C. JoyBell C. Quotes - Page 6

Don’t hate people who show you what’s wrong with you. They are your mirror, they are your true friends.
C. JoyBell C.
I really feel sorry for the many men who are surrounded by people who flatter them all the time. In Chinese we have a golden proverb: "The true friend is the one who shows you how to bow down. Because you cannot enter the cave of treasures without bowing at the opening. And the true enemy is the one who flatters you. Because you cannot enter the cave of treasures standing tall with pride." At the end of the day, it is those that flatter you who keep you away from the true treasures in your life. In the culture we all live in today, we are taught to surround ourselves by people "who believe in us". That is true to some extent. But in reality, there are many times when the people around us ought to slap us in the face because we are being idiots. This seems to be particularly prevalent amongst men. In their quest to build a kingdom, they surround themselves with peasants. But this is not how to build a kingdom. In order to build a kingdom, surround yourself with knights. True friends who will protect you, even if it means protecting you from your own wayward self.
C. JoyBell C.
I am not afraid of people who say all the wrong things that make others gasp in disbelief. I am afraid of the people who say all the right things that make others bow in admiration. It is incredibly easy to say all the right things. We all know exactly what the majority of people want to believe and want to hear. All we have to do is give them what they want, they will bow before us. Anybody can do that. I am more afraid of people who would like to persuade me into admiration, than of people who are simply being people; sinning openly and talking like drunken thieves. That's who they are on the outside, it's also who they are on the inside.
C. JoyBell C.
The goodness of a person is normally judged based upon how they act towards those whom they consider to be less fortunate than themselves. This has become the standard for measuring the goodness of a person. But this is erroneous. It is in fact very easy to be good to those whom you consider to be less fortunate than yourself. You know what's difficult? Being good to those you envy! That is what's difficult to do! People believe themselves to practice equality because they are good to those who are lesser than they are, but this is not equality if they do not show the same amount of goodness to the people who happen to be more than they are. I always look at how a person treats those who are more than they are, and that is how I determine the goodness in a person. Because the other option is just too easy. The other option comes with all benefit and no loss.
C. JoyBell C.
Of people that hold an opinion that is popular and that makes them look good: I cannot take your opinions seriously. If you are of a persuasion that is popular and that makes you look like a better person, then you hold that persuasion as a result of no inner convictions of your own; rather, you hold that persuasion as a result of self-consciousness. It takes courage and inner strength to hold convictions that go against popular opinion and that go against what would make you feel accepted in the eyes of most. There are three levels to this sort of consciousness: the first level dictates that you are simply unaware and you go about with daily life with no presumptions, simply going with the flow of everything. The second level is the one that the current generation mostly belongs to: the level of those who believe themselves to be enlightened, awakened. This second level belongs to those who would call those belonging to the first level as "sheep". This second level belongs to those who would believe that there are only two levels: one belonging to sheep and another belonging to them. They are unaware of the third level. But the third level of consciousness is the level that belongs not to what those on the lesser level would call as "sheep" and also not belonging to the second level of those who believe themselves to be free thinkers. At this third level, are those who see plainly that the free thinkers of today are simply a different herd of sheep, who all hold a shared opinion of what it means to be a better person, what it means to be an enlightened individual, what it means to be free. They are the herd that believe themselves to be free. At least the first herd at the first level do not care to go about with such thoughts in their minds: they are the ones who care only of working honestly, living honestly, and doing good deeds. Those on the second level, however, upon believing themselves to be set free of former persuasions, are convinced of their mental and spiritual superiority. But, alas, such individuals would not dare hold any personal conviction if it meant they would be seen in an unfavourable light by their peers, friends, by the masses. Their inner compasses are controlled not by the image they wish to see in the mirror; rather, their inner compasses are controlled by the image they wish others to see when looking at them. Now, at the third level, nothing controls these minds except for the desire to see in the mirror what is true, what is pure, what is better; regardless if anybody else can see it or not. At the third level of consciousness, we find those who have transcended the pleasures provided by the feelings of other people's acceptance, praise, and opinion of them. To be good, and to believe good, not because it is popular, but because it is true and good. At the third level, we will find those whose inner compasses are controlled by their reflections in the mirror, not by their peers, their friends, or the masses.
