I Love You!

Well, count me as someone who savored the book and laughed out loud enough in Starbucks each morning that people asked what I was reading. I work everyday with (mostly) women who are on a spiritual journey. Some have endured abuse, disrespect, serious trauma, or “just” lack of healthy physical and emotional boundaries. What is described in the book–while it covers three countries and more distinct “venues” than most people experience–aptly described what so many of us go through.

The tearing down. The reconnecting to Source, to inner guidance. The exploration of sensual pleasures with deep mindfulness. The awakening of kundalini energy. The experience of Oneness that becomes our Knowing to carry with us during all the other moments where we feel not-quite-One-with-the-Universe. The “becoming safe again” with our power and sexuality in relationship with another.

I’d give the book a 9. The movie a 2.

Why? Well, Julia Roberts was asked to portray someone who I felt had a very different energy in the book. Julia is older, Julia HAS three children, and frankly she has the mommy tattoo on her face (to quote the book).

What has bugged me the most, perhaps, is the way they portrayed both Richard and Felipe. Richard was, in her time in India as she portrayed him in the book, a man who HAD forgiven himself. He helped keep her grounded through humor and the kind of loving pokes that brought her back to her core issues over and over. The Richard of the movie was much more unhealed. Indeed, the story they spun on the roof totally changed the dynamic of that situation for Liz to one where she was being TOLD (!) by Richard to stay up there until you forgive yourself… when movie-Richard  had not forgiven himself yet! It was off. And not true to either the book or the authentic healing situation that lead her to that spiritual connection and release.

Felipe in the book was older, by 17 years if I recall. He felt to me like a confident, spiritually mature man… and like most Brazilians very comfortable and natural with sex and sexuality. Felipe COURTED her. He created safe spaces for her to be honest. He respected her boundaries, and also felt a mutual attraction bringing them together. To me he modeled the kind of man that, by 52, a man should be who has been through those life experiences and done his own work. Liz conveyed to me that she could feel his desire for her… as well as his willingness to give her space. They went from yes… to Yes… to YES… to YES YES YES!

Movie Felipe was portrayed as Liz’s age. (The actor Javier Bardem is 42, Julia Roberts almost 43). And his son (not in the book) says it is time for Dad to break his 10 year celibacy. Add to it this weird beach confrontation between them, followed by the Runaway Bride Revisited, and it didn’t leave me feeling particularly good about their relationship… when in the book the flow was far more healing, natural, and as she even said, fairytale like.

Add to that, perhaps, that in the book she refused to detail her ex-husband’s antics. It felt to me like she was honoring that neither of them were at their best in that duel. In the movie, he is portrayed as DERANGED. “My client would like to…” when he was representing HIMSELF. Perhaps that was what really happened. But jeesh, just showing that he wasn’t willing to let her go even if she gave him everything would have been enough to make it clear to the audience his hurt-vindictive state of mind.

All that said, I loved the book. Spiritual journeys are hard to capture in writing, and I certainly enjoyed following hers.

Rick

I’ve been bloggin’ long before bloggin’ was cool. I’ve used everything from RAW HTML pages, to FrontPage 2000, to Radio Userland, to Movable Type, to pMachine, to ExpressionEngine, and now… WordPress 3.0.

This website is really my place to “store” stuff I write, stuff that amuses and inspires me, stuff that irks me, and stuff that speaks to my mission to help people feel really, REALLY Good. I hope your find something that you find engaging.

My primary websites are:

www.thrivingnow.com

www.mythrivingbusiness.com

www.energytapping.info

www.taptalkradio.com

Warm smiles,
Rick@Thrivingnow.com

A balanced diet

“Food is an important part of a balanced diet.” –Fran Lebowitz

A Daring adventure or nothing

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.”  –Helen Keller

A drop of honey

“When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that ‘a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.’ So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one.”  –Abraham Lincoln

A few scars

“It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.”  –Garrison Keillor

A gift for you in its hands

“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands.”  –Richard Bach

A glipse of heaven

“To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.”  –Karen Sunde

A great marriage

“A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.”  –Dave Meurer

A little way into the impossible

“The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” –Arthur C. Clarke

A mere child

“I must take issue with the term ‘a mere child,’ for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult.”  –Fran Lebowitz

