1
" When the flames of life are gnawing away at your butt, run faster, quicker, and harder than you've ever run before, because I guarantee it that life will condition you, harder than any trainer ever will.
When you state to yourself with the utter most believe, “I will achieve this,” than you are on the path, and this is when life throws obstacles left, right, straight on and which other way, but keep going. Because you will make it "
― Mark Donnelly
14
" Intellectuals ponder, philosophize, interpret, and all this is essential to our shared experience, however, to feel the warmth of what lays at our feet within all that can be felt by the heart, is in an instant more powerful than mere words, we need to feel the words, capture the essence of what we see, and revel in the tastes of nature, and let ourselves allow our hearts to sing out loud, wild, and free. "
― Mark Donnelly
15
" Pride, oh pride—a friend from the past, a bodyguard of the present, and an enemy of the future. Books, oh books—a friend from the past, a soul mate of the present, and a protector of the future.
Slowly, softly, and surely through the pages of the past, I have found a new me. There were so many things to learn and so many things remaining to learn. I delight in the truth of why some books I will read, and other I will not. The truth is: I was not choosing.
In pleasing myself with books, I transform myself. And I’ve found sometimes the most amazing keys to unlocking a different part of me in the strangest of books. I go to libraries and there they are waiting for me. I love them, and they love me. "
― Mark Donnelly
20
" This is a tough one for heaps of us...if not all of us. We're taught our parents' beliefs, society's beliefs, religions' beliefs, and many other beliefs. Then there's us, caught-up in the middle of this confusion, and life stuff's still happening around us: Our first fight, our first kiss, our first oh! my!, our first failure, our first success, and our first shame.
Then it starts: We recognise a flaw in the beliefs we learnt, and we query it. They say, "Don't worry about it. Take a leap of faith, or Don't waste your time, or..."
So, you say to yourself: It is better to go with the flow, because it hurts too much to go against it. And then we start to please: To please family; to please friends; to please our God.
Then hate starts. All of a sudden we are hating just like our parents, our friends, our society, our God. We developed hate. And the only way out of it is to forgive, and start to love. We then develop self-worth, and we realise that it's okay to be liked, and it's okay not to be liked; it's okay that other people have different views; it's okay that we are all different but one; it's okay to be wrong; it's okay to be right; and it's okay to be ME."
You are an ORIGINAL WINNER! "
― Mark Donnelly