Elif Safak Quotes

They were each like a mirror for the other, reflecting the changes in themselves.

Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.

And suddenly, like light in darkness, the real truth broke in upon me; the simple fact of Man, which I had forgotten, which had lain deep buried and out of sight; the idea of community, of unity.

Most people don't know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking. They pay more attention to that than to what the other person is saying, and none at all to what really matters: the Being of the other person underneath the words and the mind. Of course, you cannot feel someone else's Being except through your own. This is the beginning of the realization of oneness, which is love. At the deepest level of Being, you are one with all that is.

We often surround ourselves with the people we most want to live with, thus forming a club or clique, not a community. Anyone can form a club; it takes grace, shared vision, and hard work to form a community.

In relationship with others, it is only you mirrored.

The closer a person is to God, the closer he is to people.

We are the mirror - As well as the face in it.

We are more alike than unalike.

We live in community, and we're created in community. We're created out of the unity of two people, and then we're made into a family. It's just inherent in who we are.

Each time you say hello to a stranger, your heart acknowledges over and over again that we are all family.

If we do not love one another, we certainly shall not have much power with God in prayer.

To love is to recognize yourself in another.

The thing we need most is each other.

Simply see that you are at the center of the universe, and accept all things and beings as parts of your infinite body. When you perceive that an act done to another is done to yourself, you have understood the great truth.

There was Layla in the fullness of her lips, Lulu in the thick waves of her hair, Lu Xin in the intensity of her hazel eyes, Lucia in their twinkle. She was not alone. Maybe she never would be alone again. There, in the mirror, was every incarnation of Lucinda staring back at her and wondering, "What is to become of us? What about our history, and our love?

I'd rather be more of the hippie country chick - as in, instead of pointing a finger, just maybe saying, 'We're all screw-ups. We're all in this kind of together. We're all just figuring this out.'

Clem (Clementa Pinckney) understood that justice grows out of recognition of ourselves, in each other.

Though I was standing in front of a mirror, I wasn't really seeing my reflection. I was seeing, very clearly, that—at the moment—I was all in the world that Eric could think of as his own. I had better not fail him.

Love is the cause of unity in all things.

Self-knowledge involves relationship. To know oneself is to study one self in action with another person. Relationship is a process of self evaluation and self revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself - to be is to be related.

Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill... I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together.

Begin to see yourself in all other beings.

I know enough to know that no man is an island.

I can't be found in myself; I discover myself in others. That much is clear. And I suspect that I also love and care for myself in others.