"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand." ~Woodrow Wilson "It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of personkind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely." ~Leo Buscaglia, author & university professor (1924-1998) "'This very moment is the perfect teacher...' is really a most profound instruction. Just seeing what's going on - that is the teaching right there.... Awareness is found in our pleasures and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our weird, unfathomable, everyday lives." ~ Pema Chodron "Follow your instincts. That's where true wisdom manifests itself." ~Oprah Winfrey "The primary reason that 'bearing false witness' is part of the Ten Commandments is that no society survives unless the words of its citizens are trustworthy. The commitment to truth on the part of its elected leaders is even more important.... The integrity of truth is more important than party loyalty." - John Shelby Spong "My faith has been the driving thing of my life. I think it is important that people who are perceived as liberals not be afraid of talking about moral and community values." ~Marian Wright Edelman, founder of Children's Defense Fund "Love me when I least deserve it, because that's when I really need it." ~Swedish Proverb "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." ~Thomas Pynchon, writer (1937- ) "We are living in a time of unbearable dissonance between promise and performance; between good politics and good policy; between professed and practiced family values; between racial creed and racial deed; between calls for community and rampant individualism and greed; and between our capacity to prevent and alleviate human deprivation and disease and our political and spiritual will to do so." ~Marian Wright Edelman, founder of Children's Defense Fund "How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." ~Abraham Lincoln "The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality." ~ John Quincy Adams "Happiness comes more from loving than being loved; and often when our affection seems wounded it is only our vanity bleeding. To love, and to be hurt often, and to love again--this is the brave and happy life." ~ J. E. Buckrose [Annie Edith Jameson] (1868-1931),writer "Synchronicity reveals the meaningful connections between the subjective and objective world." ~Carl G. Jung (1875 – 1961) "Awake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving." ~ Kahlil Gibran Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world." ~Tom Brokaw You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself Any direction you choose. ~Dr. Seuss "To see the earth as we now see it, small and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the unending night--brothers who see now they are truly brothers." ~Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982), poet and politician "Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace." ~Charles Sumner "It may be possible to incorporate laugher into daily activities, just as is done with other heart-healthy activities, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator. The recommendation for a healthy heart may one day be exercise, eat right and laugh a few times a day." ~Michael Miller "Look at the weaknesses of others with compassion, not accusation. It's not what they're not doing or should be doing that's the issue. The issue is your own chosen response to the situation and what you should be doing. If you start to think the problem is "out there," stop yourself. That thought is the problem." ~Stephen Covey "Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life." ~Christiane Northrup "Do not get tired of doing what is good. Don't get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time." ~Galatians 6:9 "Best of all is it to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song." ~Konrad von Gesner "The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!" ~Henry Ward Beecher "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." ~Melody Beattie "Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." ~"Think Different" Apple Computer ad "Service is the rent we pay to be living. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time." ~ Marian Wright Edelman, founder & President of Children's Relief Fund, first African American woman admitted to the Mississippi state bar "We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee." ~ Marian Wright Edelman "When I fight about what is going on in the neighborhood, or when I fight about what is happening to other people's children, I'm doing that because I want to leave a community and a world that is better than the one I found." ~ Marian Wright Edelman "Service is what life is all about." ~ Marian Wright Edelman "One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility." ~Eleanor Roosevelt "Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!" ~Louisa May Alcott "The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot." ~ Michael Altshuler, motivational speaker "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson "Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe-spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life." ~ author unknown

"The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green." ~Thomas Carlyle "The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity." ~Jean Paul Sartre "Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will inevitably bring about right results." ~James Allen "The primary reason that 'bearing false witness' is part of the Ten Commandments is that no society survives unless the words of its citizens are trustworthy. The commitment to truth on the part of its elected leaders is even more important.... The integrity of truth is more important than party loyalty." - John Shelby Spong "When we learn to be open-minded and not opinionated about anything, we grow in understanding and wisdom." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda "The first thing I do in the morning is to make my bed and while I am making up my bed, I am making up my mind as to what kind of a day I am going to have." ~Robert Frost, poet "Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." ~ Steve Jobs, Business leader  "Be prepared to ride the cycles and trends of life; success is never permanent and failure is never final." ~Brian Tracy "Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment." ~Winston Churchill "Love all God's creations, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. If you love each thing, thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in All." ~Fyodor Dostoevsky "Every man is a fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limits." ~Elbert Hubbard "Of course, anger can always be justified. But then, so can forgiveness. Just depends on how much more you want from the adventure." ~ The Universe, www.tut.com "The closer you are to awe and wonder, the closer you are to reality." ~Alan Cohen "Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship." ~Buddha "The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.... In any case, the giving of love is an education in itself." ~Eleanor Roosevelt, U.S. First Lady (1884-1962) "When you're in a hole, stop digging." ~Denis Healey "Despite current ads and slogans, the world doesn't change one person at a time. It changes when networks of relationships form among people who share a common cause and vision of what's possible. This is good news for those of us intent on creating a positive future. Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections. We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits. Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage and commitment that lead to broad-based change." ~Margaret Wheatley, co-author of Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale "When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change." ~Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk "It's not what you do that drains you. It's the resistance you hold while doing it." ~Alan Cohen, author "We find greatest joy, not in getting, but in expressing what we are...Men do not really live for honors or for pay; their gladness is not the taking and holding, but in doing, the striving, the building, the living. It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught. It is good to get justice, but better to do it; fun to have things but more to make them. The happy man is he who lives the life of love, not for the honors it may bring, but for the life itself." ~R.J. Baughan "Cynicism is knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing." ~Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), playwright "If I could give the world any advice, I’d tell ’em exactly like my great-granddaddy told me. He said, 'Jimmy, be yourself. Because if people don’t like you as you are, they’re not going to like you as somebody you’re trying to be.' Generally, I’ve followed that advice. In the moments I haven’t, I’ve gotten into more trouble than a centipede with fallen arches." ~ Jimmy Dean, entertainer & sausage manufacturer "Because time has been good to me, I treat it with great respect." ~Lena Horne, entertainer "Find something you love to do and you'll never have to work a day in your life." ~Harvey Mackay "You gotta be original, because if you’re like someone else, what do they need you for?" ~Bernadette Peters, entertainer "Forever is a long time, but not as long as it was yesterday." ~Dennis H’Orgnies

"I used to believe that we must choose between science and reason on one hand, and spirituality on the other, in how we lead our lives. Now I consider this a false choice. We can recover the sense of sacredness, not just in science, but in perhaps every area of life." ~Larry Dossey in Reinventing Medicine "To establish true self-esteem we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives." ~Denis Waitley "...there’s a misunderstanding about positive psychology— people think that they always have to be happy. In fact, what makes us happy is being real." ~Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD, Harvard professor, author of Happier "Don't worry about impressing others, impress yourself. Who are you trying to please, anyway?" ~Mark McKeon "If you judge people, you have no time to love them." ~Mother Teresa "If everybody's thinking the same thing, then nobody's thinking" ~ George Patton "One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself." ~Lucille Ball "With malice toward none, with charity for all, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, ...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." ~Abraham Lincoln "The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us." ~John F. Kennedy "Life is so difficult, how can we be anything but kind." ~Buddhist quote Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow. ~Thornton Wilder "Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It's the mastery of fear. It's about getting up one more time than we fall down." ~Arianna Huffington "I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious." ~ Albert Einstein I am the country, my eyes the sky, my limbs the trees, I am the rock, the depth of water. I am not here, in order to control nature or exploit her. I am even nature. ~ Hopi “Our children are watching us live, and what we ARE shouts louder than anything we can say.” ~Wilferd A. Peterson "Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure." ~ Dr. Norman Vincent Peale "You don't have to be a 'person of influence' to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they've taught me." ~Scott Adams "I don’t see any virtue in suffering for suffering’s sake, but I do see the benefit of going through it so we can learn and grow and derive more happiness in the long run. In fact, most successful and happy people will often say they owe their success to going through difficult experiences. It’s not the difficult experience that’s important, it’s what you do with that experience that counts. Many people say things happen for the best, but I don’t believe that. I believe that some people are able to make the best of things that happen. The former is more passive, the latter is more active.” ~Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD, Harvard professor, author of Happier Don't think of it as getting hot flashes. Think of it as your inner child playing with matches. "Never have anything to do with likes and dislikes. The absence of what one likes is painful, as is the presence of what one dislikes. Therefore don't take a liking to anything. To lose what one likes is hard, but there are no bonds for those who have no likes and dislikes. From preference arises sorrow, from preference arises fear, but he who is freed from preference has no sorrow and certainly no fear." ~Buddha (563-483 BC), Sayings of the Buddha in The Dhammapada "Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger." ~Franklin P Jones "The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle." ~Anais Ninn, writer (1903-1977) Time is... too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity. ~Henry Van Dyke

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." ~Charlotte Bronte "Don't look for miracles. You yourself are the miracle." ~Henry Miller (1891 - 1980) "There are those who are wealthy and there are those who are rich." ~Coco Channel "Sometimes what seems like surrender isn't surrender at all. It's about what's going on in our hearts. About seeing clearly the way life is and accepting it and being true to it... whatever the pain, because the pain of not being true to it is far, far greater." ~Tom Booker in "The Horse Whisperer" "Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love!" ~ Hamilton Wright Mable Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect. ~ Oren Arnold "Learn how to separate the majors and the minors. A lot of people don't do well simply because they major in minor things." ~Jim Rohn "I cannot tell you with what weapons mankind would fight WW3, but I can assure you that WW4 would be fought with sticks and stones." ~ Albert Einstein "The world is full of poetry. The air is living with its spirit; and the waves dance to the music of its melodies, and sparkle in its brightness." ~Percival "He that plants thorns must never expect to gather roses." ~English Proverb "This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it." ~Thomas Carlysle "Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." ~Helen Keller Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. ~Kahlil Gibran Love is the only thing that in its being is what it seems to be glory and gold and all the rest are but weak and hollow staves for even the poor to lean on... ~Khalil Gibran Eskimo Love Song You are my husband, you are my wife My feet shall run because of you My feet dance because of you My heart shall beat because of you My eyes see because of you My mind thinks because of you And I shall love because of you "We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects." ~Herman Melville "Begin to weave and God will give you the thread." ~German Proverb "It takes but a brief time to scent the life philosophy of anyone. It is defined in the conversation, in the look of the eye, and in the general mien of the person. It has no hiding place. It's like the perfume of the flower - unseen, but known almost instantly. It is the possession of the successful, and the happy. It can be greatly embellished by the absorption of ideas and experiences of the useful of this earth." ~George Matthew Adams "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." ~John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist "It's easy to carry the past as a burden instead of a school. It's easy to let it overwhelm you instead of educate you." ~Jim Rohn Hospitality is... making your guests feel at home, even if you wish they were. ~author unknown "Perhaps the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company." ~Rachel Naomi Remen "An individual has a healthy personality to the exact degree to which they have the propensity to look for the good in every situation." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within." ~Ramona L. Anderson "Love is essentially self-communicative: those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. Those who receive love from others cannot be its recipients without giving a response, which, in itself, is the nature of Love. True Love is unconquerable and irresistible. It goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everyone it touches." ~Meher Baba "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." ~ Melody Beattie "The more you recognize and express gratitude for the things you have, the more things you will have to express gratitude for." ~ Zig Ziglar "When you feel gratitude, you are the closest to the natural state you were born to live in." ~Abraham-Hicks "The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!" ~Henry Ward Beecher "'Enough' is not a number or condition. It is a state of mind." ~Alan Cohen "When healers are healthy, are in a positive state of mind, and have engaged in a healing 'warm-up', their light is more likely to shine brightly". ~Lynne McTaggart, in The Intention Experiment Grow. Remember. Accept. Trade. Invoke. Treasure. Understand. Delight. Explore. Thank You, God... For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow. ~Thornton Wilder 'Whenever you feel 'short' or in 'need' of something, give what you want first and it will come back in buckets. That is true for money, a smile, love, friendship. I know it is often the last thing a person may want to do, but it has always worked for me. 'I just trust that the principle of reciprocity is true, and I give what I want. I want money, so I give money, and it comes back in multiples ... 'God does not need to receive, but humans need to give.' -Robert Kiyosaki, author "If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." ~ Anatole France "It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere." ~Agnes Repplier "The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage  by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself." ~George Bernard Shaw “What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” ~Crowfoot "Make it a rule...never, if possible, to lie down at night without being able to say, 'I have made one human being at least a little wiser, a little happier or a little better this day.'" ~ Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), clergyman and writer "Without seeking, truth cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold in packages ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by itself out of it such, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own." ~John Ruskin "It is important to remember that the real joy of achievement  is in the challenge, not in the accomplishment. In an ever-changing world, the eternal wisdom of the ages never changes: The road to heaven is heaven." ~Denis Waitley "When we forget the obvious, the little joys, the meals together, the birthday celebrations, the weeping together in time of pain, the wonder of a sunset or of a daffodil peeping through the snow, we become less human." ~Madeleine L'Engle, writer "What we must decide is perhaps how we are valuable, rather than how valuable we are." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), writer "It's good to have money and the things money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things money can't buy." ~George Horace Lormier "Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me." ~Carol Burnett "I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers. ~Khalil Gibran "Happiness is to be found along the way, not at the end of the road, for then the journey is over and its too late. Today, this hour, this minute is the day, the hour, the minute for each of us to sense the fact that life is good, with all of its trials and troubles, and perhaps more interesting because of them." ~ Robert R. Updegraff, author of Be Thankful For Your Troubles Love the earth and sun and animals, Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, Stand up for the stupid and crazy, Devote your income and labor to others... And your very flesh shall be a great poem. ~Walt Whitman "Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?" ~George Eliot 1819-1880, novelist "Great people are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force,  that thoughts rule the world." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson "Awake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving." ~ Kahlil Gibran "The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice." ~Mahatma Gandhi "The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside we all believe that we are above-average drivers." ~Dave Barry "Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough." ~Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945 "The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. That is why so much social life is exhausting." ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh "The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson "Rather than sweating to manage your image, manage your fear and insecurity thoughts that tell you that you have to get people to like you." ~Alan Cohen "Every farmer knows that you can't sow and reap on the same day. There is a timetable for your harvest that requires both working and waiting. Patience is a small price to pay for what you will receive." ~Neil Eskelin "If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance." ~George Bernard Shaw "The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green." ~Thomas Carlyle "Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you'll make a difference." -Arie Pencovici "Bringing up a family should be an adventure, not an anxious discipline in which everybody is constantly graded for performance." ~ Milton R. Saperstein "People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success." ~Norman Vincent Peale "The secret of relationship is the same as living in California: Don't dwell on the faults." ~ author unknown "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it." - Chinese Proverb "A woman is like a tea bag: you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water." ~Nancy Reagan Q: What happened to the guy who couldn't keep up payments to his exorcist? A: He was repossessed.

"For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson Seen on a bumpersticker: Tithe if you love Jesus! Anyone can honk! "Keep in mind that you are always saying ‘no’ to something. If it isn't to the apparent, urgent things in your life, it is probably to the most fundamental, highly important things. Even when the urgent is good, the good can keep you from your best, keep you from your unique contribution, if you let it." ~Stephen Covey "Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think." ~Horace "You are searching for the magic key that will unlock the door to the source of power; and yet you have the key in your own hands, and you may use it the moment you learn to control your thoughts." ~Napoleon Hill "Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain." ~Helen Keller "Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation. But simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and one's desires out of its way, and lets it act of its own accord." ~John Cage, composer "Perfection has one grave defect; it is apt to be dull." - Somerset Maugham "The principles you live by create the world you live in; if you change the principles you live by, you will change your world." ~ Blaine Lee "No one ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him; it is the amount and excellence of what is over and above the required that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction." ~Charles Kendall Adams "I've learned that everyday you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back." ~Maya Angelou "One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community." ~Albert Einstein "There is a good reason they call these ceremonies 'commencement exercises.' Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning." ~Orrin Hatch "Creativity is the ability to see relationships where none exist." ~Thomas Disch "Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." ~Buddha "A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go but ought to be." ~Rosalynn Carter, U.S. First Lady and activist "Success is the prize for those who stand true to their ideas!" ~ Josh Hinds "It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that's what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower is to bloom." ~Alice Walker "Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world any more. There is always something to make you wonder, in the shape of a leaf, the trembling of a tree." -Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) "Today is the perfect day to fall in love with yourself, your beloved, and your life." ~ Alan Cohen "The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green." ~Thomas Carlyle "Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young" ~A. W. Pinero “What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself” ~Mark Twain A father carries pictures where his money used to be. There are three stages of a man's life: He believes in Santa Claus, He doesn't believe in Santa Claus, He is Santa Claus. “By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.” ~ Charles Wadsworth "My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, 'You're tearing up the grass.' 'We're not raising grass,' Dad would reply. 'We're raising boys.'" ~Harmon Killebrew "A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty." “Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope” ~ John Ciardi "The father who would taste the essence of his fatherhood must turn back from the plane of his experience, take with him the fruits of his journey and begin again beside his child, marching step by step over the same old road." ~Angelo Patri “It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.” ~ Anne Sexton “It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.” ~Alice Walker "Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance." ~Ruth E. Renkel “Other things may change us, but we start and end with family” ~ Anthony Brandt

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." ~Winston Churchill "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." ~Albert Einstein "Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun." ~Mary Lou Cook “Find me a place in the sunlight to sit and think and listen to the sweet inner voice that says so quietly, 'Peace, be still'.” ~Joyce Sequichie Hifler "No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves." ~ Amelia Earhart, aviator "The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green." ~Thomas Carlyle "I had found a kind of serenity, a new maturity... I didn't feel better or stronger than anyone else, but it seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not - more important now was for me to love them. Feeling that way turns your whole life around; living becomes the act of giving." ~Beverly Sills, b. 1929 "I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit." ~ Dawna Markova "Most people are too busy living life to ever put life in their living..." ~Doug Firebaugh A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.  Lost on a rainy night, a nun stumbles across a monastery and requests shelter. Fortunately, she's just in time for dinner and is treated to the best fish & chips she's ever had. After dinner, she goes to the kitchen to thank the chefs. She is met by two brothers, "Hello, I'm Brother Michael, and this is Brother Charles." "I'm pleased to meet you. I want to thank you for a wonderful dinner. The fish and chips were the best I've ever tasted. Out of curiosity, who cooked what?" Brother Charles replied, "Well, I'm the fish friar." She turns to the other brother and says, "Then you must be...?" "Yes, I'm the chip monk."

"The way to succeed is never quit. That's it. But really be humble about it." ~Alex Haley "The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the tides, and gravitation, we will harness the energies of love for God. And then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire." -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), priest "People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle." ~Thich Nhat Han, Vietnamese Buddhist monk "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." ~Leo Buscaglia "I believe that the reason of life is for each of us simply to grow in love." ~Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), writer "The center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days." ~Stephen Jay Gould "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson "Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do." ~Voltaire "A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror." ~ Ken Keyes, Jr. (1921-1995), writer “The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.” ~Sarah Ban Breathnach Attitude There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head. "Well," she said, "I think I'll braid my hair today?" So she did and she had a wonderful day. The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head. "Hmmm," she said, "I think I'll part my hair down the middle today!" So she did and she had a grand day. The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head. "Well," she said, "today I'm going to wear my hair in a pony tail." So she did and she had a fun, fun day. The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn't a single hair on her head. "YEAH!" she exclaimed, "I don't have to fix my hair today!" Attitude is everything. Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle. "The soul is indestructible and its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "There is hunger for ordinary bread and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much." ~Mother Teresa of Calcutta "Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace." ~Albert Schweitzer, French mission doctor (1875-1965) Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, “You owe me.” Look what happens with a love like that; it lights the whole sky. ~Hafiz,Sufi poet of Persia, 1320-1389  "Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted--a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul." ~Rabbi Harold Kushner "Being rich isn't about money. Being rich is a state of mind. Some of us, no matter how much money we have, will never be free enough to take time to stop and eat the heart of the watermelon. And some of us will be rich without ever being more than a paycheck ahead of the game." ~Harvey B. Mackay “It is on the level of the heart that the whole process of evolution takes place. No shrinking of hearts. No shrinking of minds, always fabulous, open and joyful. We have an infinite number of reasons to be happy and a serious responsibility not to be serious. "The game of Life is played inside. Knowledge of life is gained inside. The action of life is done inside. Whatever we want to become, we become. Whatever we desire, we have it. "Enjoy your life and be happy. Being Happy is of the utmost importance. Success in anything is through happiness. More support of Nature comes from being happy. Be happy, healthy and let all that love flow through your heart. "Make Bliss the primary cause for doing anything.” ~Maharishi Mahesh Yogi "Throw wide the doors of our hearts and let in the sunshine of good will and kindness." ~Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924), founder of Success Magazine "When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves." ~William Arthur Ward "Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there." ~Josh Billings "An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." ~G.K. Chesterton A vacuum salesperson asked the monk if he wanted to buy a vacuum. The monk replied, "yes, but without any attachments."

"Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape." ~Dr. Michael McGriffy "If you train your mind to search for the positive things about other people, you will be surprised at how many good things you can observe in them and comment upon." ~Alan Loy Mcginnis "A spiritually optimistic point of view holds that the universe is woven out of a fabric of love. Everything that is happening is ultimately for the good if we're willing to face it head-on and use our adversities for soul growth." ~Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. "Kind words do not cost much. They never blister the tongue or lips. Mental trouble was never known to arise from such quarters. Though they do not cost much yet they accomplish much. They make other people good natured. They also produce their own image on men’s souls, and a beautiful image it is." ~Blaise Pascal "Do anything better than it was ever done before and you'll get rich." ~Walt Disney (1901-1966) "He who rules his spirit has won a greater victory than the taking of a city." ~Jesus of Nazareth "The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart." ~ Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899), Orator "Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds..." ~Norman Vincent Peale "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." ~John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist "They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions," said Atticus, "but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." ~Harper Lee, writer, To Kill a Mockingbird The good news is that even as we get older, guys still look at our boobs. The bad news is they have to squat down first. ~anonymous "Sharpen your interest in two major subjects: life and people. You will only gather information from a source if you are interested in it." ~Jim Rohn "You can't shake hands with a clenched fist." ~Indira Gandhi "Learn how to separate the majors and the minors. A lot of people don't do well simply because they major in minor things." ~Jim Rohn "I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult." ~Rita Rudner "Don’t get even. Get odd." ~Swami Beyondananda

“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.” ~Rabindranath Tagore "To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury; and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasion, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony." ~ William Henry Channing "If you train your mind to search for the positive things about other people, you will be surprised at how many good things you can observe in them and comment upon." ~Alan Loy Mcginnis  "It's best to start the discipline of generosity when the amounts are small. It's easy to give ten cents out of a dollar; it's a little harder to give a hundred thousand out of a million." ~Jim Rohn  "You must remember the value that you add to others and not just what others have added to you. That's how we build self-worth, which, in my opinion, is just as important as net worth." ~ Suze Orman, financial planner & writer "The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love." -Blessed Julian of Norwich Shovel while the piles are small. ~ author unknown "You have not lived a perfect day, even though you have earned your money, unless you have done something for someone who cannot repay you." ~Ruth Smeltzer "If a problem has a solution there is no need to worry about it. If there is no answer for the problem, worry will do no good." ~ Tibetan proverb "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank What Does "Rich" Mean to You?     "In an anthropology class in college I learned that cultural anthropologists calculate wealth by subtracting how many hours a day the average person in a specific culture need to work to provide the essentials that keep him alive and satisfied. The end product is the time left over to pursue what someone WANTS to pursue, instead of HAS to do.     "By that standard, the Kalahari bushmen were the wealthiest people in the world, working an average of two hours a day." "Best of all is it to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song." ~Konrad von Gesner "In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy." ~Albert Clarke “The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.” ~Mark Twain "I look back on my life like a good day's work--it was done and I am satisfied with it. I was happy and contented; I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered." ~Grandma (Anna Mary) Moses (1860-1961), artist "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." ~Mark Twain "The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy." ~Helen Hayes (at 73) "Learn how to separate the majors and the minors. A lot of people don't do well simply because they major in minor things." ~Jim Rohn "In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction, and the prisoners of envy." ~ Ivan Illich, philosopher "You can't shake hands with a clenched fist." ~Indira Gandhi Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

"Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves." ~Helen Keller "Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name – the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole." ~Vaclav Havel, Czech politician, philosopher "In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways." ~Edith Wharton "One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Shovel while the piles are small. ~ author unknown "Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up." ~Anne Lamott, author "There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself." ~Henry David Thoreau "In whatever circumstance you find yourself, stay focused on acquiring something useful. Not being a critic, not being offended. The only worthwhile question is: what did I get that I can use?" ~Dan Kennedy "The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority." ~Ralph W. Sockman "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." ~Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel) "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~Mark Twain "Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty--they merely move it from their faces into their hearts." ~ Martin Buxbaum (1912-1991), writer "The best substitute for experience is being sixteen." ~Raymond Duncan "In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage, so long are you young. When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, and then only, are you grown old." ~General Douglas MacArthur “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” ~Mark Twain Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. -Popular Mechanics, forecasting the march of science, 1949 "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." ~Mark Twain

"To care for anyone else enough to make their problems one's own, is ever the beginning of one's real ethical development." ~Felix Adler, Psychologist "God speaks to us through our desires. Then as we lay them at his feet, he helps us sort them out and quiets our hearts to accept what he has already prepared." ~Rosalind Rinker "The next time it begins to rain... lie down on your belly, nestle your chin into the grass, and get a frog's-eye view of how raindrops fall... The sight of hundreds of blades of grass bowing down and popping back up like piano keys strikes me as one of the merriest sights in the world." ~Malcolm Margolin "Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness -- great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy." ~ Jim Rohn "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." ~Viktor Frankel, "Search for Meaning" "Anger or hatred is like a fisherman's hook. It is very important for us to ensure that we are not caught by it." ~Dalai Lama “Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thought that is forever flowing through one's head.” ~Mark Twain "As opportunities arise for us to move through darkness, our appreciation grows for circumstances in our lives that hide the light. These heavenly arrangements give us time to be grateful for what IS and what will be - knowing this, too, will pass. A few moments of darkness do wonders for our awareness and appreciation for the light." ~Stacey Robyn, GO Gratitude "The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy." ~ Alex Carey "Intuition is the spontaneous appearance of knowledge -- a new idea, the solution to a problem, a clear sense of where to go or what to do next. (It occurs) in the absence of sufficient background or information to think one's way to that conclusion." ~ Rev. Mary Murray Shelton "If you do not fall down on your knees each day with overwhelming gratitude for your blessings – your multiplying multitudes of blessings – then you just have not yet seen the big picture." ~Sir John Templeton, investor, philantropist Maxine on "Lawn Care": "The key to a nice-looking lawn is a good mower. I recommend one who is muscular and shirtless."

"For fast-acting relief, try slowing down." ~ Lily Tomlin "The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem." ~ Theodore Rubin "On the whole, my impression is that mercy bears richer fruits than any other attribute." ~Abraham Lincoln "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone hits you on the cheek, offer them the other cheek." ~Jesus of Nazareth "I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves." ~ Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt "Masculinity ought to be defined in terms of relationships, and taught in terms of capacity to love and be loved." ~Joe Ehrmann, Football coach "A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror." ~ Ken Keyes, Jr. (1921-1995), writer "Love is an attachment to something or someone that eventually welds itself to the heart." ~Doug Firebaugh "I believe that the reason of life is for each of us simply to grow in love." ~Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), writer "Respect is love in plain clothes." ~Frankie Byrne "God speaks to us through our desires. Then as we lay them at his feet, he helps us sort them out and quiets our hearts to accept what he has already prepared." ~Rosalind Rinker "I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity." ~Eleanor Roosevelt "Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions." ~Kahlil Gibran “Shame on us if 100 or 200 years from now our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are living on a planet that has been irreparably damaged by global warming, and they ask, 'How could those who came before us, who saw this coming, have let this happen?'” ~ Joseph Lieberman, Senator from CT “The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.” ~Barry Commoner,U.S. biologist, teacher, activist "Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have." ~Jim Rohn "I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder to each other than we are. How much the world needs it! How easily it is done!" ~Henry Drummond (1851-1897) "Life is not measured by how many breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." - author unknown "Good thought and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results. This is but saying that nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from nettles but nettles." ~James Allen, in As A Man Thinketh "I believe that there is a plan and a purpose for each person's life and that there are forces working in the universe to bring about good and to create a community of love and brotherhood. Those who can attune themselves to these forces - to God's purpose - can become special instruments of his will." ~Coretta Scott King, in "My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr." "The center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days." ~Stephen Jay Gould "Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul." ~Douglas MacArthur “My secret for keeping young and happy is I envy no one.” ~Louisa May Alcott "We need someone to believe in us -- if we do well, we want our work commended, our faith corroborated. The individual who thinks well of you, who keeps his mind on your good qualities, and does not look for your flaws, is your friend. Who is my brother? I'll tell you: he is the one who recognizes the good in me." ~Elbert Hubbard "Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it." ~Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1878-1969, clergyman Optimists brighten up a room when they enter it. Pessimists brighten up a room when they leave it. Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these pink dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"

"Tolerance is the oil which takes the friction out of life." ~Wilbert E. Scheer "You've got to think about big things while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction." ~Alvin Toffler "In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction, and the prisoners of envy." ~ Ivan Illich, philosopher "Worship your magnificence by uncovering it in others." ~author unknown "You need to feel love inside yourself before you can offer it to anyone else." ~Denis Waitley "Dismiss all anger and look into yourself a little. Remember that he of whom you are speaking is your brother, and as he is in the way of salvation, God can make him a saint, in spite of his present weakness." ~St. Thomas of Villanova "There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self." ~ Aldous Huxley, Time Must Have A Stop "Where many people go wrong in trying to reach their goals is in constantly looking for the big hit, the home run, the magic answer that suddenly transforms their dreams into reality. The problem is that the big hit never comes without a great deal of little hits first. Success in most things comes not from some gigantic stroke of fate, but from simple, incremental progress." ~Andrew Wood "You have not lived a perfect day, even though you have earned your money, unless you have done something for someone who cannot repay you." ~Ruth Smeltzer "Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." ~Epicurus, Greek Philosopher "Develop the mind of equilibrium. You will always be getting praise and blame, but do not let either affect the poise of the mind: follow the calmness, the absence of pride." ~Sutta Nipata "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." ~Melody Beattie "Do not fear your enemies. The worse they can do is kill you. Do not fear friends. At worst, they may betray you. Fear those who do not care; they neither kill nor betray, but betrayal and murder exist because of their silent consent." ~Bruno Jasienski "I find religion, religiousness, religiosity are all just the cans that Spirit comes through. Without the Spirit you have an empty can." ~Pat Jobe, minister, author, radio essayist "There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, and all things in succession. That which grows slowly endures." ~J. G. Holland (1819-1881), writer "The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes." ~Victor Frankl "In pursuit of knowledge, every day something is acquired. In pursuit of wisdom, every day something is dropped." ~Lao Tse "Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado, or lordliness. It consists in daring to do the right and facing consequences, whether it is in matters social, political, or other. It consists in deeds, not in words." ~Mahatma Ghandi "Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important." ~Janet Lane "Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon." ~Susan Ertz

"You will find as you look back upon your life, that the moments when you have truly lived, are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love." ~Henry Drummond (1851-1897), Clergyman and writer "Where you love somebody a whole lot, and you know that person loves you, that's the most beautiful place in the world." ~ Ann Cameron, The Most Beautiful Place In The World “Happiness depends, as Nature shows, less on exterior things than most suppose.” ~William Cowper "The first thing I do in the morning is to make my bed and while I am making up my bed, I am making up my mind as to what kind of a day I am going to have." ~Robert Frost "Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it." ~The Buddha "On the whole, my impression is that mercy bears richer fruits than any other attribute." ~Abraham Lincoln "Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless." ~Words inscribed on the gravestone of Brandon Lee "In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth." ~Mahatma Gandhi "The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both." ~James A. Michener "You have to become very still and listen while your inner voice - the very essence of you -- tells you who you are. You'll know you've found it when every cell in your body practically vibrates; when you're filled up by what you're doing instead of being drained by it." ~Oprah Winfrey “A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." ~Dr. Seuss "Love is a verb, not a noun. It can only be experienced when it is flowing. When we become a source of love, when it flows through our eyes, our voice, our prayers and the selfless acts of lovingkindness that we offer to others, then we feel happiness." Dr. Joan Borysenko, in Pocketful of Miracles "Material success may result in the accumulation of possessions: but only spiritual success will enable you to enjoy them." ~Nido Qubein I thank You God for most this amazing day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes. - e.e. cummings "Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck. Your profession is what you were put on earth to do with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling." ~Vincent Van Gogh "You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking." ~Steven Jobs, founder of Apple Computer "I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." ~Eleanor Roosevelt "Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age." ~Jeanne Moreau "A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams." ~John Barrymore, actor "Your last 5 books that you read will determine where your focus or direction is in life. The average person reads 1 book a year after high school, which is the #1 reason why 95% of people are 'dead broke' at age 65. "Even the greatest computer in the world needs to be programmed in order to perform its functions. We are all designed for greatness, but we need to be conscious of our associations and what we are reading or listening to on a daily basis will decide the level of greatness that we all reach." ~John DiLemme, author/speaker Maxine on "Housework": "I do my housework in the nude. It gives me an incentive to clean the mirrors as quickly as possible." "The more opinions you have, the less you see." ~Wim Wenders, filmmaker "In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you." ~Deepak Chopra

"Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own." ~John F. Kennedy "Put love first. Entertain thoughts that give life. And when a thought or resentment, or hurt, or fear comes your way, have another thought that is more powerful -- a thought that is love." ~Mary Manin Morrissey "Many acts of service cost nothing and take little time: encouragement, compliments, listening, gratitude, and compassion. Anytime you affirm the worth of others, you serve." ~ Chris Karcher "There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone's life." ~Sister Mary Rose McGeady "Luminous beings are we. Not this crude matter." ~Yoda, Star Wars V, The Empire Strikes Back. "Free enterprise is a term that refers, in practice, to a system of public subsidy and private profit, with massive government intervention in the economy to maintain a welfare state for the rich." ~ Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics at MIT "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." ~William James "For every sin you can find about your life, God can find a way to forgive it. For every way you have separated yourself from love, compassion reminds you that you have never for a moment been outside of love’s embrace." ~Alan Cohen "What a man accomplishes in a day depends upon the way in which he approaches his tasks. When we accept tough jobs as a challenge. . . and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen. When we do our work with a dynamic conquering spirit, we get things done." ~Arland Gilbert "Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around." ~Henry David Thoreau "Get into a line that you will find to be a deep personal interest, something you really enjoy spending twelve to fifteen hours a day working at, and the rest of the time thinking about." ~Earl Nightingale, Motivational author "Stuff your eyes with wonder... live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories." ~Ray Bradbury "While we have the gift of life, it seems to me the only tragedy is to allow part of us to die whether it is our spirit, our creativity or our glorious uniqueness." ~Gilda Radner "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power." ~Franklin Delano Roosevelt "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" ~Helen Keller "When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another." ~Helen Keller "Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age." ~Jeanne Moreau "The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone." ~Harriet Beecher Stowe "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little." ~Edmund Burke "Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?" ~David M. Bader in "Zen Judaism: For You, a Little Enlightenment."

"Striving for perfection is the greatest stopper there is… It's your excuse to yourself for not doing anything. Instead, strive for excellence, doing your best." ~ Sir Laurence Olivier "Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." ~George Bernard Shaw "When somebody shares, everybody wins." ~Jim Rohn "Creatures with simple animal intelligence fear only real things, such as their natural predators. But those of us who have higher cognitive abilities are able to torture ourselves with an infinite menagerie of imaginary threats: ghosts and goblins and vampires and brain-eating extra-terrestrials. Worse, we find it difficult not to dwell on the most terrifying two words in any language, even in monkey talk: what if??" ~Dean Koontz, Seize the Night "I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather be a streaming meteor than a sleepy and permanent planet. I would rather burn out in a blaze of streaming glory than be stifled like dry rot. I shall use my time." ~Jack London "Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one." ~Thomas Jefferson "There is such an enormous gap between our words and deeds! Everyone talks about freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, and peace; but at the same time, everyone, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, serves those values and ideals only to the extent necessary to defend and serve his own interests, and those of his group or his state. Who should break this vicious circle? Responsibility cannot be preached: it can only be borne, and the only possible place to begin is with oneself." ~ Vaclav Havel "When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change." ~Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen Master "The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny." ~ Albert Ellis "Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from." ~Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-) writer, founder of hospice care movement "You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don't know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe anybody, you don't know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be." ~ Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), writer You have no friends; you have no enemies; you have only teachers. "Without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue. You have to have courage - courage of different kinds: first, intellectual courage, to sort out different values and make up your mind about which is the one which is right for you to follow. You have to have moral courage to stick up to that - no matter what comes in your way, no matter what the obstacle and the opposition is." ~Indira Gandhi Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. ~Jesus of Nazareth Opportunities always look bigger going than coming. "Heaven is gained or lost not by dramatic deeds, but by the simple acts of daily living." ~ Alan Cohen "If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong. I do not say give them up, for they may be all you have. But conceal them like a vice, lest they spoil the lives of better and simpler people." ~ Robert Louis Stevenson "The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment." "It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end." ~Ursula Le Guin, novelist "Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them, than upon what they make us see in ourselves." ~Sarah Grand (1854-1943) novelist Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.

"You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher (1803-1882) "The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays." ~Soren Kierkegaard "For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now?" ~James Allen "One of the world's greatest problems is the impossibility of any person searching for the truth on any subject when they believe they already have it." ~Dave Wilbur "Consciousness is the basis of all life and the field of all possibilities. Its nature is to expand and unfold its full potential. The impulse to evolve is thus inherent in the very nature of life." ~Maharishi Mahesh Yogi "If at first you DO succeed, try something harder." ~Ann Landers, advice columnist "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." ~Albert Einstein "If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings." ~Brian Tracy sales trainer "With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity." ~Kesgavan Nair "It is the Law that any difficulties that can come to you at any time, no matter what they are, must be exactly what you need most at the moment, to enable you to take the next step forward by overcoming them. The only real misfortune, the only real tragedy, comes when we suffer without learning the lesson." ~Emmet Fox "Our real blessings often appear to us in the shapes of pains, losses and the disappointments; but let us have patience, and we soon shall see them in their proper figures." ~Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English writer, statesman "Assuredly there is but one way in which to achieve what is not merely difficult but utterly against human nature: to love those who hate us, to repay their evil deeds with benefits, to return blessings for reproaches. It is that we remember not to consider men's evil intention but to look upon the image of God in them, which cancels and effaces their transgressions, and with its beauty and dignity allures us to love and embrace them." ~John Calvin (1509-1564) French Protestant An Irish Blessing May there always be work for your hands to do; May your purse always hold a coin or two; May the sun always shine on your window pane; May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain; May the hand of a friend always be near you; May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you! "People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle." ~Thich Nhat Han, Vietnamese Buddhist monk "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery "A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person." ~ Mignon McLaughlin Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, “You owe me.” Look what happens with a love like that; it lights the whole sky. ~ Hafiz, Sufi poet of Persia, 1320-1389 "There is hunger for ordinary bread and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much." ~Mother Teresa of Calcutta "I will smile at friend and foe alike and make every effort to find, in him or her, a quality to praise, now that I realize the deepest yearning of human nature is the craving to be appreciated." ~Og Mandino,1923-1996, Author and Speaker "Who dares to teach must never cease to learn." ~ John Cotton Dana (1856-1929), librarian and writer "That which the dream shows is the shadow of such wisdom as exists in man, even if during his waking state he may know nothing about it... We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourself." ~Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus "Instill the love of you into all the world, for a good character is what is remembered." ~Merikare "The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the tides, and gravitation, we will harness the energies of love for God. And then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire." -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." ~Ellen Parr "In the depths of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity." ~Kahlil Gibran "If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." ~Catherine "A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices." ~Edward R. Murrow "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." ~ Carl Jung (1875-1961), Psychologist When Thoreau was on his deathbed, a friend asked him, “Have you made peace with God?” Thoreau answered, “I wasn’t aware that God and I had quarreled.” ~Dr. Wayne Dyer