C. JoyBell C.
When people are broken on the outside, society is taught to never be rude to them. When people are broken on the inside, society is taught to rub happiness in their faces and show them how perfect life should be. When someone has half of an arm, you are not supposed to go up to them and show them how great of an arm wrestler you are. But when someone has a broken mind or a broken soul, you're taught to go up to them and tell them to look for joy in everything. Society has a very long way to go in terms of what it means to heal this world's broken people.
C. JoyBell C.
People of the world, today always say, "Look up to the sky, look up to the sky", but while they do that, they trample on butterflies with broken wings and they step on ladybugs with broken legs. "Look up to the sky and be like God", they say; but nay, it is the nature of the mortal to cast his gaze upward, while it is the nature of the gods in the sky to cast their gaze downwards. When you are below, the way to look is up. When you are up, the way to look is down.
C. JoyBell C.
If you want to access your power as a divine human being, you must search for the small inside of the big and for the big inside of the small. When you look up into the expanse of sky overhead, look for the stars, the planets, the birds that fly. Small things for the eye to spot. And when you look down into the the face of a streetside flower, look for joy, happiness, comfort, stillness, and a silent song. When you have mastered finding the small in the big and the big in the small, you will have mastered your own divinity.
C. JoyBell C.
What would be the significance of the candlelight, if there were no darkness? What would be the power of the stars over our minds, if there were no night?
C. JoyBell C.
What does it mean to be cultured? Who is the cultured person? The cultured individual is not defined nor determined by status in society nor by wealth; but the cultured individual is determined and defined by his or her sense for the art of life. And what is the art of life? The art of life is the reflection of the mind and the soul upon the world, upon other people, upon the respect and understanding of other people and upon the things that are in this world and beyond. There is a joy that is always sought in beautiful things. Being cultured is being conscious, reflective, understanding, feeling, aware. Knowing how to feel, to listen, to understand. A desire to find or to create joy in many things— that is the art of life. And these things define a cultured person.
C. JoyBell C.
Choose your battles wisely. After all, life isn't measured by how many times you stood up to fight. It's not winning battles that makes you happy, but it's how many times you turned away and chose to look into a better direction. Life is too short to spend it on warring. Fight only the most, most, most important ones, let the rest go.
C. JoyBell C.
The dance between darkness and light will always remain— the stars and the moon will always need the darkness to be seen, the darkness will just not be worth having without the moon and the stars.
C. JoyBell C.
Sometimes, you may think you have fallen into an abyss...when in fact, you've just descended to the roots...of the tree of life! Somewhere along your climb, you got lost amongst the branches, and lost in the darkness of the branches, the only way to find the straight way up would be to return to the roots! And from there amongst the roots, you will be able to look straight up and see the top again! And begin your ascent!
C. JoyBell C.
You can feel anything. All is free for you to feel. But I guarantee you that if you allow yourself to feel envy and then to swim in it, that envy will destroy you and the people around you. Envy is unlike anger. Envy is not a right wing nor a left wing, it is not on either end of the balancing beam. Nobody needs it and I can assure you that once you give yourself to it, you will be eaten up. Envy can even eat up nations, casting them up against each other and pull a whole nation down into an internal collapse.
C. JoyBell C.
Remember that when you think you are seeing giants, they may not be giants at all; perhaps it is you who is the dwarf.
C. JoyBell C.
People will be jealous of you for anything. Do bad and they will be jealous of you for being bad, do good and they will be jealous of you for being good, pull yourself up out of the ashes and they will be jealous of your strength, work hard and succeed and they will be jealous of your perseverance, buy new shoes and people will want to steal them, grow your hair long and people with want to cut it, laugh out loud and people will be jealous of your reasons for laughing. The truth is that envy is not because of you; but envy is in the eye of the beholder!
