Speak for Yourself: a Collection of Quotes that Speak for Themselves

Every since I was little I have loved reading quotes. For some reason I have always found it incredible the meaning and depth that 26 letters formed into different patterns can have. I couldn't possibly tell you what my favorite quote is or even what my favorite five quotes are. There are dozens of great quotes I want to share with you but I will settle for a few. What are your favorite quotes?

Love

• "The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them." (Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island) - This quote is extremely profound to me. Most of us love ourselves even if we don't admit it. Therefore it makes sense that we try to find people like us. However, we must be sure that what we love about someone is not simply the part of ourselves we see in them.
• "We accept the love we think we deserve." (Charlie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
• "If you're looking for the word that means caring about someone beyond all rationality and wanting them to have everything they want no matter how much it destroys you, it's love." (Ted Mosby, How I Met Your Mother) - Often times beautiful things are quite inexplicable and love is one the most beautiful things on earth. 

Compassion

• "Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors" (Andrew Boyd)
• “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” (Dalai Lama XIV, The Art of Happiness) - The thing that makes me the absolute happiest is loving and serving others. Nothing else can compare. I get filled up by giving up everything I have.

Appearance

• "That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfast cereals based on color instead of taste." (John Green) - I think this analogy is spot on.

Revenge

• "Revenge is for fools. Revenge is for fools and for mad men." (Patrick Jane, The Mentalist)

Faith

• "The only One who can truly satisfy the human heart is the One who made it."
• "God will take you where you never intended to go in order to produce in you what you couldn't achieve on your own." (Paul Tripp)

People

• "You're mad. Bonkers....but I'll tell you a secret...the best people are." (Alice in Wonderland) - The greatest people I know are people who are different. They are creative and inventive and loving and intelligent and sometimes that makes them seem a little crazy. But that "craziness" is why they are so wonderful.

A Better World

• "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold it would be a merrier world." (J.R.R. Tolkien) - We spend so much time working for and valuing things that don't matter like fame, money, and power when we ignore the greatest things on this earth: people.
• “We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” (J.K. Rowling) - Complaining about the world or hoping for a better future someday does not help us today. We need courage to imagine a better world and the strength to work toward it despite opposition.

Leadership

• "Perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.” (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

Living Life Fully

• "The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away." (William Shakespeare)
• "I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth. Then I ask myself the same question." (Harun Yahya)
• "Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter." (Francis Chan)