Emotion

“When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.” 

~ Baruch Spinoza, Ethics
Jean Michael Basquiat’s Glenn, 1984

More on Emotion:

“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
 ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments.” 
― Jim Morrison

“In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.” 
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

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Emotion     /əˈmōSH(ə)n/

noun
a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood or relationships with others.

instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge.

Get Real

“Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds. I have always kept an open mind, a flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of the intelligent search for truth.”

~ Malcolm X
Ballpoint pen drawing by Samuel Silva

More on getting real:

“The real war will never get in the books.
~ Walt Whitman

“Science is a wonderful way of getting out what’s real.”
~ Nick Sagan

“Other people’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.”
~ Les Brown

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
~ Lao Tzu

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Get Real     

used for telling someone that they should try to understand the true facts of a situation and not hope for what is impossible. “Get real! He’s never going to give you the money.”

Breathe

“I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.”

~ Maya Angelou
Fire Breathing Ice Dragon from Lyman Orchards Winterfest, Connecticut

More on Breathing:

“Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.”
~ Erich Fromm

“There is a law that man should love his neighbor as himself. In a few hundred years it should be as natural to mankind as breathing or the upright gait; but if he does not learn it he must perish.”
~ Alfred Adler

“Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.”
~ Hermann Hesse

“If you know the art of breathing, you have the strength, wisdom and courage of ten tigers.”
~ Chinese adage

“Art is like breathing for me. If I don’t do it, I start to choke.”
~ Yoko Ono

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Breathe     /brēT͟H/

verb
take air into the lungs and then expel it, especially as a regular physiological process. “breathe in through your nose”

Believe

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet

More on Believing:

“I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
~ Maya Angelou

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
~ Voltaire

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Believe     /bəˈlēv/

verb
1- accept (something) as true; feel sure of the truth of. “the superintendent believed Lancaster’s story”
2- hold (something) as an opinion; think or suppose. “I believe we’ve already met”

Garden

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

~Marcus Tullius Cicero
The Artist’s Garden in Argenteui by Claude Monet

More on gardens:

“I always wanted to create this community that would come and tell their own story, shoot it – and watch them. The idea is to not have one entity who creates the work, the project, and another entity who consumes it; the idea is people create their own work, like somebody cultivating his garden.”
~ Michel Gondry

“I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, ‘Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.’”
~ Jim Carrey

“The garden of love is green without limit and yields many fruits other than sorrow or joy. Love is beyond either condition: without spring, without autumn, it is always fresh.”
~ Rumi

“My husband will tell you one of the most frequent questions he gets from world leaders is, ‘How’s your wife’s garden?’”
~ Michelle Obama

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Garden     /ˈɡärd(ə)n/

noun
1- a small piece of ground used to grow vegetables, fruit, herbs or flowers (they brought us tomatoes from their garden”
2- (North American) a large public hall. “Madison Square Garden”

verb
cultivate or work in a garden. “she wrote books, kept journals and gardened”

Embrace the Change

“A lot of people resist transition and therefore never allow themselves to enjoy who they are. Embrace the change, no matter what it is; once you do, you can learn about the new world you’re in and take advantage of it.

~ Nikki Giovanni
The Embrace by Gustav Klimt, 1931

More on embracing the change:

“The best leaders begin with an environment that embraces and rewards change and innovation.”
~ Lynne Doughtie

“I think we can only ultimately change the world by example and by fearlessly embracing what could happen.”
~ Genesis P-Orridge

“The key is to embrace disruption and change early. Don’t react to it decades later. You can’t fight innovation.”
~ Ryan Kavanaugh

“What I’ve looked to do is try and become a change agent for good, to create the behavioral changes, the cultural changes to really embrace urgency, adopt a higher tolerance to risk, and just encourage people to make decisions.”
~ Steve Easterbrook

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Embrace     /əmˈbrās/

verb
1- hold (someone) closely in one’s arms, especially as a sign of affection. “Aunt Sophie embraced her warmly”
2- accept or support (a belief, theory, or change) willingly and enthusiastically. “besides traditional methods, artists are embracing new technology”

noun
1- an act of holding someone closely in one’s arms. “they were locked in an embrace”
2- an act of accepting or supporting something willingly or enthusiastically. “their eager embrace of foreign influences”

Love

“The world does not need tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues. The world as it is needs those who will love it enough to change it, with what they have, where they are.”

~ Robert Fulghum
Love Is Calling; installation by Yayoi Kusama, 2013

More about love:

“Like all of us in this storm between birth and death, I can wreak no great changes on the world, only small changes for the better, I hope, in the lives of those I love.”
~ Dean Koontz

“Setting my mind on a musical instrument was like falling in love. All the world seemed bright and changed.”
~ William Christopher Handy

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”
~ Lao Tzu

“Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”
~ Mother Teresa

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Love     /ləv/

noun
1- an intense feeling of deep affection. “babies fill parents with feelings of love”
2- a great interest and pleasure in something. “his love for football”

verb
feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to (someone). “do you love me?”

Make Something

“I want to create the largest-ever participatory art project and highlight the concept of Shadow Philanthropy, where people help others create work without taking credit for it – through this we can really change the world.”

~ JR
Installation at the US/Mexico border by JR

More on creativity:

“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.”
~ Ernst Fischer

“Art is not meant to change the world, but when you see people interacting, when you see an impact on their lives, then I guess in a smaller way, this is changing the world. So, that’s what I believe in. That’s why I’m into creating more and more interactions.”
~ JR

“End-of-the-world stories tend to ring true. I’ve always been drawn to them, but as I wrote my own, I found surprising pleasure in creating a world that is so radically changed, yet where there’s so much meaning and value in every small and ordinary thing we have, and take for granted: hot showers, enough food, friends, routines.”
~ Karen Thompson Walker

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Create     /krēˈāt/

verb
1- bring (something) into existence. “he created a thirty-acre lake”
2- cause (something) to happen as a result of one’s actions. “divorce only created problems for children”
3- (of an actor) originate (a role) by playing a character for the first time.

What Do You Think?

“If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.”

~ Sun Tzu
Introspection by Anne London

More on introspection:

“The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.”
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

“A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or bear’s, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.”
~ Meister Eckhart

“To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.”
~ Eckhart Tolle

“Know yourself. Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.”
~ Ann Landers

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Introspection     /ˌintrəˈspekSH(ə)n/

noun
the examination or observation of one’s own mental and emotional processes. “quiet introspection can be extremely valuable”

Question

“Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Questioning Children by Karel Appel, ca 1962-3

More on questioning:

“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.”
~ W. Edwards Deming

“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

“A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.”
~ Francis Bacon

“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I or are the others crazy?”
~ Albert Einstein

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Question     /ˈkwesCH(ə)n/

noun
a sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information. “we hope this leaflet has been helpful in answering your questions”

verb
ask questions of (someone), especially in an official context. “four men were being questioned about the killings”