a dreamer's wisdom - us and the world

I am passionate about everything in my life - first and foremost,
passionate about ideas.  And that's a dangerous person to be in this
society, not just because I'm a woman, but because it's such a
fundamentally anti-intellectual, anti-critical thinking society.  
- Bell Hooks

Franz Kafka noted that happiness for him consisted in raising the
world "into the pure, the truth, and the immutable."

Ordinary life does not interest me.  I seek only the high moments.
I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous.
I want to be a writer who reminds others that these moments exist;
I want to prove that there is infinite space, infinite meaning, infinite
dimension.  - Anais Nin

Mary L. Macomber, "Night and Her Daughter Sleep" (detail)

a dreamer's wisdom - gabrielle roth

It takes immense discipline to be a free spirit.

- Gabrielle Roth

By Catrin Welz-Stein

a dreamer's wisdom - amelia barr

No disappointment must discourage, and a run back must often
be allowed, in order to take a longer leap forward.

- Amelia Barr

By Eine Der Guten

a dreamer's wisdom - e.m. forster

Adventures do occur, but not punctually. Life rarely gives us what
we want at the moment we consider appropriate.

- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India

By calamari studio

a dreamer's wisdom - miguel angel ruiz

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the 
risk to be alive—the risk to be alive and express what we really are. 
– Miguel Angel Ruiz

By Chad Wys

a dreamer's wisdom - terence mckenna

You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest
good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is
endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis
because of the absence of consciousness.

- Terence McKenna

a dreamer's wisdom - charlotte bronte

I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of
hopes and fears, of sensations and excitments, awaited those who
had the courage to go forth into it's expanse, to seek real knowledge
of life amidst it's perils.

- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

a dreamer's wisdom - terry pratchett

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can
see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the
people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you
started is not the same as never leaving.

- Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

photo stories - randy p. martin

What wheres have we wanderers won?

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost,
to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer
experience.  - Eleanor Roosevelt

a dreamer's wisdom - l. frank baum

I believe that dreams - day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide
open and your brain machinery whizzing - are likely to lead to the
betterment of the world.  The imaginative child will become the
imaginative man or woman most apt to create, invent, and therefore
to foster civilization.  A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales
are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. 
I believe it.

- L. Frank Baum

a dreamer's wisdom - martha graham

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is
translated through you into action, and because there is only one
of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it,
it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.

- Martha Graham

a dreamer's wisdom - oscar wilde

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea
at all.   - Oscar Wilde

illustration - cendrine rovini

These works by Rovini are simply breathtaking.  Of her artistry
she says, "This is not a whim, I merely need this, I need to express
those things I have in me and floating around me, trying to make
them visible a little more."  Her main sources of inspiration are the
characters already in her head, who she has a hard time claiming
creatorship for.  When she has an idea, she's impatient to begin the
work, and can't wait for all to be in order so she can begin.  She
says, "I just follow the lines and colors arriving under my hands
directly from this space of my soul."  (Via Ana Pina)

Gaze into the fire, into the clouds, and as soon as the inner voices
begin to speak... surrender to them. Don't ask first whether it's
permitted, or would please your teachers or father or some god.
You will ruin yourself if you do that.   - Hermann Hesse

a dreamer's wisdom - henry miller

Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a
heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master
and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we
stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers,
our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets
quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is
capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same
source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all
part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to
open up, only to discover what is already there.

- Henry Miller

By Gary Simpson

a dreamer's wisdom - bryce courtenay

Always in life an idea starts small, it is only a sapling idea, but the
vines will come and they will try to choke your idea so it cannot
grow and it will die and you will never know you had a big idea,
an idea so big it could have grown thirty meters through the dark
canopy of leaves and touched the face of the sky.  It is better to be
wrong than simply to follow convention. If you are wrong, no
matter, you have learned something and you grow stronger. If you
are right, you have taken another step toward a fulfilling life.

- Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One

By Steven Curry

a dreamer's wisdom - on writing - william h. gass

The true alchemists to not change lead into gold; they change
the world into words.

- William H. Gass

a dreamer's wisdom - elizabeth hand

But talent—if you don't encourage it, if you don't train it, it
dies. It might run wild for a little while, but it will never
mean anything. Like a wild horse. If you don't tame it and
teach it to run on track, to pace itself and bear a rider, it
doesn't matter how fast it is. It's useless.

- Elizabeth Hand, Illyria

By Kristi Steffen

a dreamer's wisdom - henry david thoreau

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find
your eternity in each moment.  Fools stand on their island of
opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land;
there is no other life but this.

- Henry David Thoreau

By Keegan Gibbs

a dreamer's wisdom - on writing - persistence

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript
do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work
out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you
have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only
if you persist.  - Isaac Asimov

Dig until you hit rock. Then take out that jackhammer and go a
little deeper.  - Allison Brennan

a dreamer's wisdom - gaiman's 2013 new year's wish

In the world to come, let us be brave – let us walk into the dark
without fear, and step into the unknown with smiles on our faces,
even if we're faking them.  And whatever happens to us,
whatever we make, whatever we learn, let us take joy in it. We
can find joy in the world if it's joy we're looking for, we can take
joy in the act of creation.  So that is my wish for you, and for me.
Bravery and joy.

- Neil Gaiman

By Henry Justice Ford