This Generation

For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival, liberty is human rights, the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants.


- Jimmy Carter

Becoming More

What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization…It refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.
- Maslow

Blessings

There's no disaster that can't become a blessing, and no blessing that can't become a disaster.


- Richard Bach

Joy

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

- Rumi

Family

In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.

- Alex Haley

Writing

If you would not be forgotten,
as soon as you are dead and rotten,
either write things worth reading,
or do things worth the writing.

- Benjamin Franklin

Educate Girls

Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in cities. But the girls stay home, become leaders in the community and pass on what they've learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls.


- Greg Mortenson (co-author, Three Cups of Tea)

Fear

We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.

- Christian Nevell Bovee

Lessons

Remember, there are no mistakes, only lessons.
Love yourself, trust your choices,
and everything is possible.

- Cherie-Carter Scotts

Growing Up

Youth is a circumstance you can't do anything about.
The trick is to grow up without getting old.

- Frank Lloyd Wright

Opportunities

Opportunities multiply as they are seized.

- Sun Tzu

Hunger

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.


- Mahatma Gandhi

Perspective

One sees great things from the valley,

only small things from the peak.

- G. K. Chesterton

New Beginnings

We must be willing to get rid
of the life we've planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
The old skin has to be shed
before the new one can come.


- Joseph Campbell

Gratitude

When you are grateful fear disappears and abundance appears.

- Anthony Robbins

Age

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

- Mark Twain

Sharing

Life has taught me that respect, caring and love must be shared, for it's only through sharing that friendships are born.


- Donna A. Favors

Childhood Memories

And even if you were in some prison, the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses - would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories?

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Christmas

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.

Burton Hillis

Best Things

The best things in life aren't things.

- Art Buchwald

Abundant Life

The abundant life does not come to those who have had a lot of obstacles removed from their path by others. It develops from within and is rooted in strong mental and moral fiber.

- William Mather Lewis

Never Give In

It's not what they take away from you that counts.
It's what you do with what you have left.
Never give up and never give in.

- Hubert H. Humphrey

Life's Challenges

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.

- Bernice Johnson Reagon

Zest in Living

Nothing else matters much -- not wealth, nor learning, nor even health -- without this gift: the spiritual capacity to keep zest in living. This is the creed of creeds, the final deposit and distillation of all important faiths: that you should be able to believe in life.

- Harry Emerson Fosdick

True to Your Vision

Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment, of these, if you but remain true to them your world will at last be built.

- James Allen

Another Kind of Poverty

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.

We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.


- Mother Teresa

Leadership

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.

- John Buchan

Exercise for the Heart

There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.
- John Andrew Holmes Jr.

Helping

Look up and not down.
Look forward and not back.
Look out and not in,
and lend a hand.

- Edward Everett Hale

Live Today

Cherish yesterday, dream tomorrow, live today.

Light

People are like stained-glass windows.
They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in
their true beauty is revealed
only if there is light from within.

- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Attracting Greater Good

When your heart is focused on love for all living things, you're magnetically attracting your own greater good. Simply know that.

- Marianne Williamson

Gaps

Negativity is born in the gap where love has been excluded.
Gaps occur in places where we are afraid to see ourselves.

- Deepak Chopra

Gift of Friendship

I keep my friends as misers do their treasure,
because, of all the things granted us by wisdom,
none is greater or better than friendship.
- Pietro Aretino

Failure - A Step Toward Success

Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment.

- Og Mandino

Adversity

Adversity is like a strong wind. I don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be.

- Arthur Golden

Impact of Our Choices

Spirit is the Life, Mind is the Builder, and the Physical is the Result.
In other words, spirit is the source of all life.
The mind focuses that energy into creative (positive)
or destructive (negative) avenues of expression.
The impact of our choices will eventually find expression in the physical,
affecting ourselves and our relationships with one another.

- Edgar Cayce

Only You

There is a place that you are to fill that no one else can fill -
something you are to do that no one else can do.
- Plato

Live ...

Live a life as a monument to your soul.

- Ayn Rand

Rent

Activism is my rent for living on this planet.

- Alice Walker

Generosity

Generosity consists not the sum given,
but the manner in which it is bestowed.