A million facts

“It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.”  –Alec Bourne

A Mirror that is not supposed to lie

“Even a mirror that’s not supposed to lie reflects things in reverse.” –A Zen Harvest

A music bath

“Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.”  –Oliver Wendell Holmes

A nation

“A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors.”  –W. R. Inge

A path with no obstacles

“If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”  –Frank A Clark

A separate life

“One should count each day a separate life.”  –Seneca

A thousand disguises

“We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life.” –Carl Jung

Accepting criticism

“If you understand who you are and respect yourself, you will not see criticism as a problem but as an opportunity to become a better person. When you feel inadequate or imperfect, the criticism is threatening and makes you feel that you have to defend yourself. When you are secure–not perfect, but secure–you can listen to the criticism and consider its value.”  –Dr. Bernie Siegel

Act a particular way

“Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way…you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.”  –Aristotle

Act as if

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” –William James

Advice to children

“I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.”  –Harry S. Truman

After silence

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”  –Aldous Huxley

Age means nothing

“Age to me means nothing. I can’t get old; I’m working. I was old when I was twenty-one and out of work. As long as you’re working, you stay young. When I’m in front of an audience, all that love and vitality sweeps over me and I forget my age.”  –George Burns

Aim at the sun

“Aim at the sun, and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself.”  –Joel Hawes

Aim for success

“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life.”  –Dr. David M. Burns

Aim for success not perfection

“Aim for success not perfection… Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.”  –Dr. David Burns

Aim of an argument

“The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.” –Joseph Joubert

Alarm clock

“Throw out an alarming alarm clock. If the ring is loud and strident, you’re waking up to instant stress. You shouldn’t be bullied out of bed, just reminded that it’s time to start your day.”  –Sharon Gold

All of a sudden

“That’s the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they’ve been all along.”  –Madeleine L’Engle

All the care and kindness

“Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”  –Og Mandino

All the other ages

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”  –Madeleine L’Engle

All truth

“All truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self-evident.” –Arthur Schopenhauer

Always 15 years older

“To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.”  –Bernard M. Baruch

Anger

“Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to.”  –Harriet Lerner

Anxiety and love

“Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.”  –Anais Nin

Any fool can

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius–and a lot of courage–to move in the opposite direction.”  –E. F. Schumacher

Any time one person makes an effort

“Any time one person makes an effort to contact a deeper part of him-or herself, balance his or her emotions, and deflect the stress momentum, others benefit. As more individuals learn to maintain their poise and balance and refrain from adding to the incoherence around them, they help to counterbalance the frequency of stress.”  –Doc Childre and Howard Martin

Appetite for Gossip

“In our appetite for gossip, we tend to gobble down everything before us, only to find, too late, that it is our ideals we have consumed, and we have not been enlarged by the feasts but only diminished.” –Pico Iyer

Appreciative leadership

“It could be argued that all leadership is appreciative leadership. It’s the capacity to see the best in the world around us, in our colleagues, and in the groups we are trying to lead. It’s the capacity to see the most creative and improbable opportunities in the marketplace. It’s the capacity to see with an appreciative eye the true and the good, the better and the possible.”  –David L Cooperrider

Art is a collaboration

“Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.”  –Andre Gide

As a man thinketh

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”  –Proverbs 23:7

As clothes do against the cold

“Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.”  –Leonardo da Vinci

As I breathe deeply, I feel myself thrive

“As I breathe deeply, I feel myself thrive. Thriving is as natural as breathing itself. By relaxing often, and breathing deeply—your natural thriving is enhanced.”  –Abraham

Atheist

“An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.”  –John Buchan

Atheist

“An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.”  –John Buchan

Atomic energy

“The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.”  –Albert Einstein

Attitude of silence

“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.”  –Mahatma Gandhi

Background and circumstances

“Our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.” –Barbara Geraci

Bad weather?

