“
And even if you were a pawn - maybe we all are - then you should remember that a pawn is the most magical piece of all. It might look small and ordinary but it isn't. because a pawn is never just a pawn. A pawn is a queen-in-waiting. All you need to do is find a way to keep moving forward. One square after another. And you can get to the other side and unlock all kinds of power.
”
”
Matt Haig (The Midnight Library)
“
Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
I found something" Simon said as he walked in. He whipped out an old-fashioned key from his pocket and grinned at me. "It was taped to the back of my dresser drawer. What do you think? Buried treasure? Secret passageway? Locked room where they keep crazy old Aunt Edna?"
"It probaly unlocks another dresser," Tori said. "One they threw out fifty years ago."
"Its tragic, being born without an imagination. Do they hold telethons for that?
”
”
Kelley Armstrong (The Reckoning (Darkest Powers, #3))
“
Lost is not a hopeless place to be. It is a place of patience, of waiting. Lost does not mean gone for ever. Lost is a bridge between worlds, where the pain of our past can be transformed into power. You have always held the key to this special place, but now you are ready to unlock the door.
”
”
Evie Woods (The Lost Bookshop)
“
Understanding the beauty of our humanity unlocks the power of our spirituality.
”
”
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
“
if you don’t sleep the very first night after learning, you lose the chance to consolidate those memories, even if you get lots of “catch-up” sleep thereafter. In terms of memory, then, sleep is not like the bank. You cannot accumulate a debt and hope to pay it off at a later point in time. Sleep for memory consolidation is an all-or-nothing event.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
. . . my obsession with gratefulness. I can't stop. Just now, I press the elevator button and am thankful that it arrives quickly. I get onto the elevator and am thankful that the elevator cable didn't snap and plummet me to the basement. I go to the fifth floor and am thankful that I didn't have to stop on the second or third or fourth floor. I get out and am thankful that Julie left the door unlocked so I don't have to rummage for my King Kong key ring. I walk in, and am thankful that Jasper is home and healthy and stuffing his face with pineapple wedges. And on and on. I'm actually muttering to myself, 'Thank you. . .thank you. . . thank you.' It's an odd way to live. But also kind of great and powerful. I've never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.
”
”
A.J. Jacobs (The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible)
“
The very quality of your life, whether you love it or hate it, is based upon how thankful you are toward God. It is one's attitude that determines whether life unfolds into a place of blessedness or wretchedness. Indeed, looking at the same rose bush, some people complain that the roses have thorns while others rejoice that some thorns come with roses. It all depends on your perspective.
This is the only life you will have before you enter eternity. If you want to find joy, you must first find thankfulness. Indeed, the one who is thankful for even a little enjoys much. But the unappreciative soul is always miserable, always complaining. He lives outside the shelter of the Most High God.
Perhaps the worst enemy we have is not the devil but our own tongue. James tells us, "The tongue is set among our members as that which . . . sets on fire the course of our life" (James 3:6). He goes on to say this fire is ignited by hell. Consider: with our own words we can enter the spirit of heaven or the agonies of hell!
It is hell with its punishments, torments and misery that controls the life of the grumbler and complainer! Paul expands this thought in 1 Corinthians 10:10, where he reminds us of the Jews who "grumble[d] . . . and were destroyed by the destroyer." The fact is, every time we open up to grumbling and complaining, the quality of our life is reduced proportionally -- a destroyer is bringing our life to ruin!
People often ask me, "What is the ruling demon over our church or city?" They expect me to answer with the ancient Aramaic or Phoenician name of a fallen angel. What I usually tell them is a lot more practical: one of the most pervasive evil influences over our nation is ingratitude!
Do not minimize the strength and cunning of this enemy! Paul said that the Jews who grumbled and complained during their difficult circumstances were "destroyed by the destroyer." Who was this destroyer? If you insist on discerning an ancient world ruler, one of the most powerful spirits mentioned in the Bible is Abaddon, whose Greek name is Apollyon. It means "destroyer" (Rev. 9:11). Paul said the Jews were destroyed by this spirit. In other words, when we are complaining or unthankful, we open the door to the destroyer, Abaddon, the demon king over the abyss of hell!
In the Presence of God
Multitudes in our nation have become specialists in the "science of misery." They are experts -- moral accountants who can, in a moment, tally all the wrongs society has ever done to them or their group. I have never talked with one of these people who was happy, blessed or content about anything. They expect an imperfect world to treat them perfectly.
Truly, there are people in this wounded country of ours who need special attention. However, most of us simply need to repent of ingratitude, for it is ingratitude itself that is keeping wounds alive! We simply need to forgive the wrongs of the past and become thankful for what we have in the present.
The moment we become grateful, we actually begin to ascend spiritually into the presence of God. The psalmist wrote,
"Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful singing. . . . Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations" (Psalm 100:2, 4-5).
It does not matter what your circumstances are; the instant you begin to thank God, even though your situation has not changed, you begin to change. The key that unlocks the gates of heaven is a thankful heart. Entrance into the courts of God comes as you simply begin to praise the Lord.
”
”
Francis Frangipane
“
But any time you have a thought in your head about you that didn’t come from the heart of God, you’re trespassing against your own body.
”
”
Kris Vallotton (The Supernatural Power of Forgiveness: Discover How to Escape Your Prison of Pain and Unlock a Life of Freedom)
“
You can’t help the poor by becoming one of them.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
More specifically, the coolheaded ability to regulate our emotions each day—a key to what we call emotional IQ—depends on getting sufficient REM sleep night after night. (If your mind immediately jumped to particular colleagues, friends, and public figures who lack these traits, you may well wonder about how much sleep, especially late-morning REM-rich sleep, they are getting.)
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
You don't apologise,' (Deacon) said, pressing a kiss to my greasy head, unlocking best friend status.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (The Power (Titan, #2))
“
You'll always get out of life what you put in-and you control what you
put in.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
The Chinese words ‘kung fu’ translate more or less as ‘a man hard at work over a long time’. If you want to unlock the full power of kung fu, it is not going to be easy: you are going to have to work, you are going to have to sacrifice and you are going to have to suffer – over a long time. There really is no such thing as a free lunch.
”
”
Master Iain Armstrong
“
Your beliefs have the power to unlock your inner genius or keep you from fully achieving your greatest potential.
”
”
Deborah Day (BE HAPPY NOW!)
“
The password to creativity is SILENCE.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson (Before You Doubt Yourself: Pep Talks and other Crucial Discussions)
“
Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change. This pattern shows up everywhere. Cancer spends 80 percent of its life undetectable, then takes over the body in months. Bamboo can barely be seen for the first five years as it builds extensive root systems underground before exploding ninety feet into the air within six weeks. Similarly, habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance. In the early and middle stages of any quest, there is often a Valley of Disappointment. You expect to make progress in a linear fashion and it’s frustrating how ineffective changes can seem during the first days, weeks, and even months. It doesn’t feel like you are going anywhere. It’s a hallmark of any compounding process: the most powerful outcomes
”
”
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones)
“
Whatever you believe, with feeling,
becomes your reality.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
What is the cost of holding back what is trying to be expressed through you?