- Unknown

World AIDS Day

Ignorance and prejudice are fuelling
the spread of a preventable disease.

World AIDS Day, December 1 is an opportunity
for people worldwide to unite in the fight
against HIV and AIDS.

It's up to you, me and us to stop the spread
of HIV and
end prejudice.

~worldaidsday.org, 2006

Prejudice is the child of ignorance.

~William Hazlitt

Photo courtesy of http://www.worldaidsday.org/MediaCentre.aspx

This Amazing Day

I thank you God for this most amazing day,
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees,
and for the blue dream of sky
and for everything which is natural,
which is infinite,
which is yes.

- e.e. cummings

Self Righteousness

Self righteous morality is jealousy with a halo.

- HG Wells

Each Day - A Miracle

You can become blind by seeing
each day as a similar one.
Each day is a different one,
each day brings a miracle of its own.
It's just a matter of paying attention
to this miracle.


- Paulo Coelho

Secret of Health

The secret of health for both mind and body
is not to mourn for the past,
not to worry about the future,
or not to anticipate troubles,
but to live in the present moment
wisely and earnestly.

- Buddha

Keep All Things Positive

Keep your thoughts positive because
your thoughts become your words.

Keep your words positive because
your words become your behaviors.

Keep your behaviors positive because
your behaviors become your habits.

Keep your habits positive because
your habits become your values.

Keep your values positive because
your values become your destiny.

- Gandhi

What You Think

You may believe that you are responsible for what you do,
but not for what you think.
The truth is that you are responsible for what you think,
because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice.
What you do comes from what you think.

- From a Course in Miracles

Let Life Flow Through You

Lighten up and let life flow through you, and be on the waves as they go up and down.

A great image in mythology is Tristan (Tristan and Isolde).
He's out there on a little boat without an oar,
without a rudder, on the Irish sea . . .

You float your way. You drift.
... be extravagantly
accepting and forgiving
of yourself and others.

Ride the waves and let life take you
where it has good things for you.

- Thomas Moore

Happiness

There is only one way to happiness
and that is to cease worrying about things
which are beyond the power of our will.

-  Epictetus

Wind to thy wings

Wind to thy wings. Light to thy path. Dreams to thy heart.
 
- Anonymous

Aim Big

Aim for the moon.
If you miss, you may hit a star.

- W. Clement Stone

Reading

Reading is to the mind
what exercise is to the body.

- Sir Richard Steele

On Children

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

- Khalil Gibran,  from The Prophet

Friends

Each friend represents a world in us,
a world possibly not born until they arrive,
and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born

- Anais Nin

Change

There is nothing like returning
to a place that remains
unchanged
to find the ways in which
you yourself have altered.


- Nelson Mandela

Determination

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair.
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
Great works are performed not by strength,
but perseverance.

- Samuel Johnson

Writing

The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought,
 this in turn makes us think more deeply about life,
which helps us regain our equilibrium.

 ~ Norbet Platt

Personal Growth

You are the only problem you will ever have
and you are the only solution.
Change is inevitable,
personal growth is always a personal decision.

- Bob Proctor

Promise Yourself

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel that there is something special in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
 
- Christian D Larson

Connections

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.


- John Muir

Change

Change is a measure of time and,
in the autumn,
time seems speeded up.
What was is not
and never again will be;
what is
is change.

- Edwin Teale

Formula for Success

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

Life Advice

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

- Albert Einstein

Fear Nothing

Fear nothing, for every renewed effort raises all former failures into lessons,
all sins into experience.


- Unknown

Beginnings

If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt,
we must leave them more than the miracles of technology.
We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning,
not just after we got through with it.


- President Lyndon B. Johnson

Good Character

A good character is the best tombstone.
Those who loved you, and were helped by you,
will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered.
Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble.
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Dreamers and Doers

The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers.
But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.

- Sarah Ban Breathnach

Visions and Dreams

Cherish your visions and your dreams
as they are the children of your soul,
the blueprints of your ultimate accomplishments.

- Napoleon Hill

You are Unique

Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small,
you are also unique and irreplaceable,
as are all your fellow humans everywhere in the world.


