"If I had one gift that I could give you, my friend, it would be the ability to see yourself as others see you, because only then would you know how extremely special you are." 


~ B.A.Billingsly ~

"Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature"

~ Gerard De Nerval

‎"Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind." 
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

"You get in life what you have the courage to ask for."
~ Oprah Winfrey

Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles; it empties today of its strength.

Mary Engelbreit

Love me when I least deserve it, because that is when I really need it. 

~ Swedish Proverb

"People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness.  Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost."

~ Dalai Lama

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~ William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)

"It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others."

—Marianne Williamson (Our Greatest Fear from the book "Return To Love", 1992)

“A human being is part of a whole called by us ‘the universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."
Kahlil Gibran

"To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy, a whole heart, and a free mind."

(Pearl S. Buck)

"The air smelled of sun-warmed bark and apple buds raring to blossom and get on with life.  Overhead, a million baby leaves danced in the breeze."

Kathy Reichs

"It is sometimes a mistake to make the climb; it is always a mistake never even to make the attempt. If you climb, you can either succeed or fall. But there is a third option: Sometimes when you fall, you find out you can fly."
 –NG
(via Benjamin LaBrot, founder of Floating Doctors)

"The triumph of anything is a matter of organization."
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 

"You can fool just about anyone, but the easiest one to fool is yourself."  (Richard Feynman)

"Quiet people have the loudest minds."
~Stephen Hawking

"You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself"

~ Alan Alda

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is 
waiting for us."

--Joseph Campbell

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

-- George Eliot (1819-1880)

“Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.” 
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

-- Unknown

"That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong."

 

~William J. H. Boetcker

'I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.'
~ Vincent Van Gogh

"I like to live like a poor man with lots of money." ~ Picasso

"When you drink the water, you think of where the water comes from."
~ Chinese saying

"All know the way, but few actually walk it."
~ Bodhidharma

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world."
~ Jack Layton

"Knowledge is not enough, we must apply."
~ Goethe

"I cannot teach anybody anything.  I can only make them think."
~ Socrates

'They are not gay, they are not straight, they are puppets. They don't exist below the waist.'

Gary Knell,Sesame Workshop President and CEO regarding Ernie and Bert

"Prizes are nice, but the real competition is with your performance yesterday."
Irwin Greenberg

The greatest gift you will ever receive is the gift of loving and
believing in yourself. Guard this gift with your life. It is the only
thing that will ever truly be yours.

-- Tiffany Loren Rowe

A childlike man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on
the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of
continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves
in the cocoon of middle aged habit and convention.

-- Aldous Huxley

You cannot add to the peace and good will of the world if you fail to
create an atmosphere of harmony and love right where you live and
work.

-- Thomas Dreier

From long familiarity, we know what honor is. It is what enables the
individual to do right in the face of complacency and cowardice. It
is what enables the soldier to die alone, the political prisoner to
resist, the singer to sing her song, hardly appreciated, on a side
street.

-- Mark Helprin

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

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

"A wish has been defined as a 'goal with no energy behind it.' Hope is not a strategy."
~ Brian Tracy

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

Art establishes and makes tangible a time, a place, a thought, an idea.
Art, properly made, enhances and enriches the lives of others.
Art gives an opportunity to endow new life and new meaning into the ordinary.
Art gives an opportunity to design your own world, and, as in your children, create a significant immortality.
Art is hard-earned work that is its own reward and has a degree of permanence.
Art, because it's so easy to do, and yet so difficult to do well, encourages humility in the human soul.
Art is an apprenticeship that can be stretched into a lifelong education.
Art thrives on democratic ideals, freedom of expression and rugged individualism.
Art permits you to step out of the labyrinth and into a quiet corner of your own private joy.


~ Robert Genn, Canadian painter and author

"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."

-William James

"In real life, there is real heroism, but its not about saving babies from burning buildings. Its about making an effort, day after day, to be kind to some old people, be patient with some young people, be polite to those who you could get away being rude to. Real life heroism is a marathon, not a sprint."


~ John F. Groom

Is great art out of reach? You can find an emerging artist, a painting, or vase, in your city, for an amount you can afford. The great names are out of your reach. But beauty, without the brand, is not. And the search for beauty will ennoble you.

~ John F. Groom

“All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honour; duty; mercy; hope.”

- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"He plays his tune.Is it beautiful? Are you paying attention? Or do you just want to know if he is famous? Does his fame, or lack thereof, affect the beauty of the song? Can you hear the music, or taste the wine, without knowing the brand?"

~ John F. Groom

“As the body needs physical exercise in order to remain in fit condition, man’s spirit also requires the spiritual exercise derived when he confronts his problems and combats life’s vicissitudes. ”

- William Sahakian and Mabel Lewis Sahakian, describing the philosophy of Epictetus

“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)

“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”

- Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

"Be a rainbow in someone else's cloud." 

~Maya Angelou

"Our real duty is always found running in the direction of our worthiest desires."

-- Randolph S. Bourne (1886-1918)

"An expert is an ordinary fellow from another town."


 (Mark Twain) 

"Life is a song... sing it. Life is a game... play it. Life is a challenge... meet it. Life is a dream... realize it. Life is a sacrifice... offer it. Life is love.... enjoy it." 


Sai Baba

“True friends are those who lift you up when your heart's wings forget how to fly.” 
- Grace Pulpit

"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