”
”
Allison Fallon (The Power of Writing It Down: A Simple Habit to Unlock Your Brain and Reimagine Your Life)
“
Friends. Sisters. Mothers. Professors. When women affirm women, it unlocks our power. It gives us permission to shine brighter.
”
”
Elaine Welteroth (More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say))
“
You never draw out of the deep of yourself that which you want; you always draw that which you are, and you are that which you feel yourself to be as well as that which you feel as true of others.
”
”
Neville Goddard (Feeling is the Secret: Feeling Is The Secret 1944 by Neville Goddard - Unlocking the Power Within: Neville Goddard's Proven Secret to Manifesting Your ... Is The Secret 1944 by Neville Goddard.)
“
So let us be clear about this up front: We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women's power as economic catalysts. That is the process under way - not a drama of victimization but of empowerment, the kind that transforms bubbly teenage girls from brothel slaves into successful businesswomen.
This is a story of transformation. It is change that is already taking place, and change that can accelerate if you'll just open your heart and join in.
”
”
Nicholas D. Kristof (Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide)
“
I will continue to study at your feet, Master. I will learn from your wisdom. I will discover your secrets, unlocking them one by one until everything you know—all your knowledge and all your power—is mine. And once you are no longer of use to me, I will destroy you.
”
”
Drew Karpyshyn (Star Wars, The Darth Bane Series: Path of Destruction, Rule of Two, Dynasty of Evil)
“
In the Northern Hemisphere, the switch to daylight savings time in March results in most people losing an hour of sleep opportunity. Should you tabulate millions of daily hospital records, as researchers have done, you discover that this seemingly trivial sleep reduction comes with a frightening spike in heart attacks the following day. Impressively, it works both ways. In the autumn within the Northern Hemisphere, when the clocks move forward and we gain an hour of sleep opportunity time, rates of heart attacks plummet the day after. A similar rise-and-fall relationship can be seen with the number of traffic accidents, proving that the brain, by way of attention lapses and microsleeps, is just as sensitive as the heart to very small perturbations of sleep. Most people think nothing of losing an hour of sleep for a single night, believing it to be trivial and inconsequential. It is anything but.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
Most of us are unaware of how important vocabulary is to emotion skills. As we’ve seen, using many different words implies valuable distinctions—that we’re not always simply angry but are sometimes annoyed, irritated, frustrated, disgusted, aggravated, and so on. If we can’t discern the difference, it suggests that we can’t understand it either. It’s the difference between a rich emotional life and an impoverished one. Your child will inherit the one you provide.
”
”
Marc Brackett (Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive)
“
You perform as well as you believe yourself capable of performing. You are as effective as you believe yourself to be in whatever you do. You can never be better or different on the outside than you believe yourself to be on the inside.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
Motivation comes from within...nobody can motivate u. Motivational speakers just help u search inside to unlock the power you had all along.
”
”
Darrius Garrett
“
When you unlock your pleasure, you unlock your power. And that can change anything..." -Sheerah, Donny and Ursula Save the World.
”
”
Sharon Weil (Donny and Ursula Save the World)
“
When you reject Jesus, you reject your only hope for peace and prosperity.
”
”
John Eckhardt (God's Covenant With You for Your Family: Come into Agreement With Him and Unlock His Power)
“
Knowing your financial identity is just the start—holistic wealth coaching helps you unlock the power within to thrive on your unique path.
”
”
Keisha Blair
“
Changing habits that are no longer consistent with your higher purposes is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, and one of the most essential to the quality of your life.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
Your future largely depends on what you learn and practice from this moment onward.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
No person or situation can make you
feel anything-it is only the way you think about a situation that
makes you feel the way you do.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
If you read a book, you will unlock unknown doors of your soul. And who knows; you can find a treasure inside…
”
”
George Spyrou (Roxanne)
“
REGARDLESS OF WHY YOU’VE MADE BITTERNESS AND HATRED YOUR BEST FRIENDS, IF YOU CARRY THEM AROUND LONG ENOUGH, THEY WILL EVENTUALLY EAT YOU FROM THE INSIDE OUT.
”
”
Kris Vallotton (The Supernatural Power of Forgiveness: Discover How to Escape Your Prison of Pain and Unlock a Life of Freedom)
“
Never entertain an undesirable feeling, nor think sympathetically about wrong in any shape or form. Do not dwell on the imperfection of yourself or others. To do so is to impress the subconscious with these limitations. What you do not want done unto you, do not feel that it is done unto you or another. This is the whole law of a full and happy life. Everything else is commentary.
”
”
Neville Goddard (Feeling is the Secret: Feeling Is The Secret 1944 by Neville Goddard - Unlocking the Power Within: Neville Goddard's Proven Secret to Manifesting Your ... Is The Secret 1944 by Neville Goddard.)
“
All change is from the inner to the outer. All change begins in the self-concept. You must become the person you want to be on the inside before you see the appearance of this person on the outside.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
An adult’s owlness or larkness, also known as their chronotype, is strongly determined by genetics. If you are a night owl, it’s likely that one (or both) of your parents is a night owl. Sadly, society treats night owls rather unfairly on two counts. First is the label of being lazy, based on a night owl’s wont to wake up later in the day, due to the fact that they did not fall asleep until the early-morning hours. Others (usually morning larks) will chastise night owls on the erroneous assumption that such preferences are a choice, and if they were not so slovenly, they could easily wake up early. However, night owls are not owls by choice. They are bound to a delayed schedule by unavoidable DNA hardwiring. It is not their conscious fault, but rather their genetic fate.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
Stop allowing people to disrespect your right to say no and enforce boundaries as a form of self-care. Make your yes valued by saying no when you don't want to say yes and make your no mean no without any explanation because you have the power to do so.
”
”
Tasha McCray (Unlocking The Power Of Your Value)
“
You need to realise something if you are ever to succeed at chess,’ she said, as if Nora had nothing bigger to think about. ‘And the thing you need to realise is this: the game is never over until it is over. It isn’t over if there is a single pawn still on the board. If one side is down to a pawn and a king, and the other side has every player, there is still a game. And even if you were a pawn – maybe we all are – then you should remember that a pawn is the most magical piece of all. It might look small and ordinary but it isn’t. Because a pawn is never just a pawn. A pawn is a queen-in-waiting. All you need to do is find a way to keep moving forward. One square after another. And you can get to the other side and unlock all kinds of power.'
Mrs. Elm
”
”
Matt Haig (The Midnight Library)
“
What if there is no one else on the planet who can express the thing that’s trying to be expressed through you? What if this is your one shot, and you don’t have much time left? The thing in you that wants to be expressed can never be expressed through anyone else.
”
”
Allison Fallon (The Power of Writing It Down: A Simple Habit to Unlock Your Brain and Reimagine Your Life)
“
As you begin to see yourself and think about yourself as more competent and confident, your behavior becomes more focused and effective
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
The key to happiness then is to systematically eliminate, or at least minimize, the parts of your life that cause you negativity or stress of any kind.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
There are notable differences between the frugal and the cheap. Frugal people take pleasure in saving and cheap people feel pained by spending.
