“Hope for the best. Expect the worst. Life is a play. We’re unrehearsed.”

- Mel Brooks

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This is April Steele’s tattoo:

The story goes that this phrase was shouted at young Ray Bradbury by a magician named Mr. Electrico at a carnival in 1932. Each night at the end of his show this magician would be “electrocuted” in front of the crowd and, using a sword, would knight all the children on the front row. In his own words: “When he reached me, he pointed his sword at my head and touched my brow. The electricity rushed down the sword, inside my skull, made my hair stand up and sparks fly out of my ears. He then shouted at me, ‘Live forever!’ I thought that was a wonderful idea, but how did you do it?”

It is difficult to do the rest of the story any justice–it gets so much better–so I urge anyone to go read it here. He claims that he started writing a few days later and has written every day of his life since.

I wanted a Bradbury tattoo for a long time but could never find the one image that I felt encompassed all the energy, wonder, and nostalgia of his work. When I read those two words for the first time it was like they were electric. They gave me goosebumps. To me, it encompassed both the individual desire to make some kind of permanent mark on the world as well as the universal imperative to always push forward. Whatever the thing is that drives humankind to keep experimenting, keep creating, keep going further into space (for better or for worse), is what Bradbury’s work has always meant to me. All of it was wrapped in this amazing two-word command. Plus, I think it would be pretty incredible to literally live forever, or at least long enough to see the end of the world!

Tattoo by Vanessa Waites at Underground Art in Memphis, TN.
Photo by Joey Miller of Memphis, TN.”

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“I decided that I wanted to make a very clear statement about my love and dedication to my family…specifically my mother, my father and my brother. For the first 25 years of my life it was just the four of us and this tattoo is a tribute to that very special time.”

“Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.”

- Anthony Brandt

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This is Emily’s tattoo of the Ancient Greek aphorism “Know Thyself” (nosce te ipsum):

It means that to know and understand yourself if to be able to understand others. It also can be very literal in that it is just important to know who you are inside and out. I learned about this in my political philosophy class in college… I read Plato’s Republic and my professor gave a lecture on the quote “know thyself” and I loved it!

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“A traveller! I love his title. A traveler is to be reverenced as such. His profession is the best symbol of our life. Going from–toward; it is the history of every one of us.”

- Henry David Thoreau, first published in The Journal of Henry D. Thoreau (1906)

This is Krissy’s tattoo:

I’ve been wanting another tattoo for a while. With my background of Boy Scouts of America, I always thought I would get the 12 points of the Scout Law on my legs. But while reading through some quotes I found this one. It jumped out at me and I drove straight to the shop. I didn’t care about the cost, I just knew that I had to have this.

Currently I work for a residential treatment facility for juveniles with duel diagnosis. It’s a tough job, but I feel like I’m making a difference in the world. I’m always telling the youth I work with that it doesn’t matter what your background is or where you’re coming from, but where you’re going and what you do to get there that matters. None of the youth know my history, they just understand that I know what I’m talking about.  But my history and background are not so different from what they are coming from. I try to show them that if you put your mind to it you can pull out of whatever negative, trauma and loss filled past into something grand and amazingly awesome! So really, it’s not where you’re going from but what you’re going toward.

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“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

- Henry David Thoreau (Walden)

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This is Glexi’s tattoo.

My tattoo comes from the artist Banksy… “There is always hope” was engraved on the wall where this stencil was found.

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This quote has meant a lot to me since I was a young girl… when I finally decided to get a tattoo I knew this would be the one.

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it…”

- Confucius

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Jennifer submitted her tattoo back in January and I finally got around to posting it:

I just got a great new tattoo while visiting my sister in NM….I had it narrowed down to about ten quotes I liked, and my sister and her husband helped me pick out this one.

“Nothing is worth more than this day” is a quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German playwright who’s associated with all sorts of great quotes.

I was really encouraged by all the awesome tattoos posted on this site, though, thanks for posting these here.  Hooray for tattoos!

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Someone sent me this picture of Hayden Panettiere.  Her tattoo reads “vivere senza rimipianti”, which is Italian for “to live without regrets”.  Unfortunately, the correct spelling is “rimpianti”.  Oops!

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“Ipsa scientia potestas est.” (“Knowledge itself is power.”)

- Sir Francis Bacon

Submitted by alexxxmc.

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Just over a year ago my fiance Noel took his own life. I had been in the process of making him a scrapbook to give to him at our rehearsal dinner. One of the pages included e.e. cummings’  poem “i carry your heart with me.”

A month after his death I had this tattoo done on the inside of my left wrist. It has the first line of the cummings’ poem around a winged heart. The tattoo was done by Alex at Fat Ram Pumpkin Tattoo in JP, Mass. The picture doesn’t do well showing the coloring, but Alex did a beautiful job.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

- e. e. cummings, i carry your heart with me

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“We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.”

- Che Guevara

Its an old maori proverb meaning “turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you”.
Need I say more.

“My life is my message.”

- Gandhi

“Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter.”

- Bernard Baruch, in response to disputed seating arrangements. (This quotation is often misattributed to Dr. Seuss.)

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“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

- Ernest Hemingway

“Get your god in my way, and I will bring you the rapture.”

- Henry Rollins

(source)

“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”

- Dante Alighieri

(source)

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“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

- Gandhi

(source)

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