“There’s no such thing as bad weather. There’s only the wrong clothes.”  –Billy Connolly

Balance in your life

“The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.”  –Euripides

Basic truths

“Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.”  –Elizabeth Goudge

Be a fountain

“Be a fountain, not a drain.”  –Rex Hudler

Be the change you seek

“Be the change you seek in your world.” –Gandhi

Be who you are

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”  –Dr. Seuss

Before death

“Is there life before death?”  –Graffito

Being punctual

“The trouble with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it.”  –Franklin P. Jones

Being selfish is fun

Being selfish is fun! Passing the feeling of it on to others is Life! –Jennifer Scotchel

Believe in yourself

“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”  –Norman Vincent Peale

Better and better

“Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.”  –Emile Coue

Beware your anxiety

“Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.”  –Demosthenes

Bid war’s trumpet cease

“Lord, bid war’s trumpet cease; / Fold the whole earth in peace.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes Oliver Wendell Holmes

Big fan of dreams

“I’m a big fan of dreams. Unfortunately, dreams are our first casualty in life–people seem to give them up, quicker than anything, for a ‘reality’. “ –Kevin Costner

Bitterest tears

“When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.”  –Maurice Maeterlinck

Bliss

“Follow your bliss.” –Joseph Campbell

Bliss of certainty

“No great deed, private or public, had ever been undertaken in a bliss of certainty.”  –Leon Wieseltier

Boldness

“What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”  –Goethe

Brave and patient

“We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.”  –Helen Keller

Build health or produce disease

“As I see it every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself.”  –Adelle Davis

Build health or…

“As I see it every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself.”  –Adelle Davis

Bumperstickers

“Television is to news as bumperstickers are to philosophy.”  –Richard M. Nixon

Busy

“It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”  –Henry David Thoreau

Carry the beautiful

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.”  –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Certain of improving

“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving… and that’s your own self.”  –Aldous Huxley

Change of heart

“The most powerful agent of growth and transformation is something much more basic than any technique: a change of heart.”  –John Welwood

Changing themselves

“Some people change jobs, mates, and friends, but never think of changing themselves.”  –John C. Maxwell

Chant the beauty of the good

“Don’t waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.”  –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Chaotic currents

“Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.”  –Carl Jung

Character develops

“Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.” –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Chasing the wrong things

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”  –Morrie Schwartz, in “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom

Cheer yourself up

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”  –Mark Twain

Cheerfulness

“Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us.”  –Charlotte Bronte

Chewing gum

“Television: chewing gum for the eyes. ”  –Frank Lloyd Wright

Chief value of money

“The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.”  –H. L. Mencken

Children’s eyes

“Outings are so much more fun when we can savor them through the children’s eyes.”  –Lawana Blackwell

Choice between love and fear

“The choice between love and fear is made every moment in our hearts and minds. That is where the peace process begins. Without peace within, peace in the world is an empty wish. Like love, peace is extended. It cannot be brought from the world to the heart. It must be brought from each heart to another, and thus to all mankind.”  –Paul Ferrini

Choose a job you love

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”  –Confucius

Choose life work

“Whenever it is in any way possible, every boy and girl should choose as his life work some occupation which he should like to do anyhow, even if he did not need the money.”  –William Lyon Phelps

Choose that way…

“Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him, and then choose that way with all his strength.”  –Hasidic Saying

Clear about what you want

“If you are clear about what you want, the world responds with clarity.” –Loretta Staples

Clenched fist

“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”  –Indira Gandhi

Client or Patient?

A client is, “One who uses a professional service.” A patient is, “A person to whom something is done.”  –Unknown

Clutter, discord, difficulty

“Out of clutter, find Simplicity. From discord, find Harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”  –Albert Einstein

Collaborators in creation

“Our duty as people is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.” –Pierre Chardin

Common medium

“Energy is the common medium of body, mind, and soul.” –Donna Eden

Compulsive work

“I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.”  –Bette Davis

Conformity

“The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself.”  –Rita Mae Brown

Conscience

“Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.”  –Unknown

Conscious choice

“Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.”  –Michael Bartel

Conscious endeavor

“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”  –Henry David Thoreau

Constructive criticism

“No one appreciates the value of constructive criticism more thoroughly than the one who’s giving it.”  –Hal Chadwick

Constructive criticism

“No one appreciates the value of constructive criticism more thoroughly than the one who’s giving it.” –Hal Chadwick

Content to simply be yourself

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.” –Lao-Tzu

Cost of living

“In spite of the cost of living, it’s still popular.”  –Laurence J. Peter

Courage

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”  –Anais Nin

Crack in everything

“There’s a crack in everything and that’s how the light gets in.”  –Leonard Cohen

Creating from the heart

“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.”  –Marc Chagall

Crippled inside

“One thing you can’t hide is when you’re crippled inside.”  –John Lennon

Crisis

“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger -but recognize the opportunity.”  –Richard M. Nixon

