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

Rain

The best thing one can do when it's raining
is to let it rain.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

New Beginnings

There are things that we never want to let go of,

people we never want to leave behind.

But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world,

it’s the beginning of a new life.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Throw Open the Windows

The windows of my soul I throw

Wide open to the sun.

~John Greenleaf Whittier

Full Heart

In a full heart there is room for everything,

and in an empty heart there is room for nothing.

- Antonio Porchia

Helping Hand

The best place to find a helping hand
is at the end of your own arm.

- Swedish Proverb

Weeds

A weed is simply a plant that wants to grow

where people want something else.

In blaming nature, people mistake the culprit.

Weeds are people's idea, not nature's.

~Author Unknown

Travelling Our Path

I see my path, but I don't know where it leads.

Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it.

- Rosalia de Castro

Set Your Sights

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

- Andre Gide

Decide ...

The doors we open and close each day

decide the lives we live.

- Flora Whittemore

Isolation

The person who tries to live alone
will not succeed as a human being.
His heart withers if it does not answer another heart.
His mind shrinks away if he hears only
the echoes of his own thoughts
and finds no other inspiration.

- Pearl S. Buck

Beauty

Never lose an opportunity of seeing

anything that is beautiful,

for beauty is God's handwriting --

a wayside sacrament.

Welcome it in every fair face,

in every fair sky,

in every flower,

and thank God for it

as a cup of blessing.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Optimist

An optimist is the human personification of spring.

- Susan J. Bissonette

Food

Food is our common ground, a universal experience.

- James Beard

Means and the End

Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit

cannot be severed;

for the effect already blooms in the cause,

the end preexists in the means,

the fruit in the seed

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Success

There is only one success -

to be able to spend your life

in your own way.

- Christopher Morley

Choose

Choose
The single clenched fist lifted and ready,
Or the open hand held out and waiting.
Choose: For we meet by one or the other.

- Carl Sandburg

Flowers

Earth laughs in flowers.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Easter ...

Easter is not a time for groping through dusty, musty tomes or tombs to disprove spontaneous generation or even to prove life eternal. It is a day to fan the ashes of dead hope, a day to banish doubts and seek the slopes where the sun is rising, to revel in the faith which transports us out of ourselves and the dead past into the vast and inviting unknown.

- Author Unknown

My Sunset Sky

Clouds come floating into my life,
no longer to carry rain or usher storm,
but to add color to my sunset sky.

- Rabindranath Tagore

Live Fully

Live life fully while you're here.

Experience everything.

Take care of yourself and your friends.

Have fun, be crazy, be weird.

Go out and screw up!

You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process.

Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes;

find the cause of your problem and eliminate it.

Don't try to be perfect;

just be an excellent example of being human.”

- Anthony Robbins

Difference Between Dog and Man

If you pick up a starving dog

and make him prosperous,

he will not bite you;

that is the principal difference

between a dog and a man.

- Mark Twain

The Most Precious Gift

The most precious gift we can offer others

is our presence.

When mindfulness embraces those we love,

they will bloom like flowers.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Empty Pockets

Empty pockets never held anyone back.
Only empty heads
and empty hearts
can do that.

- Norman Vincent Peale

Peace

Peace,
to have meaning for many who have only known suffering
in both peace and war,
must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health and education,
as well as freedom and human dignity.

- Ralph Johnson Bunche

Return of Spring

Spring has returned.

The Earth is like a child that knows poems.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

The Universe Conspires

When you want something,
all the universe conspires
in helping you to achieve it.

- Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)

Nothing We Can't Handle

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.
I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.

- Mother Teresa

Look Well to This Day

Yesterday is but a dream,

tomorrow but a vision.

But today well lived makes every yesterday

a dream of happiness,

and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day.

- Indian Proverb

The Human Family

To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order;

to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order;

to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life;

we must first set our hearts right.

- Confucius

Golden Moments

The golden moments in the stream of life
rush past us and we see nothing but sand;
the angels come to visit us,
and we only know them when they are gone.

- George Eliot

Jump In With Gusto

To do anything truly worth doing,
I must not stand back shivering
and thinking of the cold and danger,
but jump in with gusto and scramble through
as well as I can.

- Og Mandino

Unselfishness

There is a magnet in your heart
that will attract true friends.
That magnet is unselfishness,
thinking of others first...
when you learn to live for others,
they will live for you.


- Paramahansa Yogananda

Share the Light

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

Fight On

What we do not see, what most of us
never suspect of existing,
is the silent but irresistible power
which comes to the rescue of those
who fight on in the face of discouragement.

- Napoleon Hill

No Enemies

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?

- Abraham Lincoln

Self Giving

When you become detached mentally from yourself

and concentrate on helping other people with their difficulties,

you will be able to cope with your own more effectively.

Somehow, the act of self-giving

is a personal power-releasing factor.

- Norman Vincent Peale

Contemplate

All you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand,

and you will see in it all the marvels of creation.

Listen to your heart.

It knows all things,

because it came from the Soul of the World,

and it will one day return there.

- Paulo Coelho

Dance

Dance as if no one were watching,

Sing as if no one were listening,

And live every day as if it were your last.

- Irish Proverb

Opportunity in Your Hand

I held a moment in my hand,

brilliant as a star,

fragile as a flower,

a tiny sliver of one hour.

I dripped it carelessly,

Ah! I didn't know,

I held opportunity.

~Hazel Lee

Value What You Are

Too many people overvalue what they are not
and undervalue what they are.

- Malcolm Forbes

Beauty of the Soul

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows.
For love is the beauty of the soul.

- Saint Augustine

Unlock Our Giving

In the long run we get no more than

we have been willing

to risk giving.

- Sheldon Kopp

Sharing and Caring

Man should not consider his material possession his own,
but as common to all,
so as to share them without hesitation
when others are in need.

- St. Thomas Aquinas

Connected

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself,
but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean,
so must I never live my life for itself,
but always in the experience
which is going on around me.

- Albert Schweitzer

Gifts of Giving

Generosity brings happiness at every stage of its expression.
We experience joy in forming the intention to be generous.
We experience joy in the actual act of giving something.
And we experience joy in remembering the fact
that we have given.

- Buddha

Today is International Women's Day 2009

It is now more dangerous to be a woman
than to be a soldier
in modern conflict.

- Maj Gen Patrick Cammaert,
Former commander of UN forces, eastern Congo (DRC)

A day to remember women around the world, especially those who are suffering unspeakable pain and violence. View the slideshow from The UN Refugee Agency.

Happy Face

The only thing that will make you happy

is being happy with who you are,

and not who people think you are.

- Goldie Hawn

If We Had No 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

Judging the Lives of Others

We can never judge the lives of others,

because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.

It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path,

but it's another to think that yours is the only path.

- Paulo Coelho

Voice Within

It is then that you will hear a voice within yourself.

It was there all the time, but you never listened before.

Faintly it will speak to you at first,

but it will grow louder and clearer the more you take heed of its message

until one day it thunders inside you

and you will have come home.

- Rusty Berkus

One of Those March Days ...

It was one of those March days
when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold:
when it is summer in the light,
and winter in the shade.

- Charles Dickens

We Need Others

We need others.
We need others to love and we need to be loved by them.
There is no doubt that without it, we too,
like the infant left alone, would cease to grow,
cease to develop, choose madness and even death.

- Leo F. Buscaglia

March is Born

With rushing winds and gloomy skies
The dark and stubborn
Winter dies:
Far-off, unseen,
Spring faintly cries,
Bidding her earliest child arise;
March!

- Bayard Taylor