C. JoyBell C.
Too many people are endowed with a feeling of entitlement, but born without God-given empathy.
C. JoyBell C.
I'm not an advocate of promiscuity; but then I'm also not an advocate of being virginal. It's not like I put virginity or celibacy on a pedestal, and as long as I don't get your promiscuity rubbed into my face— I don't care about it! What I do care about is the ability to recognize the sanctity of a union of two souls— you just can't say your soul isn't being united with others' when you have sex with them. So I think you'd better own up to what you're doing— no matter how frequently or infrequently or with how many different people you do it. I mean, make good choices! You are, after all, entwining your soul with another's.
C. JoyBell C.
The playboy is not necessarily a man who has many girlfriends, or a man who has many women, or a man who has slept with many women. That is old. But there is a new breed of the playboy and he is the man who remains single in attempts to make every woman feel as if he belongs to her, he remains a virgin in order to make every woman feel like she will be the first one, and in the end he may choose a very unattractive woman to adorn his side, so that in all circumstances, he will shine as the more beautiful one. This is the new breed of playboy. And it is a very evil one.
C. JoyBell C.
People withhold their forgiveness, thinking that it makes them badass. But really, the unwillingness to forgive is merely the wishing that things were better. You wish that you had better, you wish that someone else were better so they could have treated you better... it’s you making wishes. And that’s not badass. To forgive is to be able to look at the person and say “I accept that you weren’t any better than what you were”, “I accept what you were you and couldn’t have been what I wished you to be”, “I accept that things were the way they were and weren’t any better.” The ability to forgive is intertwined with the ability to accept the reality of the way things are/ the way a person is or was. You stop wishing things and you just accept. And hope is what says to you: “One day you’ll have what’s better.
C. JoyBell C.
There are two types of women— the type that makes a man feel like he is the best and the type that makes a man feel like becoming a better man. And then I suppose it is all up to the man and what he wants in life— whether he wants to go through life feeling like he is the best or if he wants to go through life becoming better and better. In reality, we are all at our worst when we have ceased the process of become better and better.
C. JoyBell C.
Always remember that those with very important paths to fulfill will always be forced by life into the fear of the very things that their true paths consist of, in order to prevent the destiny from ever happening. Or perhaps, in order to strengthen the courage of the heart, because courage is to look into a direction, make a choice and to actually do that which you are afraid of, and what is destiny if it is not fulfilled by a heart full of courage and brawn?
C. JoyBell C.
I was thinking, and realised how simple my goal has been— just to be me! I didn't want to be a good person and change the world; I just wanted to be me! Against all odds, I wanted to make sure that I turned out as myself and not into my family, my society, my religion... I wanted to make sure that I turned into me! But then after that first realisation, I made a second realisation; and that is, that becoming yourself against all odds is probably the highest attainment you could ever dream of or hope for! After all, the minute we are born, we are born into a world that isn't interested in making us who we are; but rather, is interested in making us who they think we are supposed to be! It is a most courageous act to become yourself, no matter what! And you can move mountains and change the world without trying to! As long as you fight for you!
C. JoyBell C.
All the things that people do in order to show that they don't need anybody... meanwhile, all they really want to do is say, "Please keep me." We all want to be kept. The problem is we are too afraid to let anyone know about it. What are these fragile things in our hearts that have so much fear of being broken?
C. JoyBell C.
We should be sure that in our pursuit of happiness and positivity, we do not lose our ability to experience the other side of life, as well. Feelings of grief and respect for the departed, are honourable thoughts to have and honourable feelings to feel. In seeking happiness, we must not be so afraid of sorrow, that we lose the ability to cope with it properly. There is a healthy way to cope with both sorrow and joy; both need to be looked straight in the face, in the eyes.
