Words of Wisdom

A collection of favourite quotations.

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

"The winner's edge is not in a gifted birth, a high IQ, or in talent. The winner's edge is all in the attitude."

~ Denis Waitley

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Sunday, October 04, 2009

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored"

Aldous Huxley

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Friday, October 02, 2009

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul."
~John Muir

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Friday, September 18, 2009

"The man who arrives at the doors of artistic creation with none of the madness of the muses would be convinced that technical ability alone was enough to make an artist. What that man creates by means of reason will pale before the art of inspired beings."

(Plato)

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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

"Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods."

(John Muir)

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Tuesday, September 08, 2009

"The burned hand teaches best."

J. R. R. Tolkien

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Monday, September 07, 2009

"I run great risk of failing. It may be that I shall encounter ruin
where I look for reputation and a career of honor. The chances are
perhaps more in favour of ruin than of success. But, whatever may be
the chances, I shall go on as long as any means of carrying on the
fight are at my disposal."

-- Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) English Novelist

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Tuesday, September 01, 2009

"A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."

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- Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English Poet

Friday, August 28, 2009

"Intelligence is like a river, the deeper it is the less noise it makes."

-Voltaire

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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word: excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it."

(Pearl S. Buck)

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Sunday, August 16, 2009

"There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire,
which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which
kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity."

-Washington Irving

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

"There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."

-- Aldous Huxley (1864-1963)

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Monday, August 10, 2009

"I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be done, and does it."

-- William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English Essayist

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"Drawing is not the same as form."
(Edgar Degas)

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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

"A person is only as big as the dream they dare to live."

~Unknown

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"Something we were withholding made us weak until we found it was ourselves."

(Robert Frost)

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Saturday, July 18, 2009

Buckminster Fuller, on "what one person can do":

"Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary -- the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab.

It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.

So I said, call me Trim Tab."

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"When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."

~ Buckminster Fuller

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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

"The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart - this you will build your life by, and this you will become."

-- James Lane Allen (1849-1925)

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Monday, July 13, 2009

Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.

-- J. Andrews

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Wednesday, July 08, 2009

"There is no sensual pleasure in the world comparable to the delight
and satisfaction that a good man takes in doing good."

-- Tillotson

Sunday, July 05, 2009

"Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one."

~ E. B. White

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Friday, July 03, 2009

"Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals, and then to work toward them everyday, will do more to guarantee your success than any other single factor."

Brian Tracy in The Power of Discipline

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"Your work is to discover your work - and then with all your heart to give yourself to it."

(Buddha)

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Wednesday, July 01, 2009

"The life that conquers is the life that moves with a steady
resolution and persistence toward a predetermined goal. Those who
succeed are those who have thoroughly learned the immense importance
of plan in life, and the tragic brevity of time. "

-- W.J. Davison

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Sunday, June 28, 2009

"See the job. Do the job. Stay out of misery."

~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

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Monday, June 22, 2009

“The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions not our circumstances”.

- Martha Washington

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"There is only one real failure in life that is possible, and that is, not to be true to the best one knows."

-- John Farrar (1945-) Australian Composer

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Friday, June 19, 2009

We have an infinite number of reasons to be happy, and a serious responsibility not to be serious."

(Maharishi Mahesh Yogi)

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"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

~Voltaire

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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

"I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amidst the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail."

-- C.A. Beard

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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

"An inconvenience is an unrecognized opportunity."

~ Confucius

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Monday, June 08, 2009

"Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule."

- Buddha

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Saturday, June 06, 2009

“If you understand,
things are just as
they are. If you
do not understand,
things are just as
they are.”

~ Zen saying

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“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

~ Carl Sagan

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Thursday, June 04, 2009

"Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater than illustrious heroes."

-- Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

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Tuesday, June 02, 2009

"When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take - choose the bolder."

-- W.J. Slim

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"Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing."

(William Shakespeare)

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"In order to win, we pay with energy and effort and discipline. If we lose, we pay in disappointment, discontent, and lack of fulfillment."

(Maya Angelou)

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Monday, June 01, 2009

"Power is the ability to do good things for others."

-- Brooke Astor

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Sunday, May 31, 2009

"Think of mean people like sand paper. They may scratch you and hurt you, but at the end, you come out smooth and polished and the mean person is just worn and ugly."

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Saturday, May 30, 2009

"Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values."

