Splendor of the Rose

The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily

do not rob the little violet of it’s scent

nor the daisy of its simple charm.

If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose,

spring would lose its loveliness.

- Therese of Lisieux

Forgiveness

Evolved people race to see who can forgive first.

- Michael Bernard Beckwith

Create Your Future

Every thought we think is creating our future.

- Louise Hay

Seeking Love

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.

- Rumi

Life Force

We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over
into imagination and will.
Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms.
You for one.
Me for another.
The Universe has shouted itself alive.
We are one of the shouts.

- Ray Bradbury

Follow Your Inner Guidance

Every time you don't follow your inner guidance,
you feel a loss of energy,
loss of power,
a sense of spiritual deadness.

- Shakti Gawain

Kindness

Kindness trumps greed: it asks for sharing.
Kindness trumps fear: it calls forth gratefulness and love.
Kindness trumps even stupidity, for with sharing and love, one learns.

- Marc Estrin

Sowing Seeds

Keep on sowing your seed,
for you never know which will grow --
perhaps it all will.

- Albert Einstein

Emerging from Suffering

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;

the most massive characters are seared with scars.

- Kahlil Gibran

Do what you can

I am only one,
but still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
but still I can do something;
and because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do something
that I can do.

- Helen Keller

Outstanding

If you want to stand out,

don't be different;

be outstanding.

- Meredith West

Letting Your Beauty and Light Shine

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 frightens us most.

We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?'

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us.

And when we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

our presence automatically liberates others.

- Maryanne Williamson (Nelson Mandela used in his 1994 inaugural speech)

Home

Home is where the heart can laugh without shyness.
Home is where the heart's tears can dry at their own pace.

~Vernon G. Baker

Creating Your Future

The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths

offered by the present, but a place that is created--

created first in the mind and will,

created next in activity.

The future is not some place we are going to,

but one we are creating.

The paths are not to be found, but made,

and the activity of making them,

changes both the maker and the destination.

- John Schaar

Thoughts

If you are still being hurt by an event that happened to you at twelve,
it is the thought that is hurting you now.

- James Hillman

Seeing Possibilities

Faith sees a beautiful blossom in a bulb,

a lovely garden in a seed,

and a giant oak in an acorn.

- William Arthur Ward

Grace in Giving

There is nothing forced or self-disciplined
about [generosity] ...
[A generous person] goes out of his way
not because his parents taught him
that's how good [people] behave,
but because he has chosen to be alert
to the circumstances in which he can be supportive.

- Tibor R. Machan

Giving Heart

You have not lived a perfect day

even though you have earned your money,

unless you have done something for someone

who will never be able to repay you.

- Ruth Smeltzer

Be Positive

Gladness is akin to goodness.

The world needs all the help you can give

by way of cheerful, optimistic, inspiring thought

and personal example.

- Grenville Kleiser

Generosity

I don't want to be saved.
I want to be spent.

- Fritz Perls

Giving and Receiving

There is a wonderful, mystical law of nature
that the three things we crave most in life -
happiness, freedom and peace of mind -
are always attained by giving them to someone else.

- Anonymous

Compassion

Compassion is not quantitative.
Certainly it is true that behind every human being
that cries out for help
there may be a million or more equally entitled to attention...
How to determine which of one million sounds surrounding you
is more deserving than the rest?

Do not concern yourself in such speculations.
You will never know, you will never need to know.
Reach out and take hold of the one who happens to be nearest.

- Norman Cousins

Choose Your Attitude

Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself:
I, not events, have the power to
make me happy or unhappy today.
I can choose which it shall be.
Yesterday is dead,
tomorrow hasn't arrived yet.
I have just one day, today,
and I'm going to be happy in it.

~ Groucho Marx

Life

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friendship and sharing

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love.
Love risks degenerating into obsession,
friendship is never anything but sharing.

- Elie Wiesel

Set Free for Higher Dreams

Any real change implies the breakup of the world

as one has always known it,

the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.

And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine

what the future will now bring forth,

one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed.

Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity,

to surrender a dream he has long cherished

or a privilege he has long possessed

that he is set free — he has set himself free —

for higher dreams,

for greater privileges.

- James Baldwin

It Has Been a Successful Day

If I have been of service,

if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good,

if I am inspired to reach wider horizons of thought and action,

if I am at peace with myself,

it has been a successful day.

- Alex Noble

Forgive and Forget

I can forgive, but I cannot forget,

is only another way of saying,

I will not forgive.

Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note--

torn in two, and burned up,

so that it never can be shown against one.

- Henry Ward Beecher

Beginnings

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

- Plato