C. JoyBell C.
Today I am someone different. Today I have finally become who I really am.
C. JoyBell C.
The biggest mistake that parents make, is believing that their assigned task in life is to teach their children and to guide them in every situation of their children's lives. The truth is that it is the task of parents to both learn from their children and to guide them as well. Parenting is a relationship that goes both ways, from the moment your child is born, you learn from that person, and in fact, your lessons begin long before your child's lessons do. Later on, when you've learned a great deal already, then they begin to learn from you. Throughout our lives, it is a give-and-take relationship, in many ways. Our assigned task is to learn from our children, and to guide and teach them. Their assigned task is to learn from us, and also to teach us.
C. JoyBell C.
Gay people getting married is not a threat to the institution of marriage. You know what's a threat to the institution of marriage? Infidelity is! Hate is! Unforgiveness is! Apathy is! Coldheartedness is! Fear is! And you know what's a threat to the kids? It’s not having gay parents! Most gay kids have straight parents! And plenty of gay parents raise respectable, straight kids! The threat to children isn't their parents being gay; the threat to children is their parents not loving one another! Not caring for one another! Not being crazy about each other! Domestic violence is a threat to children. Stupidity is a threat to children. A swimming pool in the backyard with no supervision is a threat to children!
C. JoyBell C.
In all things in this life, we are told "It's okay if you don't make it the first time!", "It's fine if you don't get it right the first time, just try again and again!" We are told this in learning how to ride a bike, in learning how to bake a cake, in solving our math equations...in everything. Except marriage. Why are we all expected to get such an enormous and weighty thing right, the very first time, and if we don't we're considered as failures? I beg to differ! This is a stupidity!
C. JoyBell C.
Love is a devoted madness while marriage is a responsibility. But then it is possible to be devotedly mad and responsible at the same time, yes it is. And so this is how we should begin to see marriage: as it is, for what it is! Marriage needs to cease being an eternal ideal with the predestined ending of death! We must allow it to be and to appear as what it is! Perhaps if we approach marriage with eyes open to the reality of the nature of it, we will stop failing at it! We fail at it because we think of it as something it is not! We are romanced by an ideal that is not in touch with reality and that's why when we begin to discover the reality of it, we see ourselves as failures! It is a wild and blessed thing to want to spend the rest of your adult life with one person, growing and changing together, while stepping deeper into the depths of love; notwithstanding, we must understand that we may not get it "right" the first time.
C. JoyBell C.
Love is greater than marriage, love is the greater thing while marriage, though noble and honorable, is questionable in its origins. I question the creations of man, I do not question the masterpieces of God.
C. JoyBell C.
There are two things that may happen to a person: the first is that you become so soft that no one and nothing can break you, and the second is that you become so hard that nothing and no one can break you. Either way you go, the path will be very painful. But herein is the great sadness of it all: that anyone must try to become something that cannot be broken (whether the soft or the hard). Why must we be born into a world where we must spend our lives struggling to become unbreakable?
C. JoyBell C.
Go in the direction of where your peace is coming from.
C. JoyBell C.
The day I understood everything, was the day I stopped trying to figure everything out. The day I knew peace was the day I let everything go.
C. JoyBell C.
They taught the women that the home is a shame and in doing so, they successfully decomposed nations. Instead of it being the greatest honour to build a family, it became a laughingstock. And in this becoming, they successfully deconstructed nations. They taught the men that loyalty is merely an option and in doing so, they successfully destroyed nations. Instead of it being the greatest pride to love one woman, it became a joke, a funny side comment. And in this becoming, they successfully poisoned nations. Your home is your atom, your cell, your genome. Your love is your honour, your word, your truth. You wonder why we live in deconstructed nations, you ask one another why you live on torn fibres, cracked ground, and yet you continue to listen to what they tell you. You have put shame where there should be a throne, you have placed a joke where there should be a crown. You have successfully destroyed your nations.
