Fear

I have learned that feat is the mother of fearlessness, and the beginning of possibility.

- Paul Hogan

Learn to Love

Happy Birthday to Nelson Mandela on his 93rd birthday.

No one is born hating another person
because of the color of his skin,
or his background, or his religion.

People must learn to hate,
and if they can learn to hate,
they can be taught to love,
for love comes more naturally
to the human heart
than its opposite.

- Nelson Mandela

Speech and Silence

There are two kinds of speeches and two kinds of silences.

Speech is either truth or a falsification,
and silence is either fruition or heedlessness.

If one speaks the truth,
his words are better than his silence,
but he who invents falsifications,
his silence is better than his speech.

- Pakistani proverb

Freedom

In my mind I have always been free. Inner freedom comes from following a course in harmony with one’s conscience.
- Aung San Suu Kyi

Challenges

Challenges come so we can grow
and be prepared for things
we are not equipped to handle now.

When we face our challenges with faith,
prepared to learn, willing to make changes,
and if necessary, to let go,
we are demanding our power
be turned on.

- Iyanla Vanzant

Humanitarian

Humanitarian action is more than simple generosity, simple charity. It aims to build spaces of normalcy in the midst of what is abnormal.

More than offering material assistance, we aim to enable individuals to regain their rights and dignity as human beings. ... But we act not in a vacuum, and we speak not into the wind, but with a clear intent to assist, to provoke change, or to reveal injustice. Our action and our voice is an act of indignation, a refusal to accept an active or passive assault on the other.

- James Orbinski

Remembering

Your job on Earth, therefore,
is not to learn (because you already know),
but to remember
Who You Are.

And to remember
who everyone else is.

- Neale Donald Walsch

Aging

This world is swept away by aging, by illness, by death.
For one swept on by aging, no shelters exist.

Keeping sight of this danger in death,
do meritorious deeds that bring bliss.

Make merit while alive.

When the world is on fire with aging and death, one should salvage [future wealth] by giving.

- Buddha

Truth

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.

- Anaïs Nin

Believe

To accomplish great things,
we must not only act,
but also dream,
not only plan,
but also believe.

- Anatole France

Oppression

We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Abundance

Whatever we are waiting for - peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance - it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.

- Sarah Ban Breathnach

Courage and Compassion

Courage is not demonstrated by domination of others,
but in mastery of our deepest emotions.
Transforming fear and hate into compassion
for all human beings is a powerful way
to turn the world way from darkness.

–Author Unknown

Answering to Mother Earth

We are all fools!
Blinded with greed,
we rape the earth and declare ourselves its masters.
We glut ourselves with the riches,
cut the forests down like wheat,
and jingling our dollars.
We cannot hear the voice of intolerable unrest
within us.
Beware!
The earth too has a voice
which someday we must answer.

- Frank Waters (1940)

Key to Failure

I don't know the key to success,
but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

- Bill Cosby

Happiness

Happiness is not a station you arrive at,
but a manner of traveling.


- Margaret B. Runbeck

Letting Go

As I started to picture the trees in the storm, the answer began to dawn on me. The trees in the storm don't try to stand up straight and tall and erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown with the wind. They understand the power of letting go. Those trees and those branches that try too hard to stand up strong and straight are the ones that break. Now is not the time for you to be strong, or you, too, will break.
- Julia Butterfly Hill

Dreams

We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.

- Woodrow Wilson

How fitting to have dreams be the theme for this 500th post. I started this blog originally as a vehicle to match some of my favourite quotes with pictures I've taken and I certainly never expected it to grow to 500 posts! Thank you to all of you who drop by from time to time. Really - thanks.

Tenderness and Kindness

Tenderness and kindness are not signs
of weakness and despair
but manifestations
of strength and resolution.

- Kahlil Gibran

What Kind of Giver Are You?

There are three kinds of givers -- the flint, the sponge and the honeycomb. To get anything out of a flint you must hammer it. And then you get only chips and sparks. To get water out of a sponge you must squeeze it, and the more you use pressure, the more you will get. But the honeycomb just overflows with its own sweetness. Which kind of giver are you?


- unknown