- Margaret Laurence

Books

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.
Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation.
Lend and borrow to the maximum -- of both books and money!
But especially books, for books represent infinitely more than money.
A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you.
When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched.
But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.

- Henry Miller

Gratitude

Let us rise up and be thankful,
for if we didn't learn a lot today,
at least we learned a little,
and if we didn't learn a little,
at least we didn't get sick,
 and if we got sick,
at least we didn't die;
so, let us all be thankful.

- Buddha

Blessed are those

Blessed are those that can give without remembering
and receive without forgetting.

- Elizabeth Bibesco

Past

What you need to know about the past is

 that no matter what has happened,

 it has all worked together to bring you

to this very moment.

 And this is the moment

you can choose to make everything new.

Right now.

- Unknown

Harvesting Wisdom

Now in my later years I can harvest
the wisdom of my childhood.
I treasure those precious roots knowing
that I have grown wings
and I must move on.
I must let go.

- MacRina Wiederkehr

Persistence

The drops of rain make a hole in the stone,
not by violence,
but by oft falling.


- Lucretius

Fork in the Road

We stand now where two roads diverge.
But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem,
they are not equally fair.
The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy,
a smooth superhighway on which we progress
with great speed,
but at its end lies disaster.
The other fork of the road - the one "less traveled by" -
offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination
that assures the preservation of the earth."


-  Rachel Carson

Infinite Nature

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature's peace will flow into you
as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you
 and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.


- John Muir

Through adversity we learn

It is not good for all our wishes to be filled;
through sickness we recognize the value of health;
through evil, the value of good;
through hunger, the value of food;
through exertion, the value of rest.

- Greek Proverb

Gratitude

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

Never Again

History,

despite its wrenching pain,

cannot be unlived,

but if faced with courage,

need not be lived again.

- Maya Angelou

No Hiding from Success

Never again clutter your days or nights with so many
menial and unimportant things that you have no time
to accept a real challenge when it comes along.
This applies to play as well as work.
A day merely survived is no cause for celebration.
You are not here to fritter away your precious hours
when you have the ability to accomplish so much
by making a slight change in your routine.
No more busy work.
No more hiding from success.
Leave time, leave space, to grow.
Now. Now! Not tomorrow!

- Og Mandino

Changing

Everyone thinks of changing the world,
but no one thinks of changing himself.

- Leo Tolstoy

Extraordinary Thing Called Love

The moment you have in your heart

this extraordinary thing called love

and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstacy of it,

you will discover that for you

the world is transformed.

- I. Krishnamurti

Living -- the Act of Giving

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

I am a Dreamer

Determination

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.

- Og Mandino

Ideals

Ideals are like stars:
you will not succeed in touching them with your hands,
but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters,
you choose them as your guides,
and following them you reach your destiny.

~Carl Schurz

Light Within

People are like stained glass windows:

they sparkle and shine when the sun is out,

but when the darkness sets in
their true beauty is revealed

only if there is a light within.

- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Meaning of Life

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.

- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Suffering

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches.
If suffering alone taught,
all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers.

To suffering must be added mourning, understanding,
patience, love, openness
and the willingness to remain vulnerable.

- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Friendship

Friendship makes prosperity more brilliant,
and lightens adversity by dividing and sharing it.

- Cicero

Salt Water

The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea.

- Isak Dinesen

Marriage

Marriage is not a ritual or an end.
It is a long, intricate, intimate dance together
and nothing matters more
than your own sense of balance
and your choice of partner.

- Amy Bloom

Truly Living

When we are motivated by goals
that have deep meaning,
by dreams that need completion,
by pure love that needs expressing --
then we truly live life.

- Greg Anderson

Don't Be Silent

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.

- Martin Luther King

Truest Life

Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake.

- Henry David Thoreau

Dreams

Dreams are renewable.
No matter what our age or condition,
there are still untapped possibilities within us
and new beauty waiting to be born.

- Dr. Dale Turner

Kindness

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear
and the blind can see.

~ Mark Twain

A Kiss

It is the passion that is in a kiss

that gives to it its sweetness;
it is the affection in a kiss
that sanctifies it.

- Christian Nevell Bovee