Quotes that spoke to me

Going through my journals this past week has been one of the most interesting experiences of my life.

I have learned to much about myself, it is almost scary. 

However, when looking at the first journal the other day, I skipped over the first couple of entries. As they were simply quotes that I had written down during my first period of mania in December 2008, I felt they were not important at the time. Perhaps not. But tonight, I went through these quotes and realized that the fact that they stood out to me provides yet another perspective of the manic state, which is what this experience is all about.

My first hospitalization was the most traumatic for me. I was 18 years old, the youngest person in the an acute psychiatric ward of a hospital in my hometown. I saw things that no 18 year old should have to see. I was treated like an animal - we all were.

What I find interesting about this particular hospital is that they 'strongly encourage' patients not to communicate after discharge.

Anyways, this post isn't about the politics of our psychiatric institutions. Perhaps one day I will have the courage to write about the atrocities I have seen and undergone, but today is not the day. 

Today is all about the book I acquired through a trading system patients have in the hospital. My dad had brought me a national geographic book about the solar system, and it happened to tickle the fancy of one of the other patients in the ward. I wanted her book on quotations. The swap was made.

On December 12th, 2008, I spent the next (what felt like) 2 hours, going through "The Book of Positive Quotations, Compiled and Arranged by John Cook, Fairview Press".

I do not own this book anymore. That was put in quotations because that is how it was documented in the journal. And yes, for some reason, I felt that it was important to write down the publishing company as well. 

I am very thorough when manic.

Here are the quotations that stood out to me, as written:

""Boredom is rage spread thin." 

-Paul Tillich

"Being bored is an insult to oneself"

-Jules Renard

"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible- and achieve it, generation after generation."

-Pearl S, Buck

"Sometimes it proves the highest understanding not to understand."

-Baltasaar Gracian

"Every genius is bound to be naive"

-J.C.F. von schiller

"It is a sign of strength, not of weakness, to admit that you don't know all the answers."

-John P. Loughrane

"Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know."

-Daniel Borstin

"The work will teach you how to do it."

-Estonian proverb

"Where there is an unknowable, there is a promise."

-Thornton Wilder

"Dare to be naive"

-R. Buckminster Fuller

"No man is free who is not master of himself."

-Epictetus

"The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence, but in the mastery, of his passions."

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; the hardest victory is the victory over self."

-Aristotle"

And on Dec 14th, 2008, I include these final quotes:

""All that we are is a result of what we have thought."

-Buddha

"Words are mere bubbles of water, but deeds are drops of gold."

-Chinese proverv

"What you theoretically know, vividly realize."

-Francis Thompson"

I had a teacher in high school who said something to me when I went to visit him in a manic state. He listened to me ramble on and before I left he said: "Be persistent in your journey - there is always lights, and remember that the darkest shadows indicate that there is a bright light somewhere."

I will never forget that.