent risk. One day, you might realize you’re a turkey. Do you remember a company called Lehman Brothers? I know it’s a distant memory for some, but before 2008 it was the 4th largest investment bank in the United States. Then it went bankrupt. Bye-bye.

Jeffers stretched up on his toes to see the back of the mob, “But James, we’re doing all this for you... We need this gold to build a united Alba. We need it to fund an army and to forge decisive leadership.” His voice was almost plaintive. “We want to hand your generation a real empire rather than just a loose collection of competing Families. We want to give you the foundations to achieve glory! What could possibly be wrong with that?” “Rubbish!” cried Tristan, not about to let honey-coated nonsense dissolve the glue that bound his army. “Absolute codswallop!” he let his calm facade slip for the first time that day. “What you’re actually trying to do is to build a legacy that you don’t deserve! You want to swan around as an armchair General for the next twenty years while your precious army strives and dies for hollow victories that do nothing more than feed your ego! And do you know who strives and dies in this picture?” He waved one arm at the figures behind him. “We do! We here in this alley, along with other young men and women just like us!” Tristan watched Jeffers from the corner of his eye, as he shook his fist towards deGroot, “Well we’re not having it! If you want us to fight and die, then we’re going to fight now, and we’re going to fight you! So come on down deGroot and take a swing!

A rational human being of the civilized world would be like the swan that can draw the milk from a mixture of milk and water, leaving aside the water.

Anna and the boys escorted me into Boston last week to meet with Mr. Niles about your book. Afterward, we rode on these marvelous little pontoons called Swan Boats in the Public Garden. An inventive fellow has capitalized on the bicycle craze and created a paddle-wheel boat in which the driver propels the boat by peddling—all while the driver’s presence is covered up by the statue of an enormous swan. Apparently, he was inspired by the German opera “Lohengrin” in which a knight of the Grail must cross the river in a boat disguised as a swan to rescue his princess. And you’ve said Boston has no culture! You would love the romance of these beautiful boats. Sadly, the man who invented the fanciful little fleet perished unexpectedly, yet his wife wants to keep the operation afloat.

Michael Swan-wick’s Periodic Table of Science Fiction, short-shorts inspired by the periodic table of the elements.

Her neck - a swan’s neck, gracious and gentle, her breasts - two mountainous guardians over the valley of her generous heart.

Endless are the scriptures, too vast is knowledge, limited is time, and many are the obstacles; thus the essence should be taken, like a swan takes out the milk from water.

For Ki-young, who had just graduated from the Operations Class of Kim Jong Il University of Political and Military Science, commonly called Liaison Office 130, the man's defeatist attitude was surprising. How could he live in enemy territory without being alert? How could he let go of his animosity toward the South, where the great enemy Chun Doo Swan massacred thousands of people in Kwangju in broad daylight? Later, he realized the South specialized in lifelessness and defeatism. Indiscriminate weariness was prevalent. Ki-yong knew what ennui was, but this was the first time he personally observed it. At home, it was an abstract idea batted about when criticizing capitalism. Of course, there was ennui back home, too. But in a socialist society it was closer to boredom. And it was really a matter of inadequate motivation; a bit of stimulation could change the feeling of boredom. But the prototypical capitalist ennui Ki-yong encountered for the first time in the South was heavy and voluminous. Like poisonous gas, it suffocated and suppressed life. Mere exposure to it prompted the growth of fear. Sometimes you encountered people who inspired in you an immediate primal caution, something that made you say, I don't want to live like that. That civil servant in the office had this effect on Ki-yong. He represented depression, emptiness, cynicism.