Cure for boredom

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”  –Ellen Parr

Cynicism

“Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It’s unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don’t have to try.”  –Peggy Noonan

Dance Quotes

“Dancers aren’t made up of their technique, but their passion.” “To dance is to be out of yourself, larger, more beautiful, more powerful.” “The dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expresses in words. ” “You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart.” “You know you’re dancing when tears of pain and happiness blend in with your sweat” “Dance is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing. It’s the rhythm of your life. It’s the expression in time and movement, in happiness, joy, sadness and envy.” “There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good.” “Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!”  –Various

Danger and opportunity

“When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”  –John F. Kennedy

Dare mighty things

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”  –Theodore Roosevelt.

Daughter dating

“Watching your daughter being collected by her date feels like handing over a million dollar Stradivarius to a gorilla.”  –Jim Bishop

Deal with the irritating details

“After all it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.” –Evelyn Underhill

Delude yourself

“The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool.” –Jane Wagner

Deny laughter

“You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.”  –Stephen King

Desire…

“Desire, ask, believe, receive.”  –Stella Terrill Mann

Desires increase

“Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.”  –Henry George

Diets

“Diets are for people who are thick and tired of it.”  –Weight watcher

Different gifts

“Through the grace of God we have different gifts. If our gift is preaching, let us preach to the limit of our vision. If it is serving others let us concentrate on our service; if it is teaching let us give all that we have to our teaching; and if our gift is stimulating the faith of others let us set ourselves to it. Let the man who is called to give, give freely; let the man in authority work with enthusiasm; and let the man who feels sympathy for his fellows in distress help them cheerfully.”  –Romans 12:6-8

Differs in opinion

“Do not think of knocking out another person’s brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.”  –Horace Mann

Difficult undertakings

“Providence has hidden a charm in difficult undertakings which is appreciated only by those who dare to grapple with them.”  –Anne-Sophie Swetchine

Direction of your dreams

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.”  –Henry David Thoreau

Discover wisdom

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take us or spare us.”  –Marcel Proust

Dishonest gain

“Prefer loss to the wealth of dishonest gain; the former vexes you for a time; the latter will bring you lasting remorse.”  –Chilo

Distinction between achievement and success

“My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that ‘achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that’s nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.’”  –Helen Hayes

Distressed by the external

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”  –Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Do definite good

“Do definite good; first of all to yourself, then to definite persons.”  –John Lancaster Spalding

Do foolish things

“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.” –Colette

Do not abandon trust

“Do not abandon trust when your ego thinks things should be different than they are.” –Wayne Dyer

Do not stop

“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.”  –Confucius

Do not wait

“Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right’. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”  –Napoleon Hill

Do that which I can not

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”  –Pablo Picasso

Do with diligence

“What we hope ever to do with ease we must learn first to do with diligence.”  –Samuel Johnson

Doctor of the Future

“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest her or his patients in the care of the human frame, in proper diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.” –Thomas Edison

Don’t believe…

“Don’t believe everything you think!”  –Bumpersticker

Don’t go barefoot

“If you scatter thorns, don’t go barefoot.”  –Italian Proverb

Done in a spirit of love

“You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.” –Henry Drummond

Doubts of today

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.”  –Franklin D. Roosevelt

Down the wrong road

“No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.” –Turkish proverb

Dream for a living

“I dream for a living.” –Steven Spielberg

Dreaming

“Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.”  –William Dement

Dreams are renewable

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

Dressed in overalls

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”  –Thomas A. Edison

Dwell not on weariness

“Dwell not upon thy weariness, thy strength shall be according to the measure of thy desire.”  –Arab Proverb

Dysfunctional co-dependent

“To err is dysfunctional, to forgive co-dependent.”  –Berton Averre

Each moment of life

“We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.”  –H. G. Wells

Each success

“Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.”  –Henry Kissinger

Economy of the heart

“Forgiveness is the economy of the heart…. Forgiveness saves expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.”  –Hannah More

Education

“The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.”  –Plato

Education is…

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence.”  –Robert Frost

Elevate life through conscious endeavor

“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”  –Henry David Thoreau

Endless forgiveness

“Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.”  –Peter Ustinov

Enough money

“I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.”  –Jackie Mason

Entertaining subject matter

“The problem is not that television presents us with entertainining subject matter, but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining.”  –Neil Postman

