Virginia Postrel Quotes

The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need.

Education is for growth and fulfillment.

Education is the process in which we discover that learning adds quality to our lives. Learning must be experienced.

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.

Man does not live by bread alone.

A purpose of our lives is to broaden what we can understand and say and therefore be.

I'm happy to have interns at The Weekly Standard and happy to have readers of The Weekly Standard, but if you all tell me that you were busy reading Plato and [Lev] Tolstoy and playing violin in the orchestra, I'd say that was great. I wouldn't tell you to take time out from that to get involved in political journalism.

For the person with creative potential there is no wholeness except in using it.

The creative process must be explored... as the expression of the normal people in the act of actualizing themselves.

How essential it is in youth to acquire some intellectual or artistic tastes, in order to furnish the mind, to be able to live inside a mind with attractive and interesting pictures on the walls.

Creative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty.

You will find true success and happiness if you have only one goal, there really is only one, and that is this: to fulfill the highest most truthful expression of yourself as a human being. You want to max out your humanity by using your energy to lift yourself up, your family and the people around you. Theologian Howard Thurman said it best. He said, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

One central need in life is to fulfill its own potential.

I’m not trying to satisfy anybody but myself and the role that I’m playing.

Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read. . . . We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure time, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service. Paul cries, “Bring the books” — join in the cry.

I recognized him then; that is, I finally comprehended what I had known but had never been able to formulate: he had always been complete. He had finished the work of becoming himself, long before any of us could even imagine such a feat was possible.

[B]eyond poverty, beyond the point that the material needs are reasonably satisfied, only from within is peace.

The secret to a happy life is to recognize that no matter what the situation, there's a creative opportunity in it. Also, finding meaning and purpose in your life to make a contribution.

I taught myself to write in order to understand who I was and so yes, writing was an act of self-actualization in the beginning.

I do not know if I really am a big star. And in fact that is not the most important thing for me. What counts in life is to bring about more of your own dreams. In such a way that your life becomes like a fairy tale. This is what has happened to me, it is just like that.

Self-development is the only thing that keeps a person from burning out. We all have many needs - the need for certainty, the need for variety, the need for significance, and the need for connection. But, ultimately, we must grow, and we must contribute in a meaningful way in order to feel fulfilled.

Right education should help the student, not only to develop his capacities, but to understand his own highest interest.

Anything you could ever want or be you already have and are.

Don't wait for someone else to complete you. 'Jerry Maguire' was just a movie.