C. JoyBell C.
People create sins out of nothing and in doing so have enslaved their fellow man! Man is not bound by sin but man is bound by the idea that almost everything he is doing is a sin!
C. JoyBell C.
I am a siren, and for my adoration of mankind, have been caught in fishing nets one time too many. And in those fishing nets I have learned too many unfavorable things about human intentions and the lack of trust and goodwill; I'm not going to allow myself to be caught, anymore. Sirens do well at singing the sirens' song and dragging vile people to their deaths, and for good reason!
C. JoyBell C.
Some people come and go and are forgotten. But there are other people who share a part in our destinies. They come, they go, but they are never forgotten. They come, they go, but even after they go... they're still here. They never really went anywhere.
C. JoyBell C.
The only problem with her is that she is too perfect. She is bad in a way that entices, and good in a way that comforts. She is mischief but then she is the warmth of home. The dreams of the wild and dangerous but the memories of childhood and gladness. She is perfection. And when given something perfect, it is the nature of man to dedicate his mind to finding something wrong with it and then when he is able to find something wrong with it, he rejoices in his find, and sees only the flaw, becoming blind to everything else! And this is why man is never given anything that is perfect, because when given the imperfect and the ugly, man will dedicate his mind to finding what is good with the imperfect and upon finding one thing good with the extremely flawed, he will only see the one thing good, and no longer see everything that is ugly. And so....man complains to God for having less than what he wants... but this is the only thing that man can handle. Man cannot handle what is perfect. It is the nature of the mortal to rejoice over the one thing that he can proudly say that he found on his own, with no help from another, whether it be a shadow in a perfect diamond, or a faint beautiful reflection in an extremely dull mirror.
C. JoyBell C.
And at that moment, Thibaut knew he was a murderer. He had murdered his brother that night; he had taken away his brother's soul.
C. JoyBell C.
A broken soul is not the absence of beauty, but a cracked and torn soul reeks of the sweet incense it contains.
C. JoyBell C.
Today, I saw an owl with broken eyes. A blind owl with eyes that look like a dark night filled with bright stars. I used to think that no one could really love a person so broken in so many places. But the broken owl has two eyes filled with a starry universe, and that's when I realised, that you can be loved for your brokenness. Not just despite it. It only takes someone who knows what a starry universe would feel like. Broken is beautiful, too. And sometimes even more beautiful.
C. JoyBell C.
Just because a person is attractive/beautiful, this does not mean it is okay to villainize them. We always say that we cannot judge a person from the outside (doesn't matter if they have a handicap, are ugly, have a deformity, etc.). But this must go both ways. It also does not matter if someone is beautiful, attractive and happy. That also does not make it okay to judge them, to villainize them. There is a double standard when it comes to whom people choose to be good to, and this double standard is wrong. The outward appearance, both the grotesque and the beautiful, must not be basis for kindness and for cruelty.
C. JoyBell C.
Dear young woman, do not place your sense of beauty and self worth, upon the plastic pedestal called "what other people say to you", "what other people think about your photo", "how many 'likes' your pictures get", "how many guys tell you that you look sexy", "how skinny can you be?". A plastic pedestal that is but the dismal shadow of the real one. Dear young woman, place your sense of self worth and beauty upon the Roman marble pedestal that will exist even when all other people are no longer there. If you were the very last person on this planet, you should still be able to know within your heart that you are worthy, you are beautiful, you are wanted. Even if you become the very last person on Earth, you should be fully wanted. Want yourself. Know yourself. See yourself as beautiful, see yourself as worthy.
C. JoyBell C.
Today, young girls measure the quality of their beauty based upon its entertainment value. The more people are entertained by their beauty, the more beautiful they think they must be. This is very unfortunate and I would like young girls to know that their beauty is a crown; not a clown. And crowns are best worn with elegance and serenity.
C. JoyBell C.
Beauty without grace is like a fish far displaced from the water and looking at this kind of beauty is like watching that fish die right there on the cement in front of you.
