As you shop ...

We give most what we want to receive.

This is something to keep in mind as you shop this holiday season. If you can't decide what someone would like to receive, give them something you would like them to have.

- Lyn

In Memory of My Mother - On the Date of Her Birth

Perhaps they are not stars,
but rather openings in heaven
where the love of our lost ones pours through
and shines down upon us
to let us know they are happy.

- Eskimo Proverb

Spirit of Love

You will find, as you look back upon your life,
that the moments when you really lived
are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.

- Henry Drummond

Give, give, give

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.

 ~ Robert Kiyosaki

Making a living and a life

We make a living by what we get.
We make a life by what we give.

- Winston Churchill

Generosity

Generosity is giving more than you can,
and pride is taking less than you need.

- Kahlil Gibran

Winter

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

Our Faithful Friend

Dogs have given us their absolute all.

We are the center of their universe.

We are the focus of their love and faith and trust.

They serve us in return for scraps.

It is without a doubt

the best deal man has ever made.

- Roger Caras

Joined for Life

What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life -- to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

-George Eliot

Birthdays

Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.

- Jean Paul Richter

The Secret of Love

The secret of love is seeking variety in your life together,
and never letting routine chords dull the melody of your romance.

- Anonymous

Life is ...

Life, we learn too late, is in the living, the tissue of every day and hour.

- Stephen Leacock

What Really Matters

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count.

It's the life in your years.

- Abraham Lincoln

Friendship

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.

-- Albert Camus

Lest We Forget

In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

- Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae, MD

War - A Thief

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Caring for Our Old

Our society must make it right and possible for old people
not to fear the young or be deserted by them,
for the test of a civilization is the way
that it cares for its helpless members.

- Pearl S. Buck

Stephen Lewis on AIDS

The situation of people living and dying with AIDS in parts of Africa is so desperate that even the most basic help will bring solace and hope.

- Stephen Lewis

The Last of the Human Freedoms

Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress. 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 offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away 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 way.

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even in the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to life.

- Viktor Frankl

Family

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.

- John Bowring

Be the Change

Change will not come if we wait
for some other person or some other time.
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
We are the change that we seek.

- Barack Obama

Never Look Back

I have made it a rule of my life never to regret and never to look back.
Regret is an appalling waste of energy... you can't build on it;
it's only good for wallowing in.

- Katherine Mansfield

Create your life

The life and love we create is the life and love we live.

- Leo Buscaglia

Choosing our Character

How true Daddy's words were when he said:
all children must look after their own upbringing.
Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths,
but the final forming of a person's character
lies in their own hands.

- Anne Frank