-- Joshua L. Liebman

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

“Life loves to taken by the lapel and told: I am with you kid. Let’s go.”

~Maya Angelou

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Monday, May 25, 2009

"Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good. "

-- Calvin Coolidge

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

"Each time a piece goes out, I start on a new piece, so there is renewal after renewal. It's like picking a flower: Each time you pick one, a new one blooms."

~ Sam Maloof

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"There is a communion between an object maker and the material he is working with. And there is a triune between the object maker, his material and his client. And then there is something much greater, that transcends into God the creator of all things, who uses our hands as his tools to make these beautiful objects...Ego destroys."

~ Sam Maloof 1916-2009

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Friday, May 22, 2009

"Full lasting is the song, though he, the singer, passes."
~George Meredith

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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

"There is no companion that is as companionable as solitude."

(Henry David Thoreau)

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"If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed."

-- David Viscott

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The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.

-- John F. Kennedy

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"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."

~Carl Jung

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Thursday, May 14, 2009

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."

-- Lao Tzu

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

"They know enough who know how to learn."

~Henry Brooks Adams

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Saturday, May 09, 2009

"In the end, it's not the space that counts, but the life you live in it."

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Friday, May 08, 2009

"A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one."
~ Benjamin Franklin

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Tuesday, May 05, 2009

"Love what you do. Believe in your instincts. And you'd better be able to pick yourself up and brush yourself off every day. While life is not always fair, it is manageable. It's a matter of attitude and confidence."
~Mario Andretti

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Monday, May 04, 2009

We need a renaissance of wonder. We need to renew, in our hearts and
in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial
sense that life is miracle and magic.

-- E. Merrill Root (1895-1973)

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Saturday, May 02, 2009

"One of the great things any community can do is not teach tolerance, but live tolerance, not talk respect but live inclusivity"
- Michael Pritchard

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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

"To copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility."

(Pablo Picasso)

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Saturday, April 25, 2009

"Don't leave it up to someone else -- you're the one who can make a difference."

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Friday, April 24, 2009

"If you can give your child only one gift, let it be enthusiasm."

(Bruce Barton)

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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

"What is the reason for this attitude of the developed Nations? In the Twentieth Century self-interest, sovereignty and taking care of number one, became the primary criteria for any serious provision of support or resources to the world's trouble spots. If the country in question is of any possible strategic value to the world powers, then it seems that everything from covert operations to the outright use of overwhelming force is fair game. If not, indifference is the order of the day. To imagine that these same world powers have magically leapt ahead in this new age of humanity (as Kofi Anan named it in his seminal speech at the millennium UN General Assembly in September, 2000) could not be further from the truth. It will take the world's dedicated will and means to move from the 20th century - the century of 'Genocide' to the century of Humanity."

~ Lt.General Romeo Dallaire, the Head of Mission of the U N Chapter 6 Peace Keeping Force in Rwanda

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

"It is difficult to steer a parked car, so get moving."

(Henrietta Mears)

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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail,
not to scorn human actions, but to understand them."
--Baruch Spinoza

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."

- Buddha

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Monday, April 13, 2009

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."

(Henry Ward Beecher 1813 - 1887)

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Monday, April 06, 2009

Earth teach me stillness
as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring
as the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
as the tree which stands all alone.
Earth teach me limitation
as the ant which crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
as the eagle which soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
as the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me regeneration
as the seed which rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
as dry fields weep with rain.

~ Ute Prayer

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Saturday, March 28, 2009

"None of you is a believer until you love for all others what you love for yourself."
~ The Prophet Muhammed

"Identify yourself with the whole of mankind."
~Mohandas Gandhi

"Every man carries the entire form of the human condition."
~ Montaigne

"One true nationality is mankind."
~ H.G. Wells

Above quotations compliments of 100% Human

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"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
~Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Friday, March 27, 2009

"any man who knows a thing
knows he knows not a damn, damn thing at all"

~K'naan

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"I am finally beginning to learn how to paint."

(Attributed to Titian -- Tiziano Vecelli, 1485?-1576 -- at age 90, as quoted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, January 30, 2009, at Davos)

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

"All this pain can't stop my believing,
And all this joy can't stop my grieving..."

~ Graham Shaw ("Drunk Again", 'Raw Shaw')

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Thursday, March 19, 2009

"The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart."