”
”
Scott Sonenshein (Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less - and Achieve More Than You Ever Imagined)
“
The spirit of divinity lives in you. The power is unlock by faith, hope and courage.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
“
To succeed. Start by unlocking
the gifts and the talents in you
To bring out the potential, the power in you
”
”
Simone DaCosta
“
The best work of all is when you are achieving your own goals by helping others to achieve theirs.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
Sin is a power; wherever it is given room, it will grow in strength, and it will take you where you do not want to go.
”
”
Colin S. Smith (Unlocking the Bible Story: Old Testament Study Guide 1 (Unlocking the Bible Guides, #1))
“
You can’t hit a target you can’t see. You can’t accomplish wonderful things with your life if you have no idea of what they are. You must first become absolutely clear about what you want if you are serious about unlocking the extraordinary power that lies within you. Every
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
There are many things that I hope readers take away from this book. this is one of the most important: if you are drowsy while driving, please, please stop. It is lethal. [..] Many of us think we can overcome drowsiness through sheer force of will, but sadly, this is not true.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
The way you carry yourself is a source of personal power—the kind of power that is the key to presence. It’s the key that allows you to unlock yourself—your abilities, your creativity, your courage, and even your generosity. It doesn’t give you skills or talents you don’t have; it helps you to share the ones you do have. It doesn’t make you smarter or better informed; it makes you more resilient and open. It doesn’t change who you are; it allows you to be who you are.
”
”
Amy Cuddy (Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges)
“
You acquire full power only by realizing that you have been using that power all along to thwart yourself. You are potentially the prisoner, the jailer, and the hero who opens the prison, all rolled into one.
”
”
Deepak Chopra (The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life)
“
The Greatness Mindset begins to take shape when you begin the journey to heal the pain and trauma in your past. Until you do that, you may often find yourself at the mercy of past pain without ever realizing how or why.
”
”
Lewis Howes (The Greatness Mindset: Unlock the Power of Your Mind and Live Your Best Life Today)
“
sudden I stopped. I was out of breath. I asked myself, “What is this all about? What is the meaning of this ceaseless rush? This is ridiculous!” Then I declared independence, and said, “I do not care if I go to dinner. I do not care whether I make a talk. I do not have to go to this dinner and I do not have to make a speech.” So deliberately and slowly I walked back to my room and took my time about unlocking the door. I telephoned the man downstairs and said, “If you want to eat, go ahead. If you want to save a place for me, I will be down after a while, but I am not going to rush any more.” So I removed my coat, sat down, took off my shoes, put my feet up on the table, and just sat. Then I opened the Bible and very slowly read aloud the 121st Psalm, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.” I closed the book and had a little talk with myself, saying, “Come on now, start living a slower and more relaxed life,” and then I affirmed, “God is here and His
”
”
Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking)
“
Something that once had importance might be forgotten by most people but because millions of people once knew it, a force is present that can be harnessed. There might be so much significance attached to a song, for example, or a fact, that it can’t die but only lies dormant, like a vampire in his coffin, waiting to be called forth from the grave once again. There is more magic in the fact that the first mass worldwide photo of the Church of Satan was taken by Joe Rosenthal – the same man who took the most famous news photo in history – the flag-raising at Iwo Jima. There’s real occult significance to that – much more than in memorizing grimoires and witches’ alphabets. People ask me about what music to use in rituals – what is the best occult music. I’ve instructed people to go to the most uncrowded section of the music store and it’s a guarantee what you’ll find there will be occult music. That’s the power of long-lost trivia. I get irritated by people who turn up their noses and whine ‘Why would anyone want to know that?’ Because once upon a time, everyone in America knew it. Suppose there’s a repository of neglected energy, that’s been generated and forgotten. Maybe it’s like a pressure cooker all this time, just waiting for someone to trigger its release. ‘Here I am,’ it beckons, ‘I have all this energy stored up just waiting for you – all you have to do is unlock the door. Because of man’s stupidity, he’s neglected me to this state of somnambulism – dreaming the ancient dreams – even though I was once so important to him.’ Think about that. A song that was once on millions of lips now is only on your lips. Now what does that contain? Those vibrations of that particular tune, what do they evoke, call up? What do they unlock? The old gods lie dormant, waiting.
”
”
Anton Szandor LaVey (The Secret Life of a Satanist: The Authorized Biography of Anton LaVey)
“
You can never rise any higher than your expectations of yourself. Since they are completely under your control, be sure that your expectations are consistent with what you want to see happen. Always expect the best of yourself.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
There are absolutely no limits on what you can achieve. Your possibilities are truly endless, and you have the power to create the life and business of your dreams. You must find the place inside of you where everything is possible.
”
”
Cara Alwill Leyba (Girl Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Success, Sanity, and Happiness for the Female Entrepreneur)
“
The skeleton key unlocks the mind and swings open the door of imagination. A far better place than here A much safer place than there The quintessential somewhere The mystical nowhere The enigmatic anywhere My gift to you - the key to everywhere.
The mortal will find itself lost while the soul always knows the way it is grateful for the darkness and celebrates the day
I can give you peace my peace I give you... but I cannot be your savior or your god - I cannot be the light along your path - I can only give you the lamp and point the way.
The blind will see... the deaf will hear... but those who choose reason will never understand.
Woe to the ones who think they know the answers they will cease to ask the questions that may be their own salvation.
We possess the knowledge of the Universe from conception. Once born we are taught to forget.
If we cannot look out at our world and see our children's vision then we are truly blind we are unable to lead them to paradise.
"Even people who are in the dark search for their shadows. Shadows exist only if there is light. We will never find total darkness - not even in death... ...and we always cast a shadow no matter how overcast our skies become. You are never alone."
Do not listen to the voice that shouts to you from behind desks behind podiums behind altars. Do not pay attention to the orators and the opportunists. Do not be distracted by the promises made behind masks. Listen to the quiet. Listen to the whispers as they gently guide you through the assaults of man's absurdities. Listen to the gentle breathing of your mother and lay your head to rest in her peace and in her warm embrace and understand that truth and power lie within you. Breathe silence.
The free bird will always return to the cage sooner or later to seek food and water and the loving hand of it's caretaker.
”
”
M. Teresa Clayton
“
What frightens you?
What makes the hair on your arms rise, your palms sweat, the breath catch in your chest like a wild thing caged?
Is it the dark? A fleeting memory of a bedtime story, ghosts and goblins and witches hiding in the shadows? Is it the way the wind picks up just before a storm, the hint of wet in the air that makes you want to scurry home to the safety of your fire?
Or is it something deeper, something much more frightening, a monster deep inside that you've glimpsed only in pieces, the vast unknown of your own soul where secrets gather with a terrible power, the dark inside?
If you will listen I will tell you a story-one whose ghost cannot be banished by the comfort of a roaring fire, I will tell you the story of how we found ourselves in a realm where dreams are formed, destiny is chosen, and magic is as real as your handprint in the snow. I will tell you how we unlocked the Pandora's box of ourselves, tasted freedom, stained our souls with blood and choice, and unleashed a horror on the world that destroyed its dearest Order. These pages are a confession of all that has led to this cold, gray dawn. What will be now, I cannot say.
Is your heart beating faster?
Do the clouds seem to be gathering on the horizons?
Does the skin on your neck feel stretched tight, waiting for a kiss you both fear and need?
