florence scovel shinn

Every so often I think about Florence Scovel Shinn (1871 – 1940). She was an artist living in New York, who became a metaphysical teacher, lecturer, and writer. Her book The Game of Life and How To Play It has sold millions of copies worldwide. If that subject is calling to you, her book could be a wonderful beginning for exploring and building a foundation. Many exciting and excellent books abound on this topic, and we have to start somewhere. However, it’s easy to be confused in a bookshop when facing many books and finding that nothing is calling to you. That’s when The Game of Life and How to Play It could jump start the process.

A long time ago I read something by Florense SS that has remained close to my heart. The following words are not verbatim, but the message is the same: We can’t change anyone; we actually have no right to change anyone. We can change ourselves though, and when we change, everything around us changes.

Over and over again I read the words: “We’re all connected,” therefore, by raising our consciousness, we help raise the mass consciousness. Imagine that!

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“So many people are leading such complicated lives because they are trying to think things out instead of ‘intuiting’ the way out.” – Florence Scovel Shinn

“To live intuitively is to live fourth-dimensionally.” – Claude Bragdon

“I was full of a hot, powerful sadness and would have loved to burst into the comfort of tears, but tried hard not to, remembering something my guru once said – that you should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love, page 137

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves, otherwise we harden.” – Johann W. Goethe

“When you sell a man a book you don’t just sell him paper, ink and glue, you sell him a whole new life! There’s heaven and earth in a real book. The real purpose of books is to inspire the mind to do its own thinking!” -Christopher Morely

“Often fear stands between man and his perfect self-expression. Stage-fright has hampered many a genius. This may be overcome by the spoken word, or treatment. The individual then loses all self-consciousness, and feels simply that s/he is a channel for Infinite Intelligence to express Itself through.”
– Florence Scovel Shinn

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