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

Robert Frost

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."

-Edith Lovejoy Pierce

"Every minute past is a minute gone."

~  Henry Robert Tindale Haws

"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”


 - Lao Tzu

"When we dismiss calling someone a 'fag' as kids being kids, what message are we sending the target and those who are saying it?"

- Brian Juchems

"If you have knowledge, let others light  their candles with it." 


- Margaret Fuller

"It is with music we pray twice" 


St. Augustine 

"I want to leave something behind when I go; some small legacy of truth, some word that will shine in a dark place."
                         —Nellie McClung

"Not a day passes over this earth but men and women of note do great deeds, speak great words and suffer noble sorrows."

-- Charles Reed

"The rich and the idlers seek the new, the extraordinary, the extravagant and the scandalous. I have contented these people with all the many bizarre things that come into my head. The less they understand, the more they admire it. By amusing myself with all these games, all this nonsense, all these picture puzzles, I became famous. I am only a public entertainer who has understood his time." 


(Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973)

"Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."

Hans Christian Andersen

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." 


(Oscar Wilde) 

"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength
from distress, and grow brave by reflection."

-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

"The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly." 


— Friedrich Nietzsche

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.

-- Herodotus (485 - 425BC) 

"Those who follow are always behind." 


~ A Y Jackson

"The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself." 


- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many--not
on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

-- Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

"Life is a gift. It offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back." 


- Anthony Robbins

"We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers." 

-Seneca

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." 


Henry Ford

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

-- Henry B. Wilson

"There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. "
 
~ Nelson Mandela

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." 

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Love yourself—accept yourself—forgive yourself—and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.” 

-Leo F. Buscaglia

‎"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." 

- Dalai Lama

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." 


- Nelson Mandela

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."

-Albert Camus

"Noone is as blind as the one who does not want to see."

- Dr. KJS (Sunny) Anand, paediatrician and researcher

"I sat there and forgot and forgot, until what remained was the river that went by and I who watched... Eventually the watcher joined the river, and there was only one of us. I believe it was the river."

—Norman MacLean, A River Runs Through It

"Democracy is not a spectator sport. And what upsets me is we've lulled ourselves in America into a state of sedentary agitation, where everybody can sit on their couch and get upset about what's going on but not get off their backsides and realize that they are responsible for the change that they need to make.

We who drink deeply from wells that we did not dig, we who eat lavishly from banquet tables set up for us by the sacrifices and struggles of our ancestors, are we just going to luxuriate in all that's America?  Or are we going to realize that this nation has not finished itself yet, and we must return the blessings of our ancestors by showing the same sacrifice and commitment?"

~ Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, USA

‎"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." 

-Leo Buscaglia

‎"Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.""


- Mary Anne Radmacher

They said,"You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied,"Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.

- Wallace Stevens

‎"A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love." 

- Saint Basil (330 - 379 AD)

"Live your life as if there are no miracles and everything is a miracle." 

- Albert Einstein

"Man is a creature who makes pictures of himself, and then comes to resemble the picture."

Iris Murdoch (as quoted by Simon Leys in NYRB)

 ‎"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late." 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." 


Saint Augustine

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly"


- Bobby Kennedy

“Today, like every day, we wake up empty. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

Rumi

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

-Plato

"I never thought my dreams could come true until I tried as hard as I could from my the crown of my head to the SOLES of my feet. So stop complaining and keep trying harder."

- Leo Johnson 2010

Salutation To The Dawn

Look to this day!

For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth,

The glory of action,

The splendor of achievement,

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow is just a vision,

And today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day!

Such is the salutation to the dawn.

~ Kalidasa

‎"To love chocolate is human, to choose Fair Trade is Divine." 

~ Kojo Aduhene-Tano, Cocoa Farmer, Kuapa Kokoo Fair Trade Cooperative, Ghana

"An artist is no bigger than the size of his mind.." 


Jack Shadbolt, 1909-1998

"We don't accomplish anything in this world alone...Whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something." 


- Sandra Day O'Connor

"He who has never seen himself surrounded on all sides by the sea can never possess an idea of the world, and of his relation to it." 


Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."


~ Mark Twain

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."

~ Mark Twain

Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools. He uses them only when he has no choice. 