Will you be scared?
Will you know the truth?
Mary Dowd, April 7, 1871
”
”
Libba Bray (A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, #1))
“
reached our absolute limit, we still have 60 percent more to give! That’s the governor in action! Once you know that to be true, it’s simply a matter of stretching your pain tolerance, letting go of your identity and all your self-limiting stories, so you can get to 60 percent, then 80 percent and beyond without giving up. I call this The 40% Rule, and the reason it’s so powerful is that if you follow it, you will unlock your mind to new levels of performance and excellence in sports and in life, and your rewards will run far deeper than mere material success. The 40% Rule can be applied to everything
”
”
David Goggins (Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds)
“
The meaning behind your passion, whether it be for hospitality, law, or hot sauce, now translates into value. In the Age of Ideas this is what the market demands, and you have the power to give it to them by unlocking your unique creative potential.
”
”
Alan Philips (The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential)
“
We only see things which we want to see in this world. If you want to see only negative you will find this world full of negativity, pain and bad things. But the moment you want to see magic in the universe, if will appear at every moment in your life. Never allow your heart to be filled with hatred, jealousy, complaints, etc... Replace them with compassion, vision and gratitude.
”
”
Deepanshu Giri (Rituals of Happy Soul: A Self-Help Guide to Unlock Your Inner Power and Transform Your Life.)
“
A change in direction was required. The story you finished was perhaps never the one you began. Yes! He would take charge of his life anew, binding his breaking selves together. Those changes in himself that he sought, he himself would initiate and make them. No more of this miasmic, absent drift. How had he ever persuaded himself that his money-mad burg would rescue him all by itself, this Gotham in which Jokers and Penguins were running riot with no Batman (or even Robin) to frustrate their schemes, this Metropolis built of Kryptonite in
which no Superman dared set foot, where wealth was mistaken for riches and the joy of possession for happiness, where people lived such polished lives that the great rough truths of raw existence had been rubbed and buffed away, and in which human souls had wandered so separately for so long that they barely remembered how to touch; this city whose fabled electricity powered the electric fences that were being erected between men and men, and men and women, too? Rome did not fall because her armies weakened but because Romans forgot what
being Roman meant. Might this new Rome actually be more provincial than its provinces; might these new Romans have forgotten what and how to value, or had they never known? Were all empires so undeserving, or was this one particularly crass? Was nobody in all this bustling endeavor and material plenitude engaged, any longer, on the deep quarry-work of the mind and heart? O Dream-America, was civilization's
quest to end in obesity and trivia, at Roy Rogers and Planet Hollywood, in USA Today and on E!; or in million-dollar-game-show greed or fly-on-the-wall voyeurism; or in the eternal confessional booth of Ricki and Oprah and Jerry, whose guests murdered each other after the show; or in a spurt of gross-out dumb-and-dumber comedies
designed for young people who sat in darkness howling their ignorance at the silver screen; or even at the unattainable tables of Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Alain Ducasse? What of the search for the hidden keys that unlock the doors of exaltation? Who demolished the City on the Hill and put in its place a row of electric chairs,
those dealers in death's democracy, where everyone, the innocent, the mentally deficient, the guilty, could come to die side by side? Who paved Paradise and put up a parking lot? Who settled for George W. Gush's boredom and Al Bore's gush? Who let Charlton Heston out of his cage and then asked why children were getting shot? What, America, of the Grail? O ye Yankee Galahads, ye Hoosier Lancelots, O Parsifals of the stockyards, what of the Table Round? He felt a flood bursting in him and did not hold back. Yes, it had seduced him, America; yes, its brilliance aroused him, and its vast potency too, and he was compromised by this seduction. What he opposed in it he must also attack in himself. It made him want what it promised and eternally withheld. Everyone was an American now, or at least Americanized: Indians, Uzbeks, Japanese, Lilliputians, all. America was the world's playing field, its rule book, umpire, and ball. Even anti-Americanism was Americanism in disguise, conceding, as it did, that America was the only game in town and the matter of America the only business at hand; and so, like everyone, Malik Solanka now walked its high corridors cap in hand, a supplicant at its feast; but that did not mean he could not look it in the eye. Arthur had fallen, Excalibur was lost and dark Mordred was king. Beside him on the throne of Camelot sat the queen, his sister, the witch Morgan le Fay.
”
”
Salman Rushdie (Fury)
“
asking your teenage son or daughter to go to bed and fall asleep at ten p.m. is the circadian equivalent of asking you, their parent, to go to sleep at seven or eight p.m. No matter how loud you enunciate the order, no matter how much that teenager truly wishes to obey your instruction, and no matter what amount of willed effort is applied by either of the two parties, the circadian rhythm of a teenager will not be miraculously coaxed into a change. Furthermore, asking that same teenager to wake up at seven the next morning and function with intellect, grace, and good mood is the equivalent of asking you, their parent, to do the same at four or five a.m.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
If you were one of the individuals who were obtaining just five to six hours each night or less, you were 200 to 300 percent more likely to suffer calcification of your coronary arteries over the next five years, relative to those individuals sleeping seven to eight hours.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
Robert Cialdini, author of one of my favorite books, Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion, writes: “A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they
”
”
Lior Suchard (Mind Reader: Unlocking the Power of Your Mind to Get What You Want)
“
Working on your deep psychological issues opens the possibility for psychological freedom, making you independent of your past and the scars you carry around with you. These are meaningful choices that go beyond the limited definition of stress management, yet it’s this kind of change that transforms someone’s life.
”
”
Deepak Chopra (Super Genes: Unlock the Astonishing Power of Your DNA for Optimum Health and Well-Being)
“
Similarly, habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance. In the early and middle stages of any quest, there is often a Valley of Disappointment. You expect to make progress in a linear fashion and it’s frustrating how ineffective changes can seem during the first days, weeks, and even months. It doesn’t feel like you are going anywhere. It’s a hallmark of any compounding process: the most powerful outcomes are delayed.
”
”
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones)
“
First, after waking up in the morning, could you fall back asleep at ten or eleven a.m.? If the answer is “yes,” you are likely not getting sufficient sleep quantity and/or quality. Second, can you function optimally without caffeine before noon? If the answer is “no,” then you are most likely self-medicating your state of chronic sleep deprivation.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
Reverence for life means being in touch with the life force. You feel the same power flowing through you as through every living thing; even the dust in a beam of light dances to the same rhythm. Therefore, life isn’t limited to plants and animals—everything possesses a glowing, animated vitality. Reverence for life feels warm, connected, and exhilarating.
”
”
Deepak Chopra (The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life)
“
All great achievement begins with your deciding what it is you really want and then dedicating yourself wholeheartedly to attaining it.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
Your faith is designed to operate outside of your emotions. When you operate in faith, how you feel has no bearing on how you respond. Faith does not need your emotions to confirm what you are believing God to do in your life. We should understand what we are feeling and why we are feeling it but we should not be distracted or controlled by how we feel. Have faith.
