Feb 17, 2016 / Inspiration

Collecting Words and Sentences

As Emerson suggests, collect words and sentences that inspire you to speak your truth.

My journal, in the process of becoming my own "bible."

My college roommate and I used to collect quotes for one another. We’d write inspirational words down on Post-its and keep files where we regularly stored our favorite messages that we’d stumbled across. We both agreed: words are powerful.

When someone expresses an observation that we identify with, a sense of validation and synchronicity arises within us. We’re reminded that we’re not alone, that someone, somewhere else in the world, has discovered the same truth that we’re living or perhaps arrived at a conclusion we needed to hear ourselves.

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I came across the quote above from a fellow quote-collector, journaler, and generally uplifting blogger, Gala Darling. In her “30 Days of Radical Self-Love Letters,” she talks about starting a radical self-love journal where you can store all of the things that make you happy. Since I came across this quote, I’ve noticed my own journaling has changed quite a bit in turn. It’s filled less with my own internal ramblings, and more with words, images, and conversations that I find uplifting.

In short, it’s turning into my own “bible.”

What words and sentences have been like the blast of a trumpet to you? What bloggers, authors, poets, filmmakers, or artists have shouted your truth and spoken to you like no other? On the flip side, what is your own truth? If one of your readers were making their own inspiration journal, what message would you want to share?

The more we analyze our influences and the words that speak to us, the more we’re able to peek under the hood of our own writing. By exploring the quotes and phrases that feel like your truth, and that pick you up out of a writing rut, you’re able to uncover processes and truths in your own work. As you sit down at your keyboard this week, channel your greatest influences and either write your own blast of a trumpet or share what speaks to you.

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  2. I feel the need to create another blog!

    I found an Emerson quote on a greeting card many years ago, and decided I needed it more than anyone I’d send it to: “It is a happy talent to know how to play.”

    Liked by 1 person

  4. So true and nice to know that there ARE other people in the World who find it important to create your own bible. Thank you! -K

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Richard Bach in “The Reluctant Messiah”: Argue for your limitations and sure enough they’re yours.

    Paraphrase of sociologist Margaret Mead: Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

    Liked by 2 people

  17. My two favourites are:
    1. For creativity and generally getting on with life – “We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.”
    Frank Tibolt
    2. And after having lived through a series of natural disasters in New Zealand, this quote helped me manage anxiety around the ‘might have been’ and ‘what could be’ thinking – “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
    Mahatma Gandhi

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  20. Quotes are scattered all over my space, stuffed in computer files, written out in numberless journals, memorized for ever. I take song lyrics as quotes to, so this also get packed into my mind.
    Been researching quotes for a challenge and just by culling for three authors, I have a pile. And I only need three.
    Wonderful article — quite quotable.

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  21. Love it! It’s so remarkable that a word, proverb, famous quote etc. can create such a spark within us, especially when it takes you back in time to a specific moment in your life. How coincidental! my last post was about a
    quote, I only posted it yesterday. I’m glad I found you.

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  29. Thank you for sharing! Only a week old onto the blog scene. Took long enough. I call my story line-up my personal lexicon of attaching experience to punch lines, helpful experiences etc. Be well, William

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  30. I agree to what you say about recollecting ones influences and sharing what one has on mind.
    Sometimes great thoughts get lost if not written/spoken right, influencing them always helps.
    Loved your Idea, Thank You.

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