-- Mencius (371-291 B.C.)

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Thursday, March 12, 2009

"Further in, grandmother; grandfather, hold my hand,
as I go on through this life and try to understand.
The beauty of your faces I will never see again,
but I know you're with me now, leading me further in."

~ Greg Brown

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Monday, February 23, 2009

"Many people believe that support is something that you give to someone you feel sorry for or that it means propping up someone who would fail unless you were there to give him a boost. But that's not the way I see it. Support is the boost you can give someone who can help himself but who needs a partner to open a window or push aside a roadblock."

-- Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's

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Saturday, February 21, 2009

"If you're going through Hell...keep going."

~ Winston Churchill

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Saturday, February 07, 2009

"The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress."

-- Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French Philosopher

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Friday, February 06, 2009

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."

~ Confucius

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Wednesday, February 04, 2009

"I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of ones eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe."

Maya Angelou

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"I am a prisoner of hope."

~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu

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Saturday, January 31, 2009

"Children need models rather than critics."

-- Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French Philosopher

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Friday, January 30, 2009

"He taught me that one's worth as an individual lies only in your action."
~ Fali Balsara, about Mahatma Gandhi

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"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier."

- Mother Teresa

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"Let the good in me
connect with the good
in others,
until all the world
is transformed through
the compelling power
of love."

-Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

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Thursday, January 29, 2009

"The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere.
They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts."

-- Anatole France

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

"I don't like work... but I like what is in work -- the chance to find yourself. Your own reality -- for yourself, not for others -- which no other man can ever know."

-- Joseph Conrad

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Saturday, January 24, 2009

"Taken on the whole, I would believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time."
~ Albert Einstein

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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

"The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials."

-- Chinese proverb

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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

"The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."

-- Jack London

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

"Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable."
~ Albert Einstein

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Saturday, January 17, 2009

"Every man has an obscure respect for courage in others, especially if it is moral courage, the rarest and most difficult sort of bravery...It makes the very brute understand that this man is more than a man."

-- Passage from Life of Christ

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Friday, January 16, 2009

"The virtues which keep this world sweet and the faithfulness which keeps it steadfast are chiefly those of the average man."

-- W. Russell Bowie

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Monday, January 12, 2009

"Whoever makes love grow boundless, and sets his mind for seeing the end of birth, his fetters are worn thin. If he loves even a single being, Good will follow. But the Noble One with compassionate heart for all mankind, generates abounding good".
- Buddha

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"I believe with all my heart that civilization has produced nothing finer than a man or woman who thinks and practices true tolerance."

-- Frank Knox

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Wednesday, January 07, 2009

"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently."

-- Henry Ford (1863-1947)

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Thursday, January 01, 2009

"Every man stamps his value on himself... man is made great or small by his own will."

-- J.C.F. von Schiller

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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

"Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity."

-- Paul Goodman

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Friday, December 26, 2008

"Poverty is the worst form of violence."
~ Ghandi

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Saturday, December 20, 2008

"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."

-- Charles Du Bos

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Friday, December 19, 2008

"Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size."

~Albert Einstein

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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

"Enthusiasm is the best protection in any situation. Wholeheartedness is contagious. Give yourself, if you wish to get others."

-- David Seabury

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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

"Everything in life has meaning. The bigger the fall, the greater the lesson."
~ Oprah Winfrey

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Monday, December 15, 2008

“Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."
-William Morris (1834-96)

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Sunday, December 07, 2008

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree..."
~ Albert Einstein

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"Pa, he always said a man had to look spry for himself, because nobody else would do it for him; your opportunities didn't come knocking around, you had to hunt them up and hog-tie them."

-- Louis L'Amour, author

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Monday, November 24, 2008

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
~ John Wooden ~

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Friday, November 21, 2008

"There are no short cuts to any place worth going."

-- Beverly Sills

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Monday, November 17, 2008

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing… the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is to do nothing."
by Eleanor Roosevelt

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"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair." - Kahlil Gibran -

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Sunday, November 16, 2008

"Don’t be cool.Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort."

~ from Bruce Mau Design's "Incomplete Manifesto"

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Friday, November 14, 2008

"If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more
to patient attention than to any other talent."

-- Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

Thursday, November 13, 2008

"Men are respectable only as they respect."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882

"If you have some respect for people as they are, you can be more effective in helping them to become better than they are."