”
”
Dawn M. Harvey (Unlocking The Presence of Power)
“
the game is never over until it is over. It isn’t over if there is a single pawn still on the board. If one side is down to a pawn and a king, and the other side has every player, there is still a game. And even if you were a pawn – maybe we all are – then you should remember that a pawn is the most magical piece of all. It might look small and ordinary but it isn’t. Because a pawn is never just a pawn. A pawn is a queen-in-waiting. All you need to do is find a way to keep moving forward. One square after another. And you can get to the other side and unlock all kinds of power.
”
”
Matt Haig (The Midnight Library)
“
Greater success and happiness are only possible for you when you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable during the process of creating a new comfort zone at a higher level of effectiveness.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed)
“
To impress the subconscious with the desirable state, you must assume the feeling that would be yours had you already realized your wish. In defining your objective, you must be concerned only with the objective itself. The manner of expression or the difficulties involved are not to be considered by you. To think feelingly on any state impresses it on the subconscious. Therefore, if you dwell on difficulties, barriers or delay, the subconscious, by its very non-selective nature, accepts the feeling of difficulties and obstacles as your request and proceeds to produce them in your outer world.
”
”
Neville Goddard (Feeling is the Secret: Feeling Is The Secret 1944 by Neville Goddard - Unlocking the Power Within: Neville Goddard's Proven Secret to Manifesting Your ... Is The Secret 1944 by Neville Goddard.)
“
I suspect that you cannot recall any truly significant action in your life that wasn’t governed by two very simple rules: staying away from something that would feed bad, or trying to accomplish something that would feel good. This law of approach and avoidance dictates most of human and animal behavior from a very early age.
The forces that implement this law are positive and negative emotions. Emotions make us do things, as the name suggests (remove the first letter from the word). They motivate our remarkable achievements, incite us to try again when we fail, keep us safe from potential harm, urge us to accomplish rewarding and beneficial outcomes, and compel us to cultivate social and romantic relationships. In short, emotions in appropriate amounts make life worth living. They offer a healthy and vital existence, psychologically and biologically speaking. Take them away, and you face a sterile existence with no highs or lows to speak of. Emotionless, you will simply exist, rather than live.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
Glib advice aside, what is the recommendation when it comes to sleep and alcohol? It is hard not to sound puritanical, but the evidence is so strong regarding alcohol’s harmful effects on sleep that to do otherwise would be doing you, and the science, a disservice. Many people enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, even an aperitif thereafter. But it takes your liver and kidneys many hours to degrade and excrete that alcohol, even if you are an individual with fast-acting enzymes for ethanol decomposition. Nightly alcohol will disrupt your sleep, and the annoying advice of abstinence is the best, and most honest, I can offer.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
When you closed up your heart in response to the pain, it took hold of you. Opening up to breathe into it and to contain it completely in fact has the effect of melting it away, leaving the heart refreshed and intact.
”
”
Shai Tubali (Unlocking the 7 Secret Powers of the Heart: A Practical Guide to Living in Trust and Love)
“
If you follow your heart’s knowing persistently, you gradually become far less exposed to pressures. Since knowing is so much more concrete than thoughts, feelings, and experiences,
it is your first step to indestructibility.
”
”
Shai Tubali (Unlocking the 7 Secret Powers of the Heart: A Practical Guide to Living in Trust and Love)
“
Little wonder that sleep becomes nearly impossible to initiate or maintain when the spinning cogs of our emotional minds start churning, anxiously worrying about things we did today, things that we forgot to do, things that we must face in the coming days, and even those far in the future. That is no kind of invitation for beckoning the calm brainwaves of sleep into your brain, peacefully allowing you to drift off into a full night of restful slumber.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
The heart is where the core or the center of your being—your “innermost”—dwells. When you know your heart, you know your innermost. When your heart is “closed,” you are
out of touch with your core, or you do not allow others to get to know it.
”
”
Shai Tubali (Unlocking the 7 Secret Powers of the Heart: A Practical Guide to Living in Trust and Love)
“
What’s more amazing is how we habitually take the power of
our voice for granted. When we bring our awareness to our voice
and learn to express it in new ways—with impeccability—we
rediscover our true message. Your voice is the key to unlocking
the power and magnificence of your message. This work isn’t
about singing on key, finding the right words, leaving out ‘ums’
and ‘uhs’ and articulating clearly. This is about allowing and
accepting your Magical Self. Let’s talk about how words create
you.
”
”
Dielle Ciesco (The Unknown Mother: A Magical Walk with the Goddess of Sound)
“
I would say that the ability of people to agree on matters of fact not immediately visible—states of affairs removed from them in space and time—ramped up from a baseline of approximately zero to a pretty high level around the time of the scientific revolution and all that, and stayed there and became more globally distributed up through the Cronkite era, and then dropped to zero incredibly quickly when the Internet came along. And I think that the main thing it conferred on people was social mobility, so that if you were a smart kid growing up on a farm in Kansas or a slum in India you had a chance to do something interesting with your life. Before it—before that three-hundred-year run when there was a way for people to agree on facts—we had kings and warlords and rigid social hierarchy. During it, a lot of brainpower got unlocked and things got a lot better materially. A lot better. Now we’re back in a situation where the people who have the power and the money can get what they want by dictating what the mass of people ought to believe.
”
”
Neal Stephenson (Fall; or, Dodge in Hell)
“
What do you remember about your life? When was the last time you felt joyful? What about devastated? Research shows you’re much more likely to be able to answer the second question than the first. Negative emotions carve deep ruts in our brains and are memorized by our bodies so they can be replayed over and over and over again. Positive emotions like joy and peace and love don’t always have the same impact. Do you want to get to the end of your life and remember only the negative? What parts do you want to remember? What we write down is what we remember. It’s like a time capsule in a way, a lifeline back to the best parts of ourselves. A little popcorn trail of words we can follow so that we never lose sight of the path we’re on. Words help us see ourselves more clearly. They help us remember who we are and what we’re here for. They help others remember us, too.
”
”
Allison Fallon (The Power of Writing It Down: A Simple Habit to Unlock Your Brain and Reimagine Your Life)
“
In your cultural prison, which inmates wield the power?"
"Ah," I said. "The male inmates. Especially the white male inmates."
"Yes, that's right. But you understand that these white male inmates are indeed inmates and not warders. For all their power and privilege - for all that they lord it over everyone else in the prison - not one of them has a key that will unlock the gate."
"Yes, that's true. Donald Trump can do a lot of things I can't, but he can no more get out of the prison than I can. But what does this have to do with justice?"
"Justice demands that people other than white males have power in the prison."
"Yes, I see. But what are you saying? That this isn't true?"
"True? Of course it's true that males - and, as you say, especially white males - have called the shots inside the prison for thousands of years, perhaps even from the beginning. Of course it's true that this is unjust. And of course it's true that power and wealth within the prison should be equitably redistributed. But it should be noted that what is crucial to your survival as a race is not the redistribution of power and wealth within the prison but rather the destruction of the prison itself.
