Photo by umjanedoan (Creative Commons) http://www.flickr.com/photos/umjanedoan

Sometimes the right words can make all the difference. For the last few years, I’ve been collecting quotes that speak to my heart and have something to teach me about the many dimensions of freedom. May they inspire you as well.

On the Freedom That Comes From Self-awareness

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
– Bob Marley

The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built. You can do this by taking the thing apart piece by piece. The trap can’t trap you if it has been taken apart. The result is freedom.
– Bhante Gunaratana

I would have been able to free a thousand more slaves if I could only have convinced them that they were slaves.
– Harriet Tubman

There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.
– Howard Thurman

To study the Way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.
To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others.
– Eihei Dogen

Attention is the most powerful tool of the human spirit. We can enhance or augment our attention with practices like meditation and exercise, diffuse it with technologies like email and Blackberries, or alter it with pharmaceuticals. In the end, though, we are fully responsible for how we choose to use this extraordinary tool.
– Dee Hock

Things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
– Pema Chödron

On the Freedom That Comes From Moving Beyond Your Limitations

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
– Emily Dickinson

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.
– Buckminster Fuller

If you’re determined to think of yourself as limited, fearful, vulnerable, or scarred by past experience, know only that you have chosen to do so. The opportunity to experience yourself differently is always available.
– Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.
– Soren Kierkegaard

You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.
– Joseph Campbell

One changes from day to day…every few years one becomes a new being.
– George Sand

On the Freedom That Comes From Courageous Decisions

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
– Andre Gide

When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.
– Amelia Earhart

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
– Audre Lorde

The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.
– Erich Fromm

Even in the midst of devastation, something within us always points the way to freedom.
– Sharon Salzberg

Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively, unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

On the Freedom That Comes From Living an Other-centered Life

When you express your gratitude, you will bring joy to others’ lives. When others know joy, your life will be filled with happiness.
– Arthur Dobrin

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
– Mother Teresa

To the extent that our experience of suffering reminds us of what everyone else also endures, it serves as a powerful inspiration to practice compassion and avoid causing others pain. And to the extent that suffering awakens our empathy and causes us to connect with…others, it serves as the basis of compassion and love.
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
– Mahatma Gandhi

Individual salvation is, by definition, not salvation. There is no such thing as disconnected salvation.
– Father Richard Rohr

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
– Nelson Mandela

The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.
– Albert Einstein

How about you — what quotes have inspired you to live a liberated life?

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