John W. Gardner
1912-, American Educator, Social Activist

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"I respect orders but I respect myself too and I do not obey to foolish rules made especially to humiliate me."

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

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"I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity."

~Albert Einstein

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Wednesday, November 05, 2008

"The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still small voice within me."

Mahatma Gandhi

Monday, November 03, 2008

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."

~Albert Einstein

Sunday, November 02, 2008

"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the word is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

~ Calvin Coolidge

"The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice."

~ Albert Einstein

Saturday, November 01, 2008

"...the hill has not yet lifted its face to heaven that perseverance will not gain the summit of at last."

-- Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

"Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."

-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

"Failure is only postponed success as long as courage "coaches" ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory."

-- Herbert Kaufman

"Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success."

-- Alonzo Newton Benn

Thursday, October 09, 2008

"There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you."
~ (Maya Angelou)

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning."

-- J.B. Priestly (1894-1984)

Monday, October 06, 2008

"Listen to your hopes instead of your fears."
~ Michelle Obama

Friday, October 03, 2008

"All high achievers plan their work and work their plan, for they are keenly aware that "luck" is most often being prepared to take advantage of a situation."

-- Unknown

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody."

-- Longfellow

"One thing I have learned in a long life: All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike - and yet it is the most precious thing we have."

~ Albert Einstein

Monday, September 29, 2008

"People prefer to believe what they prefer to be true."
-Sir Francis Bacon

Thursday, September 25, 2008

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
~ Albert Einstein

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."
~ Albert Einstein

Saturday, September 20, 2008

"Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population."

~ Albert Einstein

"Originality and the feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle."

-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) Russian Novelist

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Worth repeating...

"The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light."

~ Felix Adler

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

"It is harder to crack a prejudice than an atom."

~ Albert Einstein

Monday, September 15, 2008

"He who finds diamonds must grapple in mud and mire because diamonds are not found in polished stones. They are made."

-- Henry B. Wilson

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

"If I give you a pfennig, you will be one pfennig richer and I'll be one pfennig poorer. But if I give you an idea, you will have a new idea, but I shall still have it, too."

~ Albert Einstein

Monday, September 08, 2008

"If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
~ Albert Einstein

Saturday, September 06, 2008

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Thursday, September 04, 2008

"Nature does not bestow virtue; to be good is an art."

-- Seneca

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.

-- English proverb

"If you think you're outclassed, you are,
You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself,
Before you can win the prize."

(Author unknown)

Monday, September 01, 2008

"The nearest way to glory -- a short cut, as it were -- is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be - quoted in Cicero, 44 BC."
-- Socrates (469-399 BC)

Sunday, August 31, 2008

"A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."

-- Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English Poet

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."
~ Albert Einstein

Thursday, August 14, 2008

"Assume a virtue, if you have it not."

~ William Shakespeare

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

"We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too."
~ Mairead Maguire

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

"One only sees well with the heart."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, in "the Little Prince"

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy."

Albert Einstein

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

"What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practising for this, I was training for this."

-- Epictetus (55-135 AD) Greek Philosopher

Thursday, July 17, 2008

“There are those …who enter the world in

such poverty that they are deprived of both

the means and the motivation to improve

their lot. Unless they can be touched with

the spark which ignites the spirit of

individual enterprise and determination,

they will only sink back into renewed

apathy, degradation and despair. It is for

us, who are more fortunate, to provide that

spark.”

(
Aga Khan, India 1983)

Saturday, July 12, 2008

"The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart - this you will build your life by, and this you will become."

-- James Lane Allen (1849-1925)

Friday, July 11, 2008

A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.

~ Albert Einstein

"An inconvenience is an unrecognized opportunity."

~ Confucious


"More of me comes out when I improvise."

~ Edward Hopper

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

"We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had -- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he believed them to be in the wrong.

We have thrown it away; and with it, all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism."


~ Howard Zinn

Sunday, July 06, 2008

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

Albert Einstein

Saturday, July 05, 2008

“The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others.”

~ Albert Schweitzer

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

"Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right."

-- Henry Ford

Friday, June 20, 2008

"Dominate yourself, or someone else will."

Robert Genn

"My life flows when I'm in my art."

(Jean De Muzio)

"I've seen extreme bravery from the least likely of people. Life is about the moments when it's all gone wrong. That's when we define ourselves."