”
”
Daniel Quinn (Ishmael (Ishmael, #1))
“
[WAIT—IT WON’T LET ME REDACT THESE LITTLE SUBHEADING THINGS? THAT’S SUPER ANNOYING!] [FINE, I’LL JUST GIVE YOU MY SUMMARY.] [SO, WHOEVER WROTE THIS WAS ALL BLAH-BLAH-BLAH-STELLARLUNE-SOMETHING-SOMETHING-LEGACY. BUT SERIOUSLY, NO ONE WANTS TO READ ABOUT THE CREEPY STUFF MY MOM DID BEFORE SHE GOT PREGNANT WITH ME! (AND WE’RE ALL SUPER SICK OF HEARING ABOUT MY “LEGACY,” AMIRITE?) SO, LET’S JUST LEAVE IT AT THIS: MY MOM IS EVIL. SHE THINKS SHE’S WAY SMARTER THAN SHE IS. AND NOTHING SHE DID IS GOING TO AFFECT MY GENERAL AWESOMENESS, OKAY?] A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY: [WOW, HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH SUCH A CLEVER TITLE?!] [AND YEAH, I HAVE A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY. NOT SURE WHY ANYONE CARES. BUT IT DOES COME IN HANDY DURING MIDTERMS AND FINALS.] AHEAD OF THE GAME: [BASICALLY: I’M A GENIUS. I SKIPPED LEVEL ONE AT FOXFIRE. YES, YOU SHOULD BE IMPRESSED.] UNREASONABLY HIGH STANDARDS: [GOTTA ADMIT, I WAS TEMPTED TO LEAVE THIS ONE ALONE, SINCE WHOEVER WROTE IT ACTUALLY GOT THINGS PRETTY MUCH RIGHT. I GUESS EVEN THE COUNCIL KNOWS MY DAD’S A JERK WHO FREAKS OUT ALL THE TIME BECAUSE I’M NOT A LITTLE MINI-HIM. WHO KNEW?] A POWERFUL EMPATH: [UGH, THAT’S THE BEST YOU COULD DO FOR THIS SUBHEADING???] [HOW ABOUT “LORD OF THE FEELS”? OR “TRUST THE EMPATH”! OR “HE KNOWS WHAT YOU’RE FEELING—AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF”?] [OOO! I’VE GOT IT! “HE KNOWS FOSTER BETTER THAN YOU DO! BETTER THAN SHE EVEN KNOWS HERSELF!”] [THOUGH… KEEPING IT REAL? THE FOSTER OBLIVION CAN BE KINDA NOT COOL SOMETIMES.] THE HEART OF THE MATTER: [I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU GUYS NAMED A SECTION OF MY FILE AFTER MY FATHER’S SUPER-BORING BOOK—AND THEN RAMBLED ON FOR TWO PAGES ABOUT HIS SUPER-BORING THEORY!!!!!] [YOU DON’T NEED TWO PAGES ON IT. YOU DON’T EVEN NEED TWO SENTENCES. HERE’S ALLLLLL YOU NEED TO KNOW—BESIDES THE FACT THAT HE’S TOTALLY NOT THE FIRST PERSON TO COME UP WITH THIS (JUST THE ONE WHO LOVES TO TAKE CREDIT): OUR HEADS AND OUR HEARTS SOMETIMES FEEL DIFFERENT EMOTIONS, AND WHAT’S IN OUR HEARTS IS PROBABLY STRONGER.] [THAT’S IT!] [WELL… OKAY… I GUESS HE ALSO GOES ON A BIT ABOUT HOW EMPATHS PROBABLY ONLY READ THE EMOTIONS FROM THE HEAD.] [AND THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT HEART EMOTIONS BEING PURER BECAUSE NO ONE CAN CONTROL THEM.] [BUT THAT’S IT.] [AND DON’T TELL LORD BORINGPANTS I READ HIS DUMB BOOK! I MOSTLY SKIMMED.] PRANKSTER AND TROUBLEMAKER: [100 PERCENT ACCURATE. ALSO, I’M LEAVING YOUR LITTLE ATTACHED DETENTION RECORD BECAUSE IT’S THE GREATEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!!!!]
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8.5))
“
And the thing you need to realise is this: the game is never over until it is over. It isn’t over if there is a single pawn still on the board. If one side is down to a pawn and a king, and the other side has every player, there is still a game. And even if you were a pawn – maybe we all are – then you should remember that a pawn is the most magical piece of all. It might look small and ordinary but it isn’t. Because a pawn is never just a pawn. A pawn is a queen-in-waiting. All you need to do is find a way to keep moving forward. One square after another. And you can get to the other side and unlock all kinds of power.
”
”
Matt Haig (The Midnight Library)
“
You may ask whether I have changed my own educational practice and assessment. I have. There are no “final” exams at the end of the semester in my classes. Instead, I split my courses up into thirds so that students only have to study a handful of lectures at a time. Furthermore, none of the exams are cumulative. It’s a tried-and-true effect in the psychology of memory, described as mass versus spaced learning. As with a fine-dining experience, it is far more preferable to separate the educational meal into smaller courses, with breaks in between to allow for digestion, rather than attempt to cram all of those informational calories down in one go. In
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
Once a human brain becomes aware of another kind of self within, it’s like unlocking all new powers and abilities for you, the soul. You’ll go from witness to creator, and your influence over the brain will only grow stronger and stronger as the brain matures. The brain begins to relax in a way, and finally gives power over willingly to the soul.
”
”
Sean Patrick Brennan (The Angel's Guide to Taking Human Form)
“
A few days later, I found myself back in the cellar. But this time, I was involved in an activity way more fun than cataloging magic junk.
“What happened to the promise of making out in castles?” I asked as Archer and I pulled back for a breather. I was leaning back against one of the shelves, my hands clutching Archer’s waist. Over his shoulder, there was a jar of eyeballs staring at me, and I nodded toward it. “Because, see, things like that? Kind of a mood killer.”
He glanced at the jar and then turned back to me, waggling his eyebrows. “Really? I find it has the opposite effect.”
Giggling, I elbowed him in the stomach and pushed myself off the shelf. “You’re sick.”
He smiled and ducked his head to kiss me again, but I skirted around him. “Come on, Cross, we came down here for a reason, and it wasn’t fooling around.”
Smirking, Archer folded his arms over his chest. “May not have been your reason, but-“
I cut him off. “No. Don’t distract me with your sexy talk. We need to search this place, and that spell Elodie did will only last so long.” Elodie had swooped into my body at the cellar door, doing a quick spell to unlock it. She hadn’t even looked at Archer, much less said anything. And the second the lock clicked open, she’d vanished.
The smirk disappeared from Archer’s face, and he actually looked kind of sullen.
“Are you honestly that bummed about not hooking up right now?” I teased.
But he was deadly serious when he shook his head and said, “It’s not that. It’s Elodie.”
“What about her?”
Archer rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, Mercer. Maybe it’s that I’m not completely crazy about the ghost of my ex-girlfriend occasionally inhabiting the body of my current girlfriend.”
I backed up another step and ran into another shelf. Something fell off and thunked against the dirt floor. “Whoa, I’m your girlfriend now?”
Archer shrugged. “We’ve tried to kill each other, fought ghouls, and kissed a lot. I’m pretty sure we’re married in some cultures.”
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Whatever. Look, the fact of the matter is, I don’t have any magic right now. Elodie does. If her occasionally using me as her puppet means that I have powers again, then I’m fine with it. And you should be, too. My body, my ghost, and all that.