C. JoyBell C.
Life begins when we get tired of our own bullshit. We must all get bloody tired of our own bullshit, in order for our lives to begin.
C. JoyBell C.
Who we are is who we ACTUALLY are. It's never who we create in order for people to see. You might really hate who you actually are, so then you create a sub-genus type of yourself for other people to see. But that never changes who you are. The sub-genus type won't change your genus. The only way we change who we are is by looking at ourselves in the mirror long enough to make us vomit over our disgusting waywardness and long enough to fall in love with our strengths. But you can't just fall in love with your strengths. You also need to vomit over your hypocrisies and all of your other bullshit. And you can't just vomit, either. You also have to clean it up and embrace yourself afterwards. This is how you change your genus.
C. JoyBell C.
I think that positivity— real positivity— is like the butterflies. The whole essence of the butterfly: caterpillar, cocoon, winged creature. When I look at a butterfly, I not only see a winged beauty, but I also see a strong beauty! A mind that decided: "I'm going to become better, I'm not going to be afraid of the dark, I'm going to roll myself up in this thing that I am and I will come out winged and colourful." A butterfly can never become a butterfly unless the caterpillar realises that it needs to become one. This, to me, is true positivity. I don't like what others do— the way they paint on colours and tape on wings. I like what the caterpillars do. They truly BECOME.
C. JoyBell C.
We can't be afraid to change. You may fell secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know there is a such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, maybe the very reason you don't have something better.
C. JoyBell C.
It's easy to make me laugh, you can make me laugh, anyone can make me laugh, but that certainly does not mean you can make me do anything.
C. JoyBell C.
Women waste so much time wearing no perfume. As for me, in every step that I have taken in life, I have been accompanied by an exquisite perfume!
C. JoyBell C.
I come across too much material on "how to make a man want you", "how to make a man commit", "how to make a man finally pop the question", "how to make a man take you seriously", "how to get into a man's emotions." And I laugh. My dear fellow women, enough! Do not busy yourselves with such things! Instead, fall in love with yourself!
C. JoyBell C.
You will manage to keep a woman in love with you, only for as long as you can keep her in love with the person she becomes when she is with you.
C. JoyBell C.
I've always liked Belgian waffles, but I must say, I didn't think I would one day be having Belgian waffles in Belgium! I just sort of POOF found myself there and there I was with a gigantic Belgian waffle in my hands, standing on a sidewalk in Belgium!
C. JoyBell C.
People have many cruel expectations from writers. People expect novelists to live on a hill with three kids and a spouse, people expect children's story writers to never have sex, and people expect all great poets to be dead. And these are all very difficult expectations to fulfill, I think.
C. JoyBell C.
All I really, really want to do is find a very, very fine chocolate store that I can walk into and then figure out how in the world one manages to pick out just a few chocolates out of all those very many chocolates! If I am one day able to walk into a fine chocolate store and know for certain which chocolates I want, when that happens, I will believe myself to be accomplished!
C. JoyBell C.
When you walk into a chocolate store, suddenly the most difficult decision you will ever have to make in your life, is which chocolates to pick! It is pure torture! Especially when you are in Belgium surrounded by Belgian chocolates!
C. JoyBell C.
Some people walk through a hallway with covered mirrors– the hallway is lined with mirrors but there are blankets covering each of them. They go through life believing in an image of themselves that isn't real, and an image of themselves standing in the world and relative to the world, that isn't real. If you happen to be in that hallway and pull the blankets off the mirrors, they're going to think that you're hurting them; but they're actually just seeing their reflection for the first time. Sometimes the most horrendous thing a person can see, is all the hidden things inside them, the things they've covered, the things they choose not look at. And you're not hurting them, you're setting them free.
C. JoyBell C.
You know what a supernova is? It's a dead star. And yet, it is the most beautiful specimen in the universe. Lots of people are supernovas but don't know it, they think that they're dead; they don't know that they're beautiful.
C. JoyBell C.