-- Bear Grylls

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

"The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention."

-- Duguet

Saturday, June 14, 2008

"I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amidst the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best inour curious heritage prevail."

-- C.A. Beard

Thursday, June 12, 2008

"Any fool can know. The point is to understand."

~ Albert Eienstein

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

"A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
~ Albert Einstein

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

“The Further I go, the sorrier I am about how little I know: it is this that bothers me the most.”

(Claude Monet)

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Goethe: "Boldness has genius, power and magic. Engage, and the mind grows heated. Begin, and the work will be completed."

Monday, June 02, 2008

"It is good to dream, but it is better to dream and work. Faith is mighty, but action with faith is mightier."

-- Thomas Robert Gaines

Friday, May 30, 2008

"How difficult it is to be simple."
(Vincent van Gogh)

"Brevity is the sister of talent."
(Anton Chekhov)

"Less is more."
(Robert Browning)

thanks Robert Genn!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away."
~ Elvis Presley

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

" Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values."

-- Joshua L. Liebman

Sunday, May 25, 2008

"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."

~ Albert Einstein

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

"We have a duty and responsibility as human beings to try and make our world more tolerable and to relieve the suffering of others."

~ Dr. James Orbinski

"What is now proved was once only imagined."

-- William Blake (1757-1827) English Poet

Monday, May 19, 2008

"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."

~ Albert Einstein

"Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half sorrow."

-- Swedish proverb

Saturday, May 17, 2008

"Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom."

Hannah Arendt

Friday, May 16, 2008

"For where'er the sun does shine, And where'er the rain does fall, Babes should never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall."
- William Blake (1757–1827)

Thursday, May 15, 2008

"A wonderful painting is the result of the feeling in your fingers. If you have the feeling of the thickness of the ink in your brush, the painting is already there before you paint. When you dip your brush into the ink you already know the result of your drawing, or else you cannot paint. So before you do something, "being" is there, the result is there. Even though you look as if you were sitting quietly, all your activity, past and present, is included, and the result of your sitting is also already there."

- D.T. Suzuki...

" It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

-- Chinese proverb

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

" Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the
person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something
about it that makes a difference."

-- Nolan Bushnell

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

" If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed."

-- David Viscott

Thursday, May 08, 2008

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an
invincible summer."

-- Albert Camus (1913-1960) French Writer

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree..."

~ Albert Einstein

"Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself."

-- Harvey Fierstein

Thursday, May 01, 2008

"To create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage."
~ Georgia O'Keefe

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

"I am now quite cured of society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself."
(Emily Bronte)

"Every child comes with the message that God is not yet tired of the man."
(Rabindranath Tagore)

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

"Put out the trash and wash the car. Those who do so are performing miracles. Miracles are feats no one can successfully explain. Miracles are everything you do."
--David K. Reynolds

Monday, April 28, 2008

"Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself."

-- Abraham Joshua Heschel 1907-1972

Friday, April 18, 2008

"Being defeated is often only a temporary condition. Giving up is what
makes it permanent."
-- Marilyn vos Savant 1946-

"Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."
Langston Hughes

Thursday, April 17, 2008

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance
of things, but their inward significance, and this, and not the
external manner and detail, is true reality."
(Aristotle)

Friday, March 28, 2008

"Angels whisper when we walk."
(Raymond Inmon)

Saturday, March 08, 2008

"Girls must be encouraged to get on (after college), to make a life
plan. It has been shown that girls with this kind of commitment are
less eager to rush into early marriage....Most of them marry, of
course, but on a much more mature basis. their marriages then are not
an escape but a commitment shared by two people that becomes part of
their commitment to themselves and society."
~ Betty Friedan

Friday, March 07, 2008

"Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft
might win by fearing to attempt."
(William Shakespeare)

Sunday, February 17, 2008

"I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed."
~Jonathan Swift
(1667-1745)

Thursday, February 14, 2008

'There is enough for all. The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.'
~
Mr. Bourke Cockran

"I had a feeling once about Mathematics - that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me - the Byss and Abyss. But it was after dinner and I let it go."
Winston Churchill

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our soul blossom."
---Marcel Proust

"ask the wind,
the wave,
a star,
the clock,
all that which flees,
all that which groans,
all that which rolls,
all that which sings,
all that which speaks,
ask them what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird
the clock will reply:
it is time to get drunk!;
get drunk,
and never pause for rest!
with wine,
with poetry,
or with virtue,
as you choose!"