”
”
Rachel Hawkins (Spell Bound (Hex Hall, #3))
“
1. Resolve today to “switch on” your success mechanism and unlock your goal-achieving mechanism by deciding exactly what you really want in life. 2. Make a list of ten goals that you want to achieve in the foreseeable future. Write them down in the present tense, as if you have already achieved them. 3. Select the one goal that could have the greatest positive impact on your life if you were to achieve it, and write it down at the top of another piece of paper. 4. Make a list of everything you could do to achieve this goal, organize it by sequence and priority, and then take action on it immediately. 5. Practice mindstorming by writing out twenty ideas that could help you achieve your most important goal, and then take action on at least one of those ideas.
”
”
Brian Tracy (No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline)
“
She pulled the shawl closer as a tall, lithe figure cut across the parking lot and joined her at the passenger door.
“You’re already famous,” Colby Lane told her, his dark eyes twinkling in his lean, scarred face. “You’ll see yourself on the evening news, if you live long enough to watch it.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Tate’s on his way right now.”
“Unlock this thing and get me out of here!” she squeaked.
He chuckled. “Coward.”
He unlocked the door and let her climb in. By the time he got behind the wheel and took off, Tate was striding across the parking lot with blood in his eye.
Cecily blew him a kiss as Colby gunned the engine down the busy street.
“You’re living dangerously tonight,” Colby told her. “He knows where you live,” he added.
“He should. He paid for the apartment,” she added in a sharp, hurt tone. She wrapped her arms closer around her. “I don’t want to go home, Colby. Can I stay with you tonight?”
She knew, as few other people did, that Colby Lane was still passionately in love with his ex-wife, Maureen. He had nothing to do with other women even two years after his divorce was final. He drank to excess from time to time, but he wasn’t dangerous. Cecily trusted no one more. He’d been a good friend to her, as well as to Tate, over the years.
“He won’t like it,” he said.
She let out a long breath. “What does it matter now?” she asked wearily. “I’ve burned my bridges.”
“I don’t know why that socialite Audrey had to tell you,” he muttered irritably. “It was none of her business.”
“Maybe she wants a big diamond engagement ring, and Tate can’t afford it because he’s keeping me,” she said bitterly.
He glanced at her rigid profile. “He won’t marry her.”
She made a sound deep in her throat. “Why not? She’s got everything…money, power, position and beauty-and a degree from Vassar.”
“In psychology,” Colby mused.
“She’s been going around with Tate for several months.”
“He goes around with a lot of women. He won’t marry any of them.”
“Well, he certainly won’t marry me,” she assured him. “I’m white.”
“More of a nice, soft tan,” he told her. “You can marry me. I’ll take care of you.”
She made a face at him. “You’d call me Maureen in your sleep and I’d lay your head open with the lamp. It would never work.
”
”
Diana Palmer (Paper Rose (Hutton & Co. #2))
“
Similarly, habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance. In the early and middle stages of any quest, there is often a Valley of Disappointment. You expect to make progress in a linear fashion and it’s frustrating how ineffective changes can seem during the first days, weeks, and even months. It doesn’t feel like you are going anywhere. It’s a hallmark of any compounding process: the most powerful outcomes are delayed. This is one of the core reasons why it is so hard to build habits that last. People make a few small changes, fail to see a tangible result, and decide to stop. You think, “I’ve been running every day for a month, so why can’t I see any change in my body?” Once this kind of thinking takes over, it’s easy to let good habits fall by the wayside. But in order to make a meaningful difference, habits need to persist long enough to break through this plateau—what I call the Plateau of Latent Potential.
”
”
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones)
“
Stop being an adrenalin junkie. Yes, I’m talking to you Miss I-can-do-everything-and-I-can-do-it-faster-and-better-than-you. Slow down. Delegate. Your new motto is Rest is Radical. Why? When you survive on adrenalin, you really are surviving, not thriving. Yes, we no longer live in caves, but our bodies haven’t changed, so when your train is late or you have a hectic day at work, your body responds by going into fight or flight mode. It’s the modern-day equivalent of encountering a saber-tooth tiger.
”
”
Lisa Lister (Code Red: Know Your Flow, Unlock Your Monthly Super Powers and Create a Bloody Amazing Life. Period.)
“
I thought it very likely I might have this sort of untestable power myself. It was kind of logical--no good at sport, alrightish at my studies, there must have been some field in which I excelled. Magic had to be it.
It's difficult for adults to picture just what a grip these fantasies can take on a child. There's occasionally a reminder as a kid throws himself off a roof pretending to be Batman, but mostly the interior life of children goes unnoticed.
When I say I thought I could be a wizard, that's exactly true. I really did believe I had latent magical powers, and, with enough concentration and fiddling my fingers into strange patterns, I might suddenly find how to unlock the magic inside me.
I wouldn't call this a delusion, more a very strong suspicion. I'd weighed all the evidence, and that was the likely conclusion--so much so that I had to stop myself trying to turn Matt Bradon into a fly when he was jumping up and down on the desk in French saying, "Miss, what are mammary glands?" to the big-breasted Miss Mundsley. I feared that, if I succeeded, I might not be able to turn him back. It was important, I knew, to use my powers wisely.
There's nothing that you'd have to call a psychoanalyst in for here. At the bottom line my growing interest in fantasy was just an expression of a very common feeling--"there's got to be something better than this," an easy one to have in the drab Midlands of the 1970s. I couldn't see it, though. My world was very small, and I couldn't imagine making things better incrementally, only a total escape.
”
”
Mark Barrowcliffe (The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons And Growing Up Strange)
“
Romans, 10:9 states the basic requirements for salvation, “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Did you know that believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth are, also, the only two requirements to begin working on your successful business? These two actions seem so simple, yet are so powerful. God wants us to have complete faith in Him, so our hearts and mouths are tools we can use to unlock God’s miraculous blessings.
”
”
V.L. Thompson
“
But for some of us, a harsh, toxic madwoman is telling us we don’t deserve lower stress or improved mood. She says it’s right that we should suffer; we don’t deserve kindness or compassion or to grow mighty. And so she will punish us forever, no matter what we achieve.
This dynamic is not just self-criticism, it’s self-persecution.10 Folks with more history of abuse and neglect, parental rejection and humiliation are more likely to experience harsh self-criticism and react to it with a sense of helplessness and isolation.11 When people with depression try to be self-reassuring, their brains respond with threat activation.12 In fact, fear of compassion for self is linked to fear of compassion from others. That means that somewhere inside them, they believe that if they’re isolated, that’s good; isolation protects others from their real, core badness. And if they’re suffering, that’s good; it prevents them from growing mighty, which might lead to them having power that they would inevitably fail to use effectively, or might even abuse.
If that’s you, don’t start with self-compassion; start with lovingkindness toward others. Metta meditations, as they’re known in Buddhism, involve wishing love, compassion, peace, and ease on everyone from the people we care about most to people we hardly know to total strangers to our worst enemies—and even on ourselves. When self-compassion feels out of reach, try lovingkindness for others.
”
”
Emily Nagoski (Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle)
“
Here we’ll describe four signs that you have to disengage from your autonomous efforts and seek connection. Each of these emotions is a different form of hunger for connection—that is, they’re all different ways of feeling lonely:
When you have been gaslit. When you’re asking yourself, “Am I crazy, or is there something completely unacceptable happening right now?” turn to someone who can relate; let them give you the reality check that yes, the gaslights are flickering.
