inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about

art is never finished, only abandoned

Learning never exhausts the mind.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.

Artwork of & by Pablo Picasso.
Quotes by Leonardo da Vinci

the pen is the tongue of the mind

I know who I am and who I may be, if I choose.

One man scorned and covered with scars still strove
with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars;
and the world will be better for this.

In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.

One man is no more than another if he does no more than another.

Thou has seen nothing yet.

Artwork by Rene Magritte
Quotes by Miguel de Cervantes

imagination is more important than knowledge

A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities.
The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit
to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and all science.
He to whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

Quotes by Albert Einstein
Art by Edward Hopper

it was not my lips that you kissed, but my soul

I love you
and because I love you
I would sooner have you hate me
for telling the truth
than adore me
for telling you lies.
—Pietro Aretino

my life is a diorama & i am a paper doll

I have no guilty pleasures. Because I take no guilt in pleasure. I also take nothing superficially. My mind forever seeks meaning. I play connect the dots in three dimensions. Soon it could be four. I have just reached a new door of perception, breaking through the fourth wall.

Which would make my life a diorama, a stage, a construction out of shoe box, for the world upon which I play. And I’ve always felt this, the “act”—that there is a script I am writing, even if I haven’t read ahead.

I’ve been exhausted, in a way I never felt. I’ve been exhausted because I have allowed myself to rest. And the more I rest, the more awkward it becomes. Here is my guilt: not in pleasure but in allowing myself to heal.

Ahh but awkward is uncomfortable and lack of comfort is truth. Because it is outside of my comfort zone that I learn what is real. And most recently I discovered that the only people I could entertain are those share the deepest parts of themselves.

Once upon a time I thought the world was comprised of two types of people: the givers and the takers. But now I realize this is a false paradigm based on pathological interpretation. Those who give to give are just as flawed as those who take to take; martyrs and users are people in which I place no stake.

Instead I consider there are only people who know how to share—and those who don’t. All relationship is a two-way street, or it is not relationship at all.

truth ~

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world
is also a confession of character.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

the entire universe is inside you

Lovers feel a truth that rational people keep denying.
—Rumi

Eight of Cups

Nothing is permanent in life.
Sooner or later, everything slips away…or we slip away from it.
The Eight of Cups stands for those moments when we realize, once and for all,
that the past is gone. What was true is no longer true.
The signs of change are in our face, and we must accept them. It is time to move on.

Moving on can mean a physical change such as leaving a job, location or relationship.
It can also mean an inner change—releasing old patterns,
especially those that have dominated our thoughts and emotions.
Sometimes moving on can mean searching for a deeper truth or reality.
One day we wake up and realize that we have been asleep in our own lives—
living a dream that no longer satisfies.

Some changes can be wearying. Endings are not always easy.
One of the signs of a readiness to leave is lack of energy.
When you feel tired and dispirited, you know that something is wrong,
and it’s time for a new direction. Reexamine your life and your priorities.
You will find where in your life you need to move on.

auguries of innocence

A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
—William Blake

11th Law of Ma’at

I offer words of good intent.

a man can’t soar too high, when he flies with his own wings

The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.

If the doors of perception were cleansed
every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.
For man has closed himself up,
till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.

In the universe,
there are things that are known,
and things that are unknown,
and in between, there are doors.

For all eternity, I forgive you and you forgive me.

Everything to be imagined is an image of truth.

He who kisses joy as it flies by will live in eternity’s sunrise.

Quotes by William Blake
Photographs from Dead Boy’s Poem

~ exhale ~

I lost my world, my fame, my mind—
The Sun appeared, and all the shadows ran.
—Rumi

freedom ~

Everything in my life had become black, bleak, sleek, chic.
I was praised for having no soul. For becoming the machine.
I had to succeed. Because. I had to succeed.
Because. I had to succeed.
That was how I was raised.

Like, you know, in a barn. Like livestock. Like product.
This is The American Way.
The dream is to own, to be owned, but let’s not say slave.
Cause, you know, that’s how this country was made.

I was enslaved by slaves, under Act VII.
The condition of the child follows the mother.
That’s why I ain’t got no chirren.
Not til I break the chains. And free myself from…

the pain.

it was written ..

How manifold it is, what thou hast made!
They are hidden from the face (of man).
O sole god, like whom there is no other!
Thou didst create the world according to thy desire,
Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts,
Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet,
And what is on high, flying with its wings.

The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt,
Thou settest every man in his place,
Thou suppliest their necessities:
Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned.
Their tongues are separate in speech,
And their natures as well;
Their skins are distinguished,
As thou distinguishest the foreign peoples.

Thou makest a Nile in the underworld,
Thou bringest forth as thou desirest
To maintain the people (of Egypt)
According as thou madest them for thyself,
The lord of all of them, wearying (himself) with them,
The lord of every land, rising for them,
The Aton of the day, great of majesty.