-- Baudelaire

"It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
~ Theodore Roosevelt

"The true Axis of evil is the genius of our marketing people combined with the stupidity of our people."
~ Bill Maher

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you've got to be kind."
~ Kurt Vonnegut

"Stand in your own light. Make it shine.
- Fortune Cookie

“The colour of truth is gray.”

" People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar."
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

"I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.
Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass."

Maya Angelou

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Monday, January 28, 2008

“The basic difference between being assertive and being aggressive is how our words and behaviours affect the rights and well being of others.”
- Sharon Anthony Bower, author

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

"God is hiding in the world. Our task is to let the divine emerge from
our deeds."
- Abraham Joshua Heschel

"All creatures bring into this world the memory of justice."
- J. M. Coetzee

Sunday, January 13, 2008

"First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do."
~ Epiticus

Friday, January 11, 2008

"Be proud to be a Size Hero, not a size zero!"
~ Gok Wan

"Time on your hands, your self on your mind."
~ English Saying

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

"Life is not holding a good hand; Life is playing a poor hand well."
-- Danish proverb

"Not the owner of many possessions will you be right to call happy: he
more rightly deserves the name of happy who knows how to use the Gods'
gifts wisely and to put up with rough poverty, and who fears dishonor
more than death."
-- Horace (65-8 BC)

Monday, January 07, 2008

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the
winds long to play with your hair."
- Kahlil Gibran

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

"I must learn to love the fool in me - the one who feels too much,
talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often,
lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and
breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that
utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant who I also harbor and who
would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my
fool."
~ Theodore I. Rubin

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy that is translated
through you into action. And because there is only one you in all time,
this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through
any other medium - the world will not have it. It is not your business
to determine how good it is, now how valuable, nor how it compares with
other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and
directly, to keep the channel open."
- Martha Graham

Friday, December 28, 2007

"Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky.
Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is
self-discipline and self-knowledge. It's the sure footedness that comes
with having proved you can meet life."
-- Ann Landers

"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."
-- Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English Poet

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

"Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of pleasures,
costs nothing, and conveys much."
-- Erastus Wiman

"Judgement comes from experience, and great judgement comes from bad
experience."
-- Robert Packwood

"Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional
glance towards the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful
scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point."
-- Harold B. Melchart

"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice
what we are for what we could become."
-- Charles Du Bos

"The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist."
-- J. Harold Wilkins

"Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first
be overcome.
-- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

"If you have not often felt the joy of doing a kind act, you have
neglected much, and most of all yourself.
-- A. Neilen

Thursday, December 13, 2007

"May we see that we could have been born as each other."
~ Vickram Seth, in "Two Lives: a Memoir"

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

"If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways"
- Daniel Quinn

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

"A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to
blame someone else."
-- John Burroughs

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done
without hope and confidence."
-- Helen Keller

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."
-- Beverly Sills

"As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey."
-- Thomas A. Edison

"The height of your accomplishments will equal the depth of your
convictions."
-- William F. Scolavino

"I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be
honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count,
to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at
all."
-- Leo C. Rosten (1908-1977) American Writer

"To be alive, to be able to see, to walk,...it's all a miracle."
-- Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982) Polish Pianist

"To live at this time is an inestimable privilege, and a sacred
obligation devolves upon you to make right use of your opportunities."
-- Grenville Kleiser

"The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost
all your money."
-- Bernard Meltzer

Saturday, November 10, 2007

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved with it as he who
helps to perpetuate it.  He who accepts evil without protesting against
it is really cooperating with it. "
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

"Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the
requisites for success."
-- Alonzo Newton Benn

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

"I searched through rebellion, drugs, diets, mysticism, religions,
intellectualism and much more, only to begin to find...that truth is
basically simple - and feels good, clean and right."
-- Chick Corea

Monday, October 08, 2007

"Life leaps like a geyser for those willing to drill through the rock
of inertia."
-- Alexis Carrel

"It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject tohalf
the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for
fear of what might happen."
-- Herodotus (485 - 425BC) Greek Historian

"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh
try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere
behind the morning."
-- J.B. Priestly (1894-1984) English Author