Skeptical Empiricism and the a-Platonic School The Platonic Approach Interested in what lies outside the Platonic fold Focuses on the inside of the Platonic fold Respect for those who have the guts to say “I don’t know” “You keep criticizing these models. These models are all we have.” Fat Tony Dr. John Thinks of Black Swans as a dominant source of randomness Thinks of ordinary fluctuations as a dominant source of randomness, with jumps as an afterthought Bottom-up Top-down Would ordinarily not wear suits (except to funerals) Wears dark suits, white shirts; speaks in a boring tone Prefers to be broadly right Precisely wrong Minimal theory, considers theorizing as a disease to resist Everything needs to fit some grand, general socioeconomic model and “the rigor of economic theory;” frowns on the “descriptive” Does not believe that we can easily compute probabilities Built their entire apparatus on the assumptions that we can compute probabilities Model: Sextus Empiricus and the school of evidence-based, minimum-theory empirical medicine Model: Laplacian mechanics, the world and the economy like a clock Develops intuitions from practice, goes from observations to books Relies on scientific papers, goes from books to practice Not inspired by any science, uses messy mathematics and computational methods Inspired by physics, relies on abstract mathematics Ideas based on skepticism, on the unread books in the library Ideas based on beliefs, on what they think they know Assumes Extremistan as a starting point Assumes Mediocristan as a starting point Sophisticated craft Poor science Seeks to be approximately right across a broad set of eventualities Seeks to be perfectly right in a narrow model, under precise assumptions

In Proclus’ reading, virtues, even traits apparently divine (δοκοῦντα δαιμόνια), and not merely flaws, generate animal bodies in the presence of passion and without philosophy (316.6-25). Agamemnon, an embodiment of kingly virtue, admirable for his patience and perseverance (Crat. 395a), and whom Socrates looks forward to meeting in the afterlife (Apol. 41b), chooses a life as an eagle (Rep. 620b); Orpheus, a transmitter of divine inspiration (Ion 536b), chooses a life as a swan, even as a swan chooses the life of a human (Rep. 620a).

offered me new perspectives: the works of Ken Blanchard, of Tom Friedman and of Seth Godin, The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham, Good to Great by Jim Collins, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, E-Myth by Michael Gerber, The Tipping Point and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Chaos by James Gleick, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, M.D., The Monk and the Riddle by Randy Komisar, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, FISH! By Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, John Christensen and Ken Blanchard, The Naked Brain by Richard Restack, Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, The Black Swan by Nicholas Taleb, American Mania by Peter Whybrow, M.D., and the single most important book everyone should read, the book that teaches us that we cannot control the circumstances around us, all we can control is our attitude—Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I

That mother is an enemy and that father is a foe, who do not educate their children; for in the midst of a public assembly, uneducated children are a sore sight, just like cranes in the midst of swans.

When there is water, swans come and stay, and when the water dries up, they leave and go away; man should not behave likewise, and should not repeatedly leave and repeatedly seek shelter.

The spirit of Jesus, when he set his face like flint to go to Jerusalem, runs through the generations of all his most inspiring followers.

Remember you, too, are a beautiful swan.

Many of us want to have relationships because we want a nest, a cozy place of acceptance; that unconditional circumstance. Relationships have become the using of another person as soft stuff to build nests with. Many can do this without even liking the other person, or feeling connected to them, or even wanting to actually be near them. I think the animals are better; an animal would never live with someone they don't like, because they don't have to. They have no religion, no laws, no society. And yet, we see swans and wolves and others: mating for life! For no other reason than that they've found their one-and-only.

In the book John Barleycorn, he describes, with quite some clarity, his drinking in his youth—he died of complications related to being an alcoholic. He talks about this point where he’s so drunk he drinks himself sober, and it’s this psychedelic ‘white light’ experience of reality because his neurology is so rearranged that it’s similar to being on LSD. I found that inspirational—not the drinking! The state of mind.

The fresco on one large wall was indeed the marvel Julian had promised. It was a Pre-Raphaelite portrayal of the Children of Lir, those four siblings cursed to remain swans for nine hundred years. Despite a ragged crack that was making its way down the plaster, the fresco was as pulsing with life as though one was actually looking out on a placid freshwater lake. When Marjan turned away from the painted wall, she saw its real-life inspiration outside the window. There, through floor-length panes, stood a pond complete with a flock of those gracious birds, the white-necked swans.

Cuando el mundo te lo ha quitado todo, cuando se balancea y se desplaza constantemente bajo tus pies, es difícil creer que las cosas que te regala van a durar.

They tried to destroy a gemstone and made you into a diamond.