Lao Tzu

"I wish America had more engineers than lawyers" 


 Barrack Obama

‎"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal." 

--Albert Pike

‎"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." 

~ Joseph Campbell

"Nature is the true revelation of the Deity to man. The nearest green field is the inspired page from which you may read all that it is needful for you to know.” 

- Arthur Conan Doyle Sr.

"Fear came knocking on the door. Faith answered; no one was there."

"Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation." 

 Thomas Keating

“The world is my country, all mankind are my bethren, and to do good is my religion.”
_  Thomas Paine

The nobler sort of man emphasizes the good qualities in others, and does not accentuate the bad. The inferior does the reverse.     

-- Confucius (551-479 BC) 

“You can gain more friends by being yourself than you can by putting up a front. You can gain more friends by building people up than you can by tearing them down. And you can gain more friends by taking a few minutes from each day to do something kind for someone, whether it be a friend or a complete stranger. What a difference one person can make!”

 -Sasha Azevedo

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

-- David Viscott

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

-- Lao Tzu

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

"Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with."

- Robert Frost

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost

"The irony of the Information Age is that it has given new respectability to uninformed opinion."

~ Veteran reporter John Lawton, speaking to the American Association of Broadcast Journalists in 1995

"You teach best what you most need to learn." 


Richard Bach

"Teaching is a difficult profession. Artful teaching has a short shelf life that is not always respected by unions or the granters of tenure. Former libertine artists can be persuaded, as teachers, to cling for dear life to security. I recommend teaching contracts of no more than five years. Much less if the flame is burning low. The widespread practice of impassive teaching quells student curiosity and hatches dullards. Teachers need to be learners."


Robert Genn

"Genuine security arises from actual, first-hand knowledge that one is both capable and worthy of achieving happiness (through conscious, responsible action) and, once having attained it, that he deserves it."

-- Michael J. Hurd

"One must work and dare if one really wants to live." 
~ Vincent Van Gogh

"Virtue means doing the right thing, in relation to the right person, at the right time, to the right extent, in the right manner, and for the right purpose.  Thus, to give money away is quite a simple task, but for the act to be virtuous, the donor must give to the right person, for the right purpose, in the right amount, in the right manner, and at the right time.

-- Aristotle

"The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving."
-Albert Einstein

"Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"

-Martin Luther King Jr.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

-Theodore Roosevelt

"If you can't feed a hundred people, then just feed one."


-Mother Teresa

"To be a hero you have to learn to be a deviant, because you're always going agains the conformity of the group. 

Heroes are ordinary people whose social action is Extra-Ordinary who ACT when others are passive, who give up EGO-centrism for SOCIO-centrism."

~ Philip Zimbardo

"Some people say that dreaming gets you nowhere in life. But I say you
can't get anywhere in life without dreaming."

-- Rose Zadra

“How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service” 


~ Charles Darwin

"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader."


~Robert Frost

"For those who can cry, I say, be proud. Humanity is in your tears."
~ Robert Genn, Canadian Painter

"It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain himself. "

~ Epicurus

“Don’t just survive what’s coming at you.  Shape it.”
Gen. Romeo Dallaire

"The finest people marry the two sexes in their own person."


~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted - a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul."

- Rabbi Harold Kushner"

"Gratitude is the sign of noble souls" 


- Aesop

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." 


- Cicero

"The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!" 


- Henry Ward Beecher

"When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude." 
- Elie Wiesel

"In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy."
- Albert Clarke

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

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

"The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery." 
- Mark Van Doren

"The supreme art of the teacher is to awaken joy."


- Albert Einstein

"Nothing is more endangered in the modern world than the powerful combination of hard work toward meaningful goals joined with an exuberant embrace of the present moment."

-- Tom Morris

"There is no substitute for attentive repetition."
Daniel Coyle

"Fear is the opportunity for courage, not proof of cowardice."

-- John McCain

"Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals."

-- Samuel Ullman

"Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die."
-- Carrie Fisher

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect, has intended us to forego their use."

Galileo

"I have always had a curious nature; I enjoy learning, but I dislike being taught."


~ Winston Churchill

"If success is not on your own terms - if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your own heart - it is no success at all."

-- Anna Quindlen