Elizabeth Gilbert World Quotations

No experience in this world has ever been cathartic without the willing participation of the individual. Life does not automatically bestow wisdom or growth upon anyone just for showing up.

I tried to reassure him with every line about how the world is hard and unfair sometimes, but that it's all OK because he is so loved. He is surrounded by souls who would do anything to help him. And not only that--he has wisdom and patience of his own, buried deep inside his being, which will only reveal themselves over time and will always carry him through any trial. He is a gift from God to all of us.

It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes to us all that nobody could have anticipated.

God wants us to be in joy, God wants us to be happy. Because of this extraordinary consciousness and this great ability for wonder and marvel, and without denying any of the terrors and horrors of the world, we also have an obligation toward joy and toward miracle and excitement.

Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love yourself.

The best we can do then, in response to our incomprehensible and dangerous world, is to practice holding equilibrium internally - no matter what insanity is transpiring out there.

If you want to know the world, sometimes you have to get out and roll around.

The beauty and variety of the natural world are merely the visible legacies of endless war.

In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted.

Oh, cold world -- I have grown so weary of you and all your horrible bathrooms.

Travel is similar to therapy. You can go to the best psychologist in the world for ten years. If you don't feel like actively shifting anything in your life, there is nothing that person can do to change you.

I guess what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights but also devote myself to God.

Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss.

Most of us, even if only for two minutes in our lives, have experienced at some time or another an inexplicable and random sense of complete bliss, unrelated to anything that was happening in the outside world.

The nineteenth century was the last moment in history when a relatively educated layperson could follow what was going on in the world of science and invention to a wide degree. Also, there were no "professionals". This was a time when amateur explorers, naturalists and enthusiasts were are still making major contributions to progress.