When you feel “not enough.” No individual can meet all the needs of the world. Humans are not built to do big things alone. We are built to do them together. When you experience the empty-handed feeling that you are just one person, unable to meet all the demands the world makes on you, helpless in the face of the endless, yawning need you see around you, recognize that emotion for what it is: a form of loneliness. ...
When you’re sad. In the animated film Inside Out, the emotions in the head of a tween girl, Riley, struggle to cope with the exigencies of growing up....
When you are boiling with rage. Rage has a special place in women’s lives and a special role in the Bubble of Love. More, even, than sadness, many of us have been taught to swallow our rage, hide it even from ourselves. We have been taught to fear rage—our own, as well as others’—because its power can be used as a weapon. Can be. A chef’s knife can be used as a weapon. And it can help you prepare a feast. It’s all in how you use it. We don’t want to hurt anyone, and rage is indeed very, very powerful.
Bring your rage into the Bubble with your loved ones’ permission, and complete the stress response cycle with them. If your Bubble is a rugby team, you can leverage your rage in a match or practice. If your Bubble is a knitting circle, you might need to get creative. Use your body. Jump up and down, get noisy, release all that energy, share it with others.
“Yes!” say the people in your Bubble. “That was some bullshit you dealt with!”
Rage gives you strength and energy and the urge to fight, and sharing that energy in the Bubble changes it from something potentially dangerous to something safe and potentially transformative.
”
”
Emily Nagoski (Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle)
“
Who’s Josie?” Alex asked, confused.
“Uh . . .” I looked over at Deacon. “You want to do the honors? I know how much you love awkward conversations.”
A wide smile broke out across his face. “Of course, especially when I’m not the center of the awkwardness.”
Luke snorted.
“So!” Deacon clapped his hands together as he faced Alex and Aiden. “Did you guys happen to notice a certain girl out on the quad when you did your magic doorway thing?”
Aiden glanced at Alex. She raised a shoulder. “There were a lot of people out there that I hadn’t seen before.” She paused. “I noticed Boobs, though.”
I slowly shook my head.
“Um, that’s not who I’m talking about. Anyway,” Deacon said, his gray eyes light. “She’s pretty tall. Well, taller than you and everyone is practically taller than you, Alex. Has long blondish-brown hair. Kind of weird hair.”
“Awesome hair,” Luke added.
Alexander frowned silently.
“She does. It’s like an array of colors. One moment it looks completely blonde. The next it’s long brown and then it changes again. It’s very cool,” Deacon continued, and I had to agree with him on that. “And when you see her, you’re going to think, wow, this girl looks familiar. You won’t be able to put a finger on it at first, but it’s going to nag at you and then, when it hits you, you’ll—”
“Deacon,” Aiden warned. “Who is Josie?”
His brother pouted for a second and then sighed. “Fine. She’s a demigod. Like, a born demigod. Powers unlocked and all, and she’s super-cool and really nice.” His gaze slid over to where I stood and his expression turned sly. “Isn’t that right, Seth?”
I eyed him. “Right.”
“You’re forgetting the best part.” Solos walked past the couch, sending me a long look. “Which god she came from.”
Aiden seemed to get what wasn’t being said first. His eyes closed as he rubbed his fingers along his brow. “Gods.”
“What?” Alex looked at him and then at me. “Whose kid is she?”
“Apollo’s,” Deacon answered, his smile going up a notch when Alex’s gaze flew to him. “Yep. Josie is Apollo’s daughter.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“And that kind of makes you and her cousins? I guess?” Luke frowned. “I don’t know what exactly, but it does make you two related. Somehow. I don’t know how, but she does have some of your mannerisms. It gets really weird sometimes.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (The Power (Titan, #2))
“
Hymn to Mercury : Continued
71.
Sudden he changed his plan, and with strange skill
Subdued the strong Latonian, by the might
Of winning music, to his mightier will;
His left hand held the lyre, and in his right
The plectrum struck the chords—unconquerable
Up from beneath his hand in circling flight
The gathering music rose—and sweet as Love
The penetrating notes did live and move
72.
Within the heart of great Apollo—he
Listened with all his soul, and laughed for pleasure.
Close to his side stood harping fearlessly
The unabashed boy; and to the measure
Of the sweet lyre, there followed loud and free
His joyous voice; for he unlocked the treasure
Of his deep song, illustrating the birth
Of the bright Gods, and the dark desert Earth:
73.
And how to the Immortals every one
A portion was assigned of all that is;
But chief Mnemosyne did Maia's son
Clothe in the light of his loud melodies;—
And, as each God was born or had begun,
He in their order due and fit degrees
Sung of his birth and being—and did move
Apollo to unutterable love.
74.
These words were winged with his swift delight:
'You heifer-stealing schemer, well do you
Deserve that fifty oxen should requite
Such minstrelsies as I have heard even now.
Comrade of feasts, little contriving wight,
One of your secrets I would gladly know,
Whether the glorious power you now show forth
Was folded up within you at your birth,
75.
'Or whether mortal taught or God inspired
The power of unpremeditated song?
Many divinest sounds have I admired,
The Olympian Gods and mortal men among;
But such a strain of wondrous, strange, untired,
And soul-awakening music, sweet and strong,
Yet did I never hear except from thee,
Offspring of May, impostor Mercury!
76.
'What Muse, what skill, what unimagined use,
What exercise of subtlest art, has given
Thy songs such power?—for those who hear may choose
From three, the choicest of the gifts of Heaven,
Delight, and love, and sleep,—sweet sleep, whose dews
Are sweeter than the balmy tears of even:—
And I, who speak this praise, am that Apollo
Whom the Olympian Muses ever follow:
77.
'And their delight is dance, and the blithe noise
Of song and overflowing poesy;
And sweet, even as desire, the liquid voice
Of pipes, that fills the clear air thrillingly;
But never did my inmost soul rejoice
In this dear work of youthful revelry
As now. I wonder at thee, son of Jove;
Thy harpings and thy song are soft as love.
78.
'Now since thou hast, although so very small,
Science of arts so glorious, thus I swear,—
And let this cornel javelin, keen and tall,
Witness between us what I promise here,—
That I will lead thee to the Olympian Hall,
Honoured and mighty, with thy mother dear,
And many glorious gifts in joy will give thee,
And even at the end will ne'er deceive thee.'
79.
To whom thus Mercury with prudent speech:—
'Wisely hast thou inquired of my skill:
I envy thee no thing I know to teach
Even this day:—for both in word and will
I would be gentle with thee; thou canst reach
All things in thy wise spirit, and thy sill
Is highest in Heaven among the sons of Jove,
Who loves thee in the fulness of his love.
80.
'The Counsellor Supreme has given to thee
Divinest gifts, out of the amplitude
Of his profuse exhaustless treasury;
By thee, 'tis said, the depths are understood
Of his far voice; by thee the mystery
Of all oracular fates,—and the dread mood
Of the diviner is breathed up; even I—
A child—perceive thy might and majesty.
”
”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley)