“The world is full of hundreds of beautiful things we can never possibly have time to discover, and there is no time to be unkind or envious or ungenerous, and no sense in enslaving the mind to the trivialities of the moment. For you can be equal to the greatness of life only by marching with it; not by seeking love but by giving it, not seeking to be understood but learning to understand. And when it is all over, there will be an agony of remorse because one spared the effort and did not make more of that little span of opportunity; and knowing reality at last, who knows but that one will look back with unassuageable regret upon one’s pitiful little faith.”
Vivienne de Watteville
"To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference."
Joan Didion (b. 1934), U.S. essayist. Slouching Towards Bethlehem,"On Self-Respect" (1968)
"When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."
Sun Tzu
“You’ve always had the power, my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.”
Glinda (The Good Witch), The Wizard of Oz
"Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
William Shakespeare
"There is a tide in the affairs of mankind. Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures."
William Shakespeare
"Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment."
George Santayana
"Go out on a limb, that's where the fruit is!"
Frank Scully
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."
T. S. Eliot
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security 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 exposure."
Helen Keller
"The fragrance always remains in the hand that gives the rose."
Heda Bejar
Be the change that you want to see in the world.
Gandhi
"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them."
Walt Disney (1901-1966)
If, every day, I dare to remember that I am here on loan, that this house, this hillside, these minutes, are all leased to me, not given, I will never despair. Despair is for those who expect to live forever. I no longer do.
Erica Jong
my heart is not a home for cowards.
d. antoinette foy
Real maturity is to imagine the humanity of every person as fully as you believe in your own humanity.
Tobias Wolff
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
O, with what freshness, what solemnity and beauty, is each new day born; as if to say to insensate man, 'Behold!thou hast one more chance! Strive for immortal glory!'
Harriet Beecher Stowe
We need a renaissance of wonder. We need to renew, in our hearts and in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that life is miracle and magic.
E. Merrill Root
One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world – making the most of one's best.
Harry Emerson Fosdick
"You must be true to yourself. Strong enough to be true to yourself. Brave enough to be strong enough to be true to yourself. Wise enough to be brave enough, to be strong enough to shape yourself from what you actually are."
Sylvia Constance Ashton-Warner, New Zealander author and educator (1908-1984)
"An edge...marks the limits of who you are and what you imagine yourself capable of ... One of the things about an edge is that it represents a really huge identity crisis. On the right side...is a new identity. One the left side is an old identity."
Arnold and Amy Mindell, Riding the horse backwards" 1991
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle
The ultimate aim of the quest...must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but wisdom and power to serve others.
Joseph Campbell
We are here to awaken from the illusion of our
separateness.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Weep not that the world changes - did it keep a
stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to
weep.
William C. Bryant
"Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner, and you can keep the
clubs and the fresh air."
Jack Benny
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
"Hope is a thing with feathers"
When grasping for the last breath in the stranglehold
of life, a close inspection will show that the hands
around your throat are your own.
Bill Deslippe
That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no Gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is a grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are but older children, dear
Who fret to find our bedtime near.
Lewis Carroll 1832-98, Through the Looking-Glass, A Preface (1871)
Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."
Said the old man, "I do that too."
The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
"I do that too," laughed the old man."
Said the little boy, "I often cry."
The old man nodded, "So do I."
"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
"I know what you mean," said the old man.
Shel Silverstein
"And I, too, felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe."
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has
nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may
avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot
learn and feel and change and grow and love and
live.
Leo Buscaglia
This is a story about a man named Eddie and it
begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun.
It might seem strange to start a story with an
ending. But all endings are also beginnings.
We just don't know it at the time.
Mitch Albom (1958- ) _The Five People You Meet in Heaven_ [2003], "The End"
The intellect has little to do on the road to
discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness,
call it intuition or what you will, and the solution
comes to you and you don't know how or why.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.
Rita Mae Brown
Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are
watching.
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS
OFT, in the silly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me:
The smiles, the tears
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimm'd and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus, in the silly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
When I remember all
The friends, so link'd together,
I've seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus, in the silly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Risk! Risk Anything! Care no more for the opinion of
others, for those other voices. Do the hardest thing
on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.
Katherine Mansfield
The moment one is on the side of life, "peace and security" drop out of
consciousness. The only peace, the only security, is in fulfillment.
Henry Miller
We cannot banish dangers, but we can banish fears. We must not demean
life by standing in awe of death.
David Sarnoff
In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.
George Bernard Shaw
Don't play for safety--it's the most dangerous thing in the world.
Hugh Walpole
I am the lion, and his lair!
I am the fear that frightens me!
I am the desert of despair!
And the night of agony!
Night or day, whate'er befall,
I must walk that desert land,
Until I dare my fear and call
The lion out to lick my hand.
Simeon in Anne McCaffrey, _The City Who Fought_
Remember that not to be happy is not to be grateful.
Elizabeth Carter
What a wretched lot of old shrivelled creatures we
shall be by-and-by. Never mind--the uglier we get
in the eyes of others, the lovelier we shall be to
each other; that has always been my firm faith about
friendship.
George Eliot [Marian Evans Cross] (1819-1880) Letter_ [May 27, 1852]
I once shook hands with Pat Boone and my whole right
side sobered up.
Dean Martin (1917-1995)
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without
holding on.
Dean Martin (1917-1995)
It is today, my dear, that I take the perilous leap.
Dear brothers, I am still not all I should be but I am
bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing:
Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.
The Bible, Philippians 3:13 TLB
It is not impossibilities which fill us with the deepest
despair, but possibilities which we have failed to realize.
Robert Mallet, _Apostilles_
I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new
day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit
of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
Joseph Priestley
The world is extremely interesting to a joyful soul.
Alexandra Stoddard
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present and accepting it as it is now.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
William Jennings Bryan
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
_A Witness Tree_ [1942], "The Secret Sits"
People who elevate the thoughts, through constant reflection,
and be steadfast in their action, will positively achieve,
what they originally thought.
Thirukkural (200 BC)
Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created
for pleasure: you were created for Joy. And if you do not know the
difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to
live.
Thomas Merton
I can depend less and less on my own power and sense of
direction...It is so strange to advance backwards and get where you
are going in a totally unexpected way
Thomas Merton wrote in a
letter July 28, 1960
The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind.
William James