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." ~Anne Bradstreet "The truth dazzles gradually, or else the world would be blind." ~Emily Dickinson "Life is part positive and part negative. Suppose you went to hear a symphony orchestra and all they played were the little, happy, high notes? Would you leave soon? Let me hear the rumble of the bass, the crash of the cymbals, and the minor keys." ~Jim Rohn "To swear off making mistakes is very easy. All you have to do is swear off having ideas." ~Leo Burnetti "The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity." ~Thomas Henry Huxley "To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right." ~Confucius "Don't ask yourself what the world needs; Ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~Harold Whitman "We have actually touched the Borderland where Matter and Force seem to merge into one another, the shadowy realm between the Known and Unknown ... I venture to think that the greatest scientific problems of the future will find their solution in this Borderland, and even beyond; here, it seems to me, lie Ultimate Realities, subtle, far-reaching, wonderful." ~Sir William Crookes, 1879 "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker." ~Albert Einstein "Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate, sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth - home. My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity." ~ Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut & founder, Institute of Noetic Sciences "It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd. . . Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death. . . And yet. . . I think. . . this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again." ~Anne Frank "A search of one's life and soul will reveal the hand of God. The outpouring of his blessings come with our afflictions, not in spite of them. Afflictions be praised." ~Elaine Cannon American writer "I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be "happy." I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all." ~ Leo C. Rosten, 1908-, Polish-born American humorist-sociologist "The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired." ~Stephen W. Hawking

"The gospels, and sometimes the epistles, are pretty revolutionary. They propose a revolution of about 180 degrees.  One of the popular versions of the Bible has in the back an index of great stories and great chapters, and not one of them from the gospels. But Christ was quite explicit, for instance, about his pacifism. You can't be more explicit than "Love your enemies." He did run those people out of the temple, but he didn't kill them.... "People are always talking about the first church. The real first church was that gaggle of people who followed Jesus around. We don't know anything about them. But he apparently didn't ask them what creed they subscribed to, or what their sexual preference was, or any of that. He fed them. He healed them. He forgave them. He is clear about sin, but he was also for forgiveness."  ~ Wendell Berry "You do not become a 'dissident' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society." ~Vaclav Havel, writer, philosopher, politician "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius." ~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart "Be good at something, good enough so that you can take quiet pride in knowing that you are a valuable person, that you can do at least one thing well." ~David H. Campbell, Jr. "To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter ... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life." ~ John Burroughs Manifest plainness, Embrace simplicity, Reduce selfishness, Have few desires. ~Lao-tzu (604 BC - 531 BC) "Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do." ~Pope John XXIII "Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use." ~Earl Nightingale "We're a pretty bad species in a lot of ways and in other ways a pretty good one. We can become a warrior civilization and live by piracy; on the other hand, we're capable of lovingkindness, of genuine affection, of generosity, of friendship, of peaceability, of forgiveness and gratitude. It's a question of where you want to put your influence, how you want to apply the little means that you have."  ~Wendell Berry "Providence protects children and idiots. I know because I have tested it." ~Mark Twain "If you can't have faith in what is held up to you for faith, you must find things to believe in yourself, for a life without faith in something is too narrow a space to live." ~George E. Woodberry

"Some people think only intellect counts -- knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy." ~Dean Koontz "Politics is what we create out of what we do, what we hope for, what we dare to imagine." ~Sen. Paul Wellstone 1944-2002 "Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." ~Mark Twain "The source of love is deep in us, and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person's suffering and bring that person joy." ~Thich Nhat Hanh "Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength." ~Arnold Schwarzenegger, Actor "We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers -- you can blame anyone but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change, you're the one who has got to change. It's as simple as that, isn't it?" ~Katherine Hepburn, American actress "Never doubt the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. That's about the only way it has ever happened in the past." ~Margaret Mead (1901-1978), anthropologist "There is, however, a somber point in the social outlook of Americans. Their sense of equality and human dignity is mainly limited to people of white skin...The more I feel like an American, the more the situation pains me." ~Albert Einstein, 1946 address at Lincoln Univ. "One moment of patience may ward off a great disaster; one moment of impatience may ruin a whole life." ~Chinese proverb "Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don't work, those that break down, and those that get lost." ~Russell Baker "Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith." ~Henry Ward Beecher, Presbyterian minister (1813-1887) "Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present." ~Roger Babson

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us." ~Alexander Graham Bell "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." ~John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist "We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers." ~ Martin Luther King Jr. "Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead." ~Louisa May Alcott "People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost." ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr "Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world." ~Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Philosopher "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." ~Frank Herbert in Dune - the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear "I am pleading for the future; I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by reason and judgment and understanding and faith that all life is worth saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute of man." ~Clarence Darrow, (1924 summation, Leopold & Loeb trial) "We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors... but they all have to learn to live in the same box." "Everybody can be great ... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." ~Martin Luther King, Jr. "Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be." ~Thomas A. Kempis "The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self." ~Whitney Young (1921-1971), civil rights leader "The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice." ~Mahatma Gandhi "When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly." ~Edward Teller "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible." -Yale University management professor about student Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith later founded Fed Ex!) "Did you ever see the customers in health-food stores? They are pale skinny people who look half-dead. In a steak house you see robust, ruddy people. They're dying, of course, but they look terrific." ~ Bill Cosby

"We can never reach our destination if we walk only in the sunshine." ~ from the movie "Heaven and Earth" "One life stamps and influences another, which in turn stamps and influences another, on and on until the soul of human experience breathes on in generations we'll never even meet." ~Mary Kay Blakely, journalist "You shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back." "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." ~Albert Einstein "Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf." ~William James, from the essay "The Will to Believe" "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." ~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), Civil rights leader "I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be "happy." I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. ~ Leo C. Rosten, 1908-, Polish-born American humorist-sociologist "Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: Always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?" ~James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937), writer "There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval." ~George Santayana "Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not." ~Vaclav Havel, Czech Republic President and playwright "Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~Harold Whitman "In matters of style swim with the current; in matters of principle stand like a rock." ~Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd U.S. president "A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday." ~Alexander Pope (1688-1744), poet "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." ~Melody Beattie "Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all." ~ William Faulkner "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy "How wonderful it would be if we could help our children and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving at an early age. Thanksgiving opens the doors. It changes a child's personality. A child is resentful, negative - or thankful. Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness, they draw people." ~ Sir John Templeton "Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." ~Epicurus, Greek Philosopher "Be life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for." ~David Starr Jordan(1851-1931), educator and writer "Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy." ~Albert Einstein "A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience." ~Miguel de Cervantes "It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it." ~ Steven Wright

When eating fruit, think of the person who planted the tree. ~Vietnamese proverb "Love is the only thing you get more of by giving it away." ~Tom Wilson "We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about." ~ Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), Writer "The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the tides, and gravitation, we will harness the energies of love for God. And then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire." ~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) "No matter where you go, there you are." ~ Buckaroo Banzai "We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have." ~Frederick Keonig "My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment." ~Oprah Winfrey "Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it." ~M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist & writer "While we have the gift of life, it seems to me the only tragedy is to allow part of us to die - whether it is our spirit, our creativity or our glorious uniqueness." ~Gilda Radner (1946-1989), Comedian "It's no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary." ~ Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British Prime Minister "Money can buy you a wonderful dog, but only love will make him wag his tail." "The words you speak today should be soft and tender ... for tomorrow you may have to eat them." "The true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good." ~Ann Landers, newspaper "advice" columnist "If you want to work for world peace, go home and love your families." ~Mother Teresa of Calcutta, nun and founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity (Nobel Prize for Peace acceptance speech, 1979) "The winners in life think constantly in terms of I can, I will, and I am. Losers, on the other hand, concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have or would have done, or what they can't do." ~Dennis Waitley "In spite of warnings, nothing much happens until the status quo becomes more painful than change." ~Laurence J. Peter (1919-1990), writer "The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself." ~ William Blake "Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box." - Italian proverb "I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion, and elimination of ignorance, selfishness, and greed." ~ Dalai Lama, 1989 Nobel Peace-Prize speech "If you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world..." ~Deepak Chopra "Whoever kindles the flames of intolerance is lighting a fire underneath his own home." ~Harrold Stassen (b.1907) U.S. politician "If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down." ~Ray Bradbury, Science Fiction writer "The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." ~ Anna Quindlen, Writer "Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson A Little Prayer Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my shape to keep. Please no wrinkles, please no bags. Please lift my butt before it sags. Please no age spots, Please no gray. And as for my belly, please take it away. Please keep me healthy; Please keep me young, And thanks, Dear Lord, For all you've done. Amen.

"We cannot let ourselves off the hook by thinking that the world will improve by somebody else's effort. Martin Luther King didn't sit back and say, "Somebody ought to fight for civil rights." Gandhi didn't say, "How can just one Indian attorney transform a nation?" There is a power in you, a Soul Force that can make changes for the better. That fire is burning in you, right at this moment." ~Mary Manin Morrissey "The solidarity which binds all men together as members of a common family makes it impossible for wealthy nations to look with indifference upon the hunger, misery and poverty of other nations whose citizens are unable to enjoy even elementary human rights. The nations of the world are becoming more and more dependent on one another and it will not be possible to preserve a lasting peace so long as glaring economic and social imbalances persist."  ~from Catholic Peace document (author unknown) "What makes humility so desirable is the marvelous thing it does to us; it creates in us a capacity for the closest possible intimacy with God." -Monica Baldwin "There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world - its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. That's all there is to it. If an activity is not grounded in 'to love' or 'to learn,' it does not have value." ~Anne Rice "Nothing stops the person who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to develop his achievement muscle. It's a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment." ~ Eric Butterworth, Unity minister "Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake." ~Marie Beyon Ray Success is not measured by how high you fly, but how high you bounce. "Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud. Any of us will put out more and better ideas if our efforts are appreciated." ~Alexander F. Osborn (1888-1966), advertising executive "A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour." "Live as though it were your last day on earth. Some day you will be right." ~Robert Anthony, American psychologist "Go outside, to the fields, enjoy nature and the sunshine, go out and try to recapture the happiness in yourself and in God. Think of all the beauty that's still left in and around you and be happy." ~Anne Frank You can't control the length of your life, but you can control the width and the depth of it. Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known... or done. "If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Alexander Solzhenitsyn Children are natural mimics, who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.” ~Mark Twain "I've found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often." ~Brian Tracy "Down deep in every soul is a hidden longing, impulse, and ambition to do something fine and enduring... If you are willing, great things are possible to you." ~Grenville Kleiser "With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable." ~ Thomas E. Buxton "A person is not old until regrets take the place of dreams." ~ John Barrymore (1882-1942), actor "I was brought up to respect my elders and now I don¹t have to respect anybody." - George Burns at age 87 "The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin." --Jay Leno "If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito." ~Betty Reese

"If only I could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment, without having to accomplish anything." ~ Ashleigh Brilliant "History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats." ~B. C. Forbes "To the world you may be just one person, but to one person, you may be the world." ~author unknown "When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter." ~Albert Camus "In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness." ~Mahatma Gandhi "Few of us will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of these acts will be written the history of this generation." ~Robert F. Kennedy "You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire Universe, deserve your love and affection." ~ Buddha "None of us has the power to make someone else love us. But we all have the power to give away love, to love other people. And if we do so, we change the kind of person we are, and we change the kind of world we live in." ~ Rabbi Harold Kushner, in Handbook for the Heart Happenings! "Life is a game show where the people who enjoy it are the winners." ~ Orson Bean, actor "One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness - simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain." ~ George Sand (1804-1876), writer "There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving and that is your own self." ~Aldous Huxley "Your destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. Many people have the right aims in life - they just never get around to pulling the trigger. When you determine what you want, you have made the most important decision in your life. You have to know what you want in order to attain it." ~ John Mason, Writer and publisher The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials. ~Chinese Proverb "Hardening of the attitudes is the most deadly disease on the face of the earth." ~Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker & writer "Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest earliest natural resources, which must be preserved at all cost." ~James Thurber (1894 - 1961), Writer "The greatest achievements were at first and for a time, dreams. The oak sleeps in the acorn." ~ James Allen (1864-1912), writer "Do you know how important now is? Enjoy it as much as you can, because no matter how much you want to hold on to 'now,' it's going to be 'was.' " ~ Sid Caesar, Comedian and actor "The most revolutionary act one can commit in our world is to be happy." ~ Dr. Hunter "Patch" Adams, Physician "You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair." ~Chinese Proverb "The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes." ~Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect You must be the change you wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi "No matter how much you nurse a grudge, it won't get better." "A man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life." ~ Muhammad Ali "Birds sing after a storm, why shouldn't we?" ~Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890-1995) "The main cause for failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want at the moment." "He that will not reason is a bigot, He that cannot reason is a fool, He that dares not reason is a slave." ~William Drummond

“Love may not make the world go round, but I must admit that it makes the ride worthwhile.” ~ Sean Connery "The Infinite is working in everything. All the different eddies of motion called life are controlled by that Cosmic Intelligence." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda "To achieve the impossible, one must think the absurd; to look where everyone else has looked, but to see what no one else has seen." Success "Laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson "I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." ~ Lily Tomlin "To prevent any misconstruction, I must add, that I do not believe that a private education can work the wonders which some sanguine writers have attributed to it. Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then fairly be inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education." ~ Mary Wollstonecraft, from The Rights of Women Johnny had been misbehaving and was sent to his room. After a while he emerged and informed his mother that he had thought it over and then said a prayer. "Fine," said the pleased mother. "If you ask God to help you not misbehave, He will help you." "Oh, I didn't ask Him to help me not misbehave," said Johnny. "I asked Him to help you put up with me." "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep for ever… The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest." ~ Thomas Jefferson on Slavery

"You can complain because rosebushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses." "When man is born, he is tender and weak. At death, he is stiff and hard. All things, the grass as well as trees, are tender and supple while alive. When dead, they are withered and dried. Therefore the stiff and hard are companions of death. The tender and the weak are companions of life. " ~ Lao-Tzu "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich... Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own." ~ John F. Kennedy, 1961 Presidential Inaugural Speech "In his farewell address, George Washington warned the people about political parties. Now we see how both Democrats and Republicans have conspired to reduce political participation. If this is the best Democrats and Republicans have to offer, it's time to look elsewhere... Politics should be the prism for our most noble intentions." ~ Marianne Williamson "It's always easy to see both sides of an issue we are not particularly concerned about." ~ unknown "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18." ~ Albert Einstein       A rare-book collector met a guy who said he'd just thrown out an old BIBLE that had been packed away for generations. "Somebody named Guten-something had printed it," the man explained.       "Not Gutenberg!" gasped the book lover. "You've just thrown away one of the most famous books ever printed. One copy recently sold at auction for over $4 million dollars!"       The other man was still unmoved. "My copy wouldn't have brought a dime," he said "some guy named Martin Luther scribbled notes all over it." "Life is a whole series of circumstances beyond your control." -- Van Roy's Truism "I wish there were a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a knob called "brightness," but that doesn't work." "I have seen the science I worshipped and the aircraft I loved destroying the civilization I expected them to serve." -Charles Lindbergh An intellectual, Lindbergh opposed violating US neutrality before US entry into WWII. Once the US entered the war, he supported the US war effort "It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life, perpetuating itself through all eternity; to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the Universe; and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature." -Albert Einstein "The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it is to come out, for if you want the kernel you must break the shell. And therefore, if you want to discover nature's nakedness, you must destroy its symbols, and the farther you get in, the nearer you come to its essence. When you come to the One that gathers all things up into itself, there your soul must stay." ~Meister Eckhart "It is a blessed thing that in every age someone has had enough individuality and courage to stand by his own convictions." ~Robert G ingersoll "I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion, and elimination of ignorance, selfishness, and greed." ~ Dalai Lama, 1989 Nobel Prize Speech. Full transcript of speech in the "Historical Documents" at www.quotes2u.com Words of Wisdom As We Mature Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst, for they are sticking to their diets. Life is an endless struggle full of frustrations and challenges, but eventually you find a hairstylist you like. You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster. I finally got my head together, and my body fell apart. You don't stop laughing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop laughing. ~ A Riddle ~ What is greater than God, More evil than the devil, The poor have it, The rich need it, And if you eat it, you'll die? (Keep in mind that 80% of kindergarten kids got the answer, compared to just 17% of Stanford seniors.) Answer: Nothing

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." -Galileo Galilei, famous Italian scientist who was persecuted by the clergy of his day for heresy. "There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction." -John F. Kennedy "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." -Leo Buscaglia "I attach more importance to love and work than to meditation.... Love without meditation is enough -- meditation without love is not." ~ Meher Baba "Relationships are hard. It's like a full-time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to leave you, they should give you two weeks' notice. There should be severance pay, and before they leave you, they should have to find you a temp." --Bob Ettinger "Infatuation is when you think he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford - but you'll take him anyway." ~ Judith Viorst "Falling in love is actually a powerful experience of feeling the Universe move through you. The other person has become a channel for you, a catalyst that triggers you to open up to the love, beauty and compassion within." ~ Shakti Gawain "How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these." -George Washington Carver Carver was a former slave who is credited with pioneering crop rotation using peanuts and sweet potatoes to replenish the soil. This quote is a message of tolerance from someone who suffered the sting of slavery. "Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it." "Reality is what refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.." -- Philip K. Dick "You can't have everything... where would you put it?" -- Steven Wright "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." -Alvin Toffler "Even for those who don't consider themselves "spiritual" in a conventional sense, creating a successful team, whether it's an NBA champion or a record setting sales force, is essentially a spiritual act. It requires the individuals involved to surrender their self interest for the greater good so that the whole adds up to more than the sum of its parts." ~ Phil Jackson, from his introduction in "Sacred Hoops"   Spirit in the Workplace "An important discipline that I developed was to study my own mental and emotional behavior at work. For instance, what were my emotional responses to different kinds of triggers? What did I do if someone ignored or insulted me, or my boss didn't like a headline I wrote? I began to notice when I was feeling self-centered or self-pitying so that I didn't act from those feelings more than once, learning to catch myself before the next time. And I stopped gossiping with everyone...The big lesson for me was that every single moment of life is a contemplative practice if you choose to pay attention." ~ Beth Witrogen McLeod, author & journalist at the San Francisco Examiner

"We think that we must become acquisitive -- though we call it by a better-sounding word. We call it evolution, growth, development, progress, and we say it is essential." ~ J. Krishnamurti "We all know, from what we experience with and within ourselves, that our conscious acts spring from our desires and our fears." -- Albert Einstein "It is wonderful and necessary part of any relationship to know that you can depend on someone to be there. It is also essential to know that at times you can depend on them not to be." ~ Dolly Parton "Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out." - Art Linkletter "It is our attitude at the beginning that more than anything else produces a successful outcome." ~ Earl Nightingale "Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself." "Let us not look back to the past with anger, nor towards the future with fear, but look around with awareness." ~ James Thurber "I have everything I had 20 years ago, only it's all a little bit lower. ~ Gypsy Rose Lee "Middle age is having a choice of two temptations and choosing the one that will get you home earlier." "The aging process could be slowed down... if it had to work its way through Congress." As we grow older, year by year, my husband always mourns: the less and less we feel our oats, the more we feel our corns.

"I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch." ~ Gilda Radner "There is no evil in the universe which is not the result of ignorance, and which would not, if we were ready and willing to learn its lesson, lead us to a higher wisdom, and then vanish away." ~ James Allan "Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel." ~ Bella Abzug "You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life." ~ Krishnamurti, Think On These Things "It is God's Spirit breathing in us and through us which helps us to do whatever we do. We accomplish this, God and I, working together." ~Richard N. Bolles, How To Find Your Mission In Life "If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again." ~ William Penn "A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened." ~ Albert Camus Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory ~ Albert Schweitzer

"You listen. You hear your part to play. You do it as impeccably as you can do it, but what happens is what happens. The secret is do not be attached to the fruits of your actions. You can want the fruits and aim toward them, but don't grab - because you don't know how it is supposed to turn out." ~Ram Dass “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1803-1882, American writer, philosopher Happiness If you want happiness... For an hour - take a nap For a day - go fishing For a month - get married For a year - inherit a fortune For a lifetime - help someone else. ~ Chinese Proverb "Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one." ~Malcolm S. Forbes "You and I posses within ourselves, at every moment of our lives, under all circumstances, the power to transform the quality of our lives." ~Werner Erhard ANYWAY People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.     Love them anyway. If you do good, people may accuse you of selfish motives.     Do good anyway. If you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies.     Succeed anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.     Do good anyway. Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable.     Be honest and transparent anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.     Build anyway. People who really want help may attack you if you help them.     Help them anyway. Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt.     Give the world your best anyway. - author unknown "A human being is part of the whole, called by us the 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." ~Albert Einstein "Our real self, the soul, is immortal. We may sleep for a little while in that change called death, but we can never be destroyed. We exist, and that existence is eternal. The wave comes to the shore, and then goes back to the sea; it is not lost." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda "Switch on your light in all lives. Feel that you are the One Life that shines in all creation." ~ Parmahansa Yogananda "If the only prayer you say in your whole life is 'thank you,' that would suffice." ~ Meister Eckhart Thanksgiving We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace-- too proud to pray to the God that made us. ~Abraham Lincoln, speech in 1863 declaring the Thanksgiving holiday (during the middle of the Civil War.) "No matter what you can do, remember that God is the Source and the Flood flowing through all the channels of your powers." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda “Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you and act accordingly.” ~ Thomas Jefferson: 1743-1826, President of the U.S. (1801-1809) "Energy... What is energy? A lot of things are energy. We are energy. This stuff is energy... also this sort of feeling that we have here of being this many people stoned together... is energy. Energy's more specific than that, though -- I believe that energy's the Holy Spirit, I believe that it's the body and blood of Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, and anybody along that line. We're a dance of energy, arranged and held in the mind of God. “ ~ Stephen Gaskin, in Monday Night Class "Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together...." ~Carl Zwanzig "The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety." ~ Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) "I could not milk the cow and leave it thirsty." -Munyawera, current volunteer and former client of Christian Children's Fund on why he donates his time to CCF.