"Attitude determines altitude."
-- Unknown

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship."
— Louisa May Alcott

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

"Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should never come,
the opportunities for good deeds are renewed day by day. The thing for
us to long for is the goodness, not the glory."
-- F.W. Faber

Friday, September 21, 2007

"Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls aren't there to
keep us out. The brick walls are there to show us how badly we want
things."
-Randy Pausch

Thursday, September 20, 2007

"Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach
them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to
follow where they lead."
-- Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

Monday, September 17, 2007

"Courage is the greatest of all the virtues. Because if you haven't
courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
-- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Saturday, September 15, 2007

"Decide on what you think is right, and stick to it."
-- George Eliot (1819-1880)

Thursday, September 13, 2007

"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to
do."
-- Epictetus (55-135 AD) Greek Philosopher

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

"Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and obeys
it."
-- Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

"The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it, and once
you've seen it, keeping quiet and saying nothing, becomes as political
an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way you are
accountable".
- Arundhati Roy

Friday, September 07, 2007

"Babe Ruth hit more home runs than anyone; he also struck out more
often than anyone."
-- Anonymous

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

"He who cares wins."

Monday, September 03, 2007

"I run great risk of failing. It may be that I shall encounter ruin
where I look for reputation and a career of honor. The chances are
perhaps more in favour of ruin than of success. But, whatever may be
the chances, I shall go on as long as any means of carrying on the
fight are at my disposal."
-- Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) English Novelist

Sunday, September 02, 2007

"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be
in reality what we would appear to be."
-- Socrates (469-399 BC)

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

"No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and
good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being
helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness."
-- Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

"A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong,
which is but saying that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."
-- Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Saturday, August 25, 2007

"When the art is forgotten, there is no hope."
~Balkrishna Vaidya, artist, in "Painted Nation"

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

"Good friendships are fragile things and require as much care as any
other fragile and precious thing."
-- Randolph S. Bourne (1886-1918)

Monday, August 20, 2007

"When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into
them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen."
-- Arland Gilbert

Saturday, August 18, 2007

"Don't bother about genius. Don't worry about being clever. Trust to
hard work, perseverance and determination."
-- Sir Frederick Treves (1853-1923) English Surgeon

"To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both
hands into life up to the elbows."
-- Jean Anouilh

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person."
-- Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

"Money is a "way of keeping score in life," says T. Boone Pickens. But
that is just for those who like playing the game. The real goal is to
live with grace and dignity. You can do that with a small amount of
money...or not do it with a fortune."
-- Bill Bonner, financial journalist

Saturday, August 04, 2007

"Overcoming Poverty is Not a Gesture of Charity, it is an Act of Justice"
~ Nelson Mandela

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

"I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore there be any
kindness I can show...let me do it now."
- William Penn

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single minute before
starting to improve the world.'
- Anne Frank


"No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted."
- Aesop


"A little kindness from person to person is better than a vast love for
all humankind."
- Richard Dehmel


"Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but
manifestations of strength and resolution."
- Kahlil Gibran

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

"Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine."
-- Lord Byron (1788-1824) English Poet

Saturday, July 28, 2007

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."
-- George Eliot (1819-1880)

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the
strong."
~ Mahatma Gandhi

"The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of
thinking with which we created them."
~ Albert Einstein

Friday, July 20, 2007

"What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing
for this, I was training for this."
-- Epictetus (55-135 AD)

Thursday, July 19, 2007

"Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy." --
Howard W. Newton

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

"Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life."
-- Sophia Loren

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

"You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips."
-- Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)

Friday, July 13, 2007

"If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your
envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears."
-- Glenn Clark

Monday, July 09, 2007

The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone
in your heart - this you will build your life by, and this you will
become."
-- James Lane Allen (1849-1925)

Friday, July 06, 2007

"Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but
they die young."
-- A.W. Pinero

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

"Humour is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's
superiority to all that befalls him."
-- Romain Gary (1914-1980) French Writer

Saturday, June 30, 2007

"No pleasure philosophy, no sensuality, no place nor power, no material success can for a moment give such inner satisfaction as the sense of living for good purposes, for maintenance of integrity, for the preservation of self-approval."
-- Minot Simons

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

"The life that conquers is the life that moves with a steady resolution and persistence toward a predetermined goal. Those who succeed are those who have thoroughly learned the immense importance of plan in life, and the tragic brevity of time."
-- W.J. Davison

Friday, June 22, 2007

"Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right." --
Henry Ford (1863-1947)