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| Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash |
“The people who want to control us through fear and misinformation—the corporations, marketers, politicians—want us to be plugged into our phones or watching TV, because then they can sell us their vision of the world. If we do not get outside, if we do not take a walk out in the fresh air, we do not see our everyday world for what it really is, and we have no vision of our own with which to combat misinformation.”
—Austin Kleon, Keep Going
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| Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash |
I count myself lucky to have friends I’ve collected through high school, college, mothers’ groups, horseback riding, art, and more. I even stay in loose touch with one friend I’ve known since second grade (hi, Julie!). I have friends online I’ve never met in person, and it’s no accident that I begin every Happy Little Thoughts newsletter with the words “Dear friends.”
Good relationships are the single most important factor of a happy life. We all hope that our family relationships will be positive and uplifting, but sadly that’s not always the case. We get to choose our friends, and those friends can help fill our emotional needs and provide support when we need it. Fun with friends is one of the best joys of life.
I count my friends as some of my biggest blessings, and I
don’t know what I’d do without them.
To celebrate the priceless love of friends this Valentine’s
Day, here are 10 quotes highlighting different aspects of friendship. Which one
is your favorite?
“Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to
me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a
young man about a place to live, I think I should say, ‘sacrifice almost
everything to live where you can be near your friends.’”—C.S. Lewis
💕
“True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its
evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a
desert island... to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep
him is a blessing.” –Baltasar Gracian
💕
“It’s not that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but it’s
your best friends who are your diamonds. It’s your best friends who are
supremely resilient, made under pressure and of astonishing value. They're
everlasting; they can cut glass if they need to.”—Gina Barreca
💕
“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by
doubling our joys, and dividing our grief”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
💕
“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”—Khalil Gibran
💕
“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love
risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.”—Elie
Wiesel
💕
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not
born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is
born.”—Anais Nin
💕
“A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.”—Unknown
💕
“True friends are always together in spirit.”—L.M.
Montgomery
💕
“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can
afford to be stupid with them.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson
💕
Happy Valentine’s Day to all my friends. I love you more than words can say!
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| Photo by Arthur Hinton on Unsplash |
“Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.”
—Daphne Rose Kingma
“The answer isn’t to just ‘live in the present.’ That’s too passive. The answer is, actually, to powerfully engage with and create, constantly, the present moment. I remember in 2021 I used to make everything into a ritual. If I had to vacuum, I’d first put on my favorite playlist and dance while I did it. I would light candles before I wrote, like a sacred moment of calm. I acted on my intuition, never saving an idea for ‘later’ because what was ‘later’? Time became nothing but a construct to me. There was only the right here, the right now, and if I didn't figure out how to make that moment as beautiful as I could, what did I have? Nothing mattered more than the present.”
—Jamie Varon
—Edith Wharton
“Of course you will and can want more. You should want more. But you should also spend time trying to want what you already have. It’s slightly different from ‘practicing gratitude’ or appreciating or thanking a higher force or God for what you have…. It means: Don’t let what you already have be the baseline. Think of yourself before you gained what you have, and remind yourself how much you want that, what you already have—your spouse/partner, your family, your house, your job. Imagine you in an alternate universe where you don’t have your family, can’t have your kids or your partner, how desperate that alternate-you would be to get what you have. Or if you don’t believe in the multiverse, the you from five years ago.”
—“Adam Parkson” in Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim
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| Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash |
“The way we think about growth often has us laser-focused on
the end goal. Yes, we might be aware of the steps that it takes to get what we
want, but we think about grinding our way through them in lieu of a process we
actually enjoy. When you think about your goals, take into consideration not
only the objective itself but the journey of reaching it. Ask yourself: Will I
like the ways that I’ll change along this path? Do I like the process of
learning, of supporting others, of working with new people? Reflection can help
you get clear on why you’re prioritizing certain goals and if they’re really
representative of the life you want for yourself.”
—Isabelle Eyman, “We Can’t Be Productive Every Day—So Why Do We Continue to Glorify It?”
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| Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash |
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes…including you.”
—Anne Lamott
“There are many more ordinary hours in life than extraordinary ones.
We wait in line at
the supermarket.
We spend hours
commuting to work.
We water our plants
and feed our pets.
Happiness means
finding a moment of joy in those
ordinary hours.”
—The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down, Haemin Sunim
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| Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash |
“The scratchy truth of existence is that we learn more from pain than pleasure. It’s just how we’re wired. It’s the pain that makes us slow down and pay attention. It’s the pain that prompts us to grow. You might not get the outcome you initially envisioned, but you’ll have learned some really valuable lessons. If you are willing to sift through the whole experience without judgment, you will see that you have developed and changed, and you will take those lessons with you moving forward.”
—Tracy McCubbin, Make Space for Happiness
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Photo by Prince David on Unsplash |
“Everywhere you look, you see people pursuing happiness as if it were something they could capture and cage. But pinning happiness down only destroys it. It’s too wild for that—it needs room to roam. You have to give it time, let it wander, surprise you.”
—Richard J. Leider and David A.
Shapiro, Repacking Your Bags: Lighten Your Load for the Rest of Your Life
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| Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash |
“Sometimes the people you love leave you even when they don’t want to and you shatter into pieces. You may not be able to find all of those pieces again because when they left they took a few with them. It hurts, but the pain eventually becomes bearable and even sacred because it’s how you carry the people you’ve lost with you. And if you’re lucky you can one day see that the hollow spots you carry are in the shape of their face or their hands or the love they gave you. Those holes ache, but they are a monument to the lost, a traveling sacred place to honor them and remind you of how to love enough to leave your own marks on others.”
—Jenny Lawson, Broken (in the Best Possible Way)
