Try an author, a thought, or a phrase in “quotes”.↑ ↓ Navigate · Esc Close

0 words found

Explore all results ↗

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Life dates: 1906 AD — 2001 AD

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

▷ Play this voiceSearch these words ↗Place in time ↗couragelifemindlovewisdompatiencetimefaith

Quotations and sayings

13c. 1953 AD
And so I miss the fertilization that might come from a contact. And for me--yes, I think I might as well admit it--fertilization does come a great deal from contacts. Why then do I avoid them--in a sort of false pride--shyness--timorous modesty? I used to be afraid of falling in love with people--or having them think I was--that I was chasing them (how ridiculous--I am actually always running away!) but now surely--I should be mature enough to be over that. I am no longer afraid of falling in love, and the other false modesties should vanish. I cannot bear to think "par delicatesse j'ai perdu ma vie." (Because of discretion I have lost my life).
↗
15c. 1953 AD
A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partnersdo not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gayand swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the patternand freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no placehere for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Nowarm in arm, now face to face, now back to back—it does not matter which. Because they know theyare partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished byit.
↗
22c. 1953 AD
There is, of course, always the personal satisfaction of writing down one's experiences so they may be saved, caught and pinned under glass, hoarded against the winter of forgetfulness. Time has been cheated a little, at least in one's own life, and a personal, trivial immortality of an old self assured. And there is another personal satisfaction: that of the people who like to recount their adventures, the diary-keepers, the story-tellers, the letter-writers, a strange race of people who feel half cheated of an experience unless it is retold. It does not really exist until it is put into words. As though a little doubting or dull, they could not see it until it is repeated. For, paradoxically enough, the more unreal an experience becomes - translated from real action into unreal words, dead symbols for life itself - the more vivid it grows. Not only does it seem more vivid, but its essential core becomes clearer. One says excitedly to an audience, 'Do you see - I can't tell you how strange it was - we all of us felt...' although actually, at the time of incident, one was not conscious of such a feeling, and only became so in the retelling. It is as inexplicable as looking all afternoon at a gray stone of a beach, and not realizing, until one tries to put it on canvas, that is in reality bright blue.
↗
23c. 1953 AD
...I want first of all - in fact, as an end to these other desires - to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central cor to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact - to borrow from the language of the saints -to live 'in grace' as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony...
↗