Mother Theresa Humility, selfless service, and unending love.... truly a shining Light has gone from our world, although her spirit shines on in all she created and inspired. May we honor her memory by our own commitment to Service with Love. Some quotes that Mother Theresa liked to share... The mission of her Order: "to put oneself entirely and wholeheartedly at the free service of the poor." "Intense love does not measure; it just gives." "Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing." "The world today is hungry not only for bread but hungry for love; hungry to be wanted, to be loved." "Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart." "We have been created to love and to be loved." "As the Father has loved me, we will love one another." "Do not allow yourselves to be disheartened by any failure as long as you have done your best." "We must make our homes centers of compassion and forgive endlessly." "If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive." "If we pray, we will believe; If we believe, we will love; If we love, we will serve." "If I stop to think about what is happening in the world, that is time taken away from my work." "The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace." "We can do no great things; only small things with great love."

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." ~Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1937 INTEGRITY Integrity is when what you say, what you do, what you think, and who you ARE all come from the same place. ~ Madelyn Griffith-Haynie "The years teach what the days never know." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1803-1882, American writer, philosopher "God did not create us and leave us to work out our salvation. He put His Spirit within us, which we call the Christ" ~May Rowland, The Magic of the Word "We have thought that we were to be saved by Jesus making personal petitions and sacrifices for us, but now we see that we are to be saved by using the creative principles that He developed in Himself, and that He is ever ready to cooperate with us in developing in ourselves by observing the law as He observed it." ~ Charles Fillmore, Jesus Christ Heals "If you learn to laugh at yourself, you'll never run out of material."

Laughter is Healing       Laughter may turn out to be the best medicine after all. Recent research shows that in addition to lifting one's spirits, letting out a good guffaw actually helps boost the cardiovascular, muscular, respiratory, and immune systems.       According to William Fry, M.D., an emeritus associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Stanford Univ. Medical School, hearty laughing is a type of light aerobic exercise, increasing the person's breathing rate, which increases the oxygen in the blood and stimulates muscles throughout the body.       In one of Fry's studies, laughter temporarily raised participants' blood pressure - beneficial because is increases circulation and, consequently, the distribution of nutrients to body tissues. In another study, laughter was found to boost the immune system: an analysis of participants' blood showed increased activity of white blood cells, which fight disease.      Fry says everyone can benefit from a hearty laugh. He suggests that people identify and actively seek what best tickles their funny bone.

Honoring Diversity Within the Unity Movement      We believe that all people are created with sacred worth. Therefore, we recognize the importance of serving all people within the Unity Family in spiritually and emotionally caring ways. We strive for our ministries, publications and programs to reach out to all who seek Unity support and spiritual growth. It is imperative that our ministries and outreaches be free of discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender, age, creed, religion, national origin, ethnicity, physical disability, or sexual orientation. Our sincere desire is to create spiritually aware organizations that are nondiscriminatory and that support diversity. In our effort to reach out to all people as did our Way-Shower, Jesus Christ, we support the modification of facilities to make them accessible to all people, regardless of physical challenges; the translation of materials into Braille and other languages; and respect for the wonderful variety of human commitments and relationships. We encourage ministers, teachers, and others within Unity to honor the strength of diversity within their spiritual communities. It is with love and in celebration of our unity, in the midst of our wondrous diversity, that we affirm this position. -- Association of Unity Churches, in Contact magazine (June/July 1997)

Commitment "The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now." --Goethe "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, Who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just some of us. It's in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others." ~ Marianne Williamson, in A Return to Love (widely attributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 inaugural speech) Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt: 1884-1962, diplomat, writer, U.S. First Lady (1933-1945) Nothing can stop the (person) with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the (person) with the wrong mental attitude. ~ Thomas Jefferson: 1743-1826, The 3rd US President (1801-1809) "I do not know what I may appear to the world. But, to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." ~ Sir Isaac Newton, born 1643 “Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.” ~ Elbert Hubbard,1856-1915, American writer "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge." ~ Albert Einstein "The important thing is not to stop questioning." ~ Albert Einstein "To grow old is to pass from passion to compassion." ~ Albert Camus: 1913-1960, French writer, philosopher "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve it through not dying." ~ Woody Allen "Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important." ~ T. S. Eliot: 1888-1965, American-born British poet, critic "I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people." ~ Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle "Commandment Number One of any truly civilized society is this: Let people be different." ~ Ray Stannard Baker: 1870-1946, American writer "Only in a continuing relationship is there a possibility for love to become deeper and fuller so that it envelops all our life and extends into the community." --Herbert Otto “It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Symptoms of Inner Peace  Be on the lookout for symptoms of inner peace. The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to inner peace and it is possible that people everywhere could come down with it in epidemic proportions. This could pose a serious threat to what has, up to now, been a fairly stable condition of conflict in the world. Some signs to look for: A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based on past experiences. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment. A loss of interest in judging other people. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others. A loss of interest in conflict. A loss of the ability to worry. (This is a very serious symptom.) Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation. Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature. Frequent attacks of smiling. An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen. An increased susceptibility to the love offered by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it. Any such symptoms should be reported to the authorities immediately.

"Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson "Believing is one thing, doing another. Many talk like the sea but their lives are stagnant marshes. Others raise their heads above the mountain tops, while their souls cling to the dark walls of caves." ~ Kahlil Gibran I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be "happy." I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. ~ Leo C. Rosten: 1908-, Polish-born American humorist-sociologist "The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's leisure." ~ Sydney J. Harris We are members of a vast cosmic orchestra, in which each living instrument is essential to the complementary and harmonious playing of the whole. ~ J. Allen Boone, Kinship With All Life "Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. " ~ Heraclitus, Greek philosopher, about the fifth century B.C. "The highest result of education is tolerance." ~ Helen Keller I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. --Galileo: 1564-1642, Italian astronomer, mathematician, physicist "The best-educated human being is the one who understands most about the life in which he is placed." ~Helen Keller "Children have more need of models than of critics." "I would like to be allowed to admire a man's opinion as I would his dog - without being expected to take it home with me." ~ Frank A. Clark "The world is so constructed, that if you wish to enjoy its pleasures, you must also endure its pains. Whether you like it or not, you cannot have one without the other." ~ Swami Brahmananda I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: try to please everybody. ~ Herbert Bayard Swope: 1882-1958, American journalist Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. ~ Will Rogers: 1879-1935, American humorist “In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.” ~ Ivan Illich: 1926-, Austrian-born American theologian, writer "I work in conservation and find energy in and for it because, in spite of lots of reasons for despair, I think we have it within us not only to avoid an awful confrontation, but to convey to our children a world in which development and preservation are balanced well short of the crisis point." ~ W. William Weeks in Beyond the Ark: Tools for an Ecosystem Approach to Conseervation "People may be concerned about the big, global problems, but if they want to do something concrete in their own lives, it usually comes down to shopping and taking out the trash." ~ John Ruston, staff member, Environmental Defense Fund Modern Maturity magazine: How do you feel about the last Congress ending “welfare as we know it"? Andrew Young:       I think these people are mad. I mean, they are trying to destroy the America I know and love. It’s sinful. Unless Jesus is lying, a lot of these people are going to hell.       How can the so-called religious right be so callous about poor people’s opportunities and cater to the basest instincts of humanity -- rather than the generosity of spirit that I’ve always associated with religion?” ~Andrew Young, a United Church of Christ minister, has served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (under Jimmy Carter), mayor of Atlanta, and aid to Rev. Martin Luther King. Don't try to force anything. Let life be a deep let-go. See God opening millions of flowers every day without forcing the buds. -- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Dying for Enlightenment ~ The Internet ~ “...although this stuff can be really exciting and creative, a lot of the technology behind (the Web) doesn't work very well..... The best attitude is to consider the Web a dancing bear. The mere fact of its existence is remarkable; whether it waltzes is beside the point.” --Denise Caruso, http://www.utne.com/netguide/

-MOTHER- ~ WONDERFUL MOTHER ~ God made a wonderful mother, A mother who never grows old; He made her smile of the sunshine, And He moulded her heart of pure gold; In her eyes He placed bright shining stars, In her cheeks fair roses you see; God made a wonderful mother, And He gave that dear mother to me. ~ Pat O'Reilly ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ A Mother's Prayer ~ Dear Lord, It's such a hectic day, With little time to stop and pray, For Life's been anything but calm, Since You called me to be a Mom, Running errands, matching socks, Building dreams with matching blocks, Cooking, cleaning, finding shoes, And other stuff that children lose, Fitting lids on bottled bugs, Wiping tears and giving hugs, A stack of last week's mail to read, So where's the quiet time I need? Yet, when I steal a moment, Lord, Just at the sink or ironing board, To ask the blessings of Your grace, I see them, in my small one's face, That you have blessed me all the while, And I stoop to kiss that precious smile. ~Unknown Author A man called his mother in Florida. He said to his mother, "How are you doing?" She said, "Not too good. I've been very weak." The son then asked, "Why are you so weak?" She said, "Because I haven't eaten in 38 days." The son then asked, "How come you haven't eaten in 38 days.?" She said, "Because I didn't want my mouth to be filled with food when you called." "Strength and honor are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come." ~Proverbs 31:25 "My mother had no feelings but of kindness and beneficence, yet her mind was as firm as her temper was mild and gentle" ~John Quincy Adams "When God thought of Mother, He must have laughed with satisfaction and framed it quickly; so rich, so deep, so divine, so full of soul, power, and beauty, was the conception." ~Henry Ward Beecher "My role is to release my children full force on the world, loving themselves, loving what's different about themselves, embracing what's different about other people, and up for some kind of adventure." ~Susan Sarandon, American actress "My mother is a poem I'll never be able to write, although everything I write is a poem to my mother." ~Tillie Olsen “My mother was dead for five years before I knew that I loved her very much.” ~ Lillian Hellman

"Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other." ~ Euripides "Don't wait for some miracle to be performed on you from without, lifting you above your fears and doubts and self-centeredness. You help God from within by turning in outgoing love to others, and miraculously your fears and doubts and self-centeredness will vanish. The miracle starts within, not from without." ~ E. Stanley Jones "No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions." -- Margaret Thatcher, 1986 "We always hear about the haves and the have-nots. Why don't we hear about the do-ers and the do-nots?" ~ Thomas Sowell, Creators Syndicate "When I was a young man, I vowed never to marry until I found the ideal woman. Well, I found her -- but alas, she was waiting for the ideal man." -- Robert Schuman When I see the Ten Most Wanted List... I always have this thought: If we'd made them feel wanted earlier, they wouldn't be wanted now. Eddie Cantor: 1892-1964, entertainer "You know what I like best about looking at the stars? Not the stars themselves, but all those empty spaces between the stars. That's where I can imagine traveling for ever and ever. That's where I can imagine infinity." --T. A. Barron "The Eskimo has 52 names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love." ~ Margaret Atwood "Unconditional love gives a stable foundation to a relationship. And it means just what it says. No conditions -- no strings attached to my love. No matter what you say or do, I will continue loving you. I may not like what you do, but my love is unconditional and will not be affected -- not even if our involvement changes." ~ Ken Keyes, Jr., A Conscious Person's Guide to Relationships, 1979 "There is within each of us a deep and holy hunger for sacred union.... Sacred partnership provides a gateway to God, an opportunity to practice love daily, a chance to enhance our heart connection through commitment and consistent gentle kindness to someone else." --Sue Patton Thoele, Heart Centered Marriage "One makes mistakes: That is life. But it is never quite a mistake to have loved." ~ Romain Rolland Experience is the comb that Nature gives us when we are bald. ~ Belgian Proverb "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear." ~ St. John

Lessons From The Geese A flock of geese is worth watching. As each goose flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird following. By flying in V formation, the whole flock adds 71% more flying range than if each bird flew alone. Lesson: People who share a common direction and sense of comunity can go farther and get where they are going quicker and easier because they are traveling on the thrust of one another. When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back in the formation and another goose flies at the point position. Lesson: It pays to take turns doing the challenging tasks and sharing leadership. People, like geese, are interdependent. The geese in formation honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up the speed. Lesson: We need to make sure our honking from behind is encouraging, not irritating, or, worse yet, critical. When a goose gets sick or wounded or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help protect it. They stay with the goose until it is either able to fly again or dies. They they launch out on their own with another formation or catch up with the original flock. Lesson: If we have as much sense as geese, we will likewise stand by and care for one another.

"If we would read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man's life a sorrow and a suffering enough to disarm all hostility." ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Bill Moyers, Johnson's press secretary, was saying grace at lunch one day. "Speak up, Bill," shouted Johnson. "I can't hear a damn thing." "I wasn't addressing you, Mr. President," replied Moyers quietly. "Humor is a prelude to faith and Laughter is the beginning of prayer." ~ Reinhold Niebuhr, 1949 Seeing Holiness We must remember that everything in this world has God's fingerprints on it -- that alone makes it special. Our inability to see beauty doesn't suggest that it is not there. Rather, it suggests that we are not looking carefully enough or with broad enough perspective to see it. When our life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday things, something magical begins to happen: Ordinary life becomes extra-ordinary, and the very process of living begins to nourish our soul! As long as we can find even a kernel of holiness in a situation, our soul will grow and feel cared for. ~ Rabbi Harold Kushner, Ph.D. "If we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and destruction. In our day of space vehicles and guided ballistic missiles, the choice is either nonviolence or nonexistence." ~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.       "I have a dream... that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."       "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."       "I have a dream that even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with people's injustices, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice."       "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." ~ The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1964, he was the twelfth American, and the youngest person ever (at age 35), to be so honored. He was assassinated in 1968. "You are here to aid in the great expansion of consciousness. You are not here to cry about the miseries of the human condition but to change them when you do not find them to your liking through the joy, strength and vitality that is within you; to create in spirit as faithfully and beautifuly as you can in flesh." ~ Jane Roberts, The Nature of Personal Reality "When mind soars in pursuit of the things conceived in space, it pursues emptiness. But when the man dives deep within himself, he experiences the fullness of existence." ~ Meher Baba

"Jesus is not a blue-eyed right-winger. Jesus is the one who entered the world among the dispossessed and the outcasts to announce an entirely new way of thinking and living. The way of Jesus and the prophets...moves us beyond the familiar options of abandoning the poor, controlling the poor, or even "helping" the poor from places of isolation and comfort. Instead, it leads us to a new relationship with one another, a deep reconnection, a restoration of the shattered covenant." ~ Jim Wallis "The soul attuned with God is deeply sensitive to beauty in all forms, and seeks ever to express beauty in the little as well as the big details of living." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda "We are changing, we have got to change, and we can no more help it than leaves can help going yellow and coming loose in autumn." ~ D. H. Lawrence In 1954, Professor Frank retired from Harvard, and I helped him clean out his office. It was unbelievable chaos. He had, as I remember, a rolltop desk, and from it he extracted letters, some of which he had never opened, and which dated from the 1930s. He opened a few and observed, "You see, they were not so important anyway." ~ Jeremy Bernstein, remembering Phillipp Frank in Masters: Portraits Of Great Teachers by Joseph Epstein "Strangely enough, the profound and the transcendental are to be found in the factory. It may not fill you with bliss to look at it, it may not sound as good as the spiritual experiences that we have read about, but somehow reality is to be found there, in the way in which we relate to everyday problems." ~ Chogyam Trungpa "Express the limitless power of soul in anything you take up. Every position you hold in life will be the stepping stone to a higher one if you strive to climb upward." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda "Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life's most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?" ~ Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. "People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson "Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us: we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing, turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows." ~ Octavio Paz "When nobody around you seems to measure up, it's time to check your yardstick." ~ Bill Lemley "I'm not into isms and asms. There isn't a Catholic moon and a Baptist sun. I know the universal God is universal....  I feel that the same God-force that is the mother and father of the pope is also the mother and father of the loneliest wino on the planet." ~ Dick Gregory "When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free." ~ Charles Evans Hughes "You know you can never find out what's happening from the company bulletin board or the adult press. You know that. The king's messengers are always telling you what they want you to know, for their own benefit. The evolutionary message, what's really happening, has always come from the outcasts." ~ Dr. Timothy Leary "The important thing is not to stop questioning... Never lose a holy curiosity." ~ Albert Einstein "Driven by the force of love the fragments of the world seek each other that the world may come into being." ~ Teilhard de Chardin

"Authentic empowerment is the knowing that you are on purpose, doing God's work, peacefully and harmoniously." ~ Dr. Wayne Dyer, Everyday Wisdom "The scenery of mountains painted on the ever-changing azure canvas of the sky, the mysterious mechanism of the human body, the rose, the green grass carpet, the magnanimity of souls, the loftiness of minds, the depth of love -- all these things remind us of a God who is beautiful and noble." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda "We are injured and hurt emotionally - not so much by other people or what they say or don't say - but by our own attitude and our own response." ~ Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics "What seem to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise." ~ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1899 "As he told me about his plans, I listened but could not forget that he would not last the week. What folly to be talking of the future, of his future! But once outside, I could not help thinking that after all there is not much difference between a mortal man and a dying man. The absurdity of making plans is only slightly more obvious in the second case." ~ E. M. Cioran "You can offer your love completely to hundreds of people and still retain the same love you had originally. It is like knowledge. The wise man can teach all he knows and when he's through he'll still know all that he has taught." ~ Leo Buscaglia, Love, 1972 "When we give from a place of love, Rather than from a place of expectation, More usually comes back to us Than we could ever have imagined." ~ Susan Jeffers, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway "Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile." ~ Franklin P. Jones "However mean your life is, meet it and live; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in Paradise. Love your life poor as it is. You may perchance have pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse." ~ Henry David Thoreau "What a wonderful life I've had!     I only wish I'd realized it sooner." ~ Colette "We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn it is God who is shaking them." ~ Charles C. West "Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus be normal. Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years." ~ R. D. Laing "We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success; We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery." ~ Samuel Smiles "See every difficulty as a challenge, a stepping stone, and never be defeated by anything or anyone." ~ Eileen Caddy, The Dawn of Change "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried." ~ G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World (1910) "Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature "Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature "We all carry it within us; supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted and cannot be destroyed. But it is hidden deep, which is what makes life a problem." ~ Huston Smith "God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason." ~ Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings "Truth does not change although your perception of it may vary or alter drastically." ~ John & Lyn St. Clair Thomas, Eyes of the Beholder "Worry is the product of a feverish imagination working under the stimulus of desires. There are few things that exhaust energy as much as worry." ~ Meher Baba "Those who are mentally and emotionally healthy are those who have learned when to say yes, when to say no, and when to say whoopee!" ~ Willard S. Krabill "The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up." ~ G. K. Chesterton, 1904 "All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change." ~ G. K. Chesterton, 1908 "Love is an energy, an all-existing substance. It's noticed most when you don't have negative thoughts; then you notice love everywhere. If you have a lot of negative thoughts, you don't notice it. When you're feeling very positive, you feel love everywhere and you see it everywhere." ~ Sondra Ray "Love is the answer, no matter what the question is. And love is what you truly are, way down deep inside." ~ from the song Love Is The Answer by Lytingale, recorded on Home To My Heart "To be upset over what you don't have... is to waste what you do have." ~ Ken Keyes, Jr., Handbook to Higher Consciousness "I know I'm not seeing things as they are, I'm seeing things as I am." ~ Laurel Lee "God is Love. When we choose to express our Love as Service, we experience our own divinity, and touch the Joy that God must feel in giving us Life." ~ Lytingale

The Global Village If the population of the earth had shrunk to a village the size of 100 people, there would be: 57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from North, South & Central America, 8 Africans. 6 people, all of them U.S. citizens, would control 50% of the wealth; 70 would be unable to read; 50 would suffer from malnutrition; 80 would live in substandard housing; 1 would have a university education.

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