Enthusiasm finds opportunities

“Enthusiasm finds the opportunities, and energy makes the most of them.” –Henry Hoskins

Espresso and meditation

“I took up meditation. I like to have an espresso first just to make it more challenging.”  –Betsy Salkind

Ethics

“A distinguished physician of high professional prestige was once invited to deliver a lecture to a group of young doctors upon the subject ‘The Ethics of the Medical Profession.’ This is what he said: ‘My lecture can be boiled down into two sentences. If you are a gentleman, you will know how to conduct yourself in any situation affecting a doctor’s practice. If you are not, nothing I can say here will do you any good.’”  –Nolan B. Harmon

Even God cannot change…

“Even God cannot change the past.”  –Agathon

Even if only in your heart

“You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart.” –Source unknown

Ever-evolving work of art

“You can make your life into a grand ever-evolving work of art. The key is your thoughts, the wondrous invisible part of you that is your spiritual soul.” –Dr. Wayne Dyer

Everyone lacks self-confidence

“Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them.” –Andre Maurois

Everything is a miracle

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” –Albert Einstein

Evil on the ground of expediency

“No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.”  –Theodore Roosevelt

Excellence and Perfection

“I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God’s business.”  –Michael J. Fox

Expecting the world to treat you fairly

“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.” –Dennis Wholey

Expensive answers

“A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that your spouse will give you for free.”  –Unknown

Experience the mysterious

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”  –Albert Einstein

Experiment Constantly

“Experiment constantly. Enlightened trial and error outperforms the planning of flawless intellects.” –John Maloney

Eye in your heart

“You got to look at things with the eye in your heart, not with the eye in your head.”  –Lame Deer, Medicine Man of the Oglala people

Failed over and over

“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions, I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot and I missed. I have failed over and over again in my life. And that’s precisely why I succeed.”  –Michael Jordan

Failure as part of the process

“The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.” –Dr. Joyce Brothers

Failure is staying down

“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.” –Mary Pickford

Faithfully follow what we know

“It takes great courage to faithfully follow what we know to be true.” –Sara E. Anderson

Fall… stand up

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.”  –Japanese Proverb

Fear is a drain of energy

“Fear is nothing except a drain of energy and not a power unto itself. Trust in yourself, for therein lies the true power.” –Lori Hard

Fear is the main source

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”  –Bertrand Russell

Fear itself

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”  –Franklin D. Roosevelt

Fear less, Hope more

“Fear less, hope more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Hate less, love more; And all good things are yours.” –Swedish proverb

Fearing the opinion of others

“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.”  –Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Feeling good all over

“Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.”  –Josh Billings

Felt with the heart

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” –Helen Keller

Fence or friends

“Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends.”  –Czech Proverb

Fight maturity

“The purpose of life is to fight maturity.”  –Dick Werthimer

Fine persons

“The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.”  –Ralph Waldo Emerson

First step in faith

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” –Martin Luther King Jr.

Five minutes every hour

“No matter how much pressure you feel at work, if you could find ways to relax for at least five minutes every hour, you’d be more productive.”  –Dr. Joyce Brothers

Follow intuitive feeling

“To know how to choose a path with heart is to learn how to follow intuitive feeling. Logic can tell you superficially where a path might lead to, but it cannot judge whether your heart will be in it.”  –Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.

Follow your bliss

“Follow your Bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before.” –Joseph Campbell

Following a regimen

“The one thing more difficult than following a regimen is not imposing it on others.”  –Marcel Proust

Fools and fanatics

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”  –Bertrand Russell

Forget injuries

“Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.”  –Confucius

Forgive a friend

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”  –William Blake

Forgiven yourself

“If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others?”  –Dolores Huerta

Forgiven yourself?

“If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others?”  –Dolores Huerta

Formula for failure

“I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.”  –Herbert Bayard Swope

Formula for success

“Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.”  –Arthur Rubinstein

Found A Truth

“Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’”  –Kahlil Gibran

Free ourselves through forgiveness

“Applied to other people, forgiveness is a process through which we seek to free ourselves from the bondage to another person that is maintained for as long as we stand in judgment of them.”  –Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.

Freedom a bigger game than power

“Freedom is actually a bigger game than power. Power is about what you can control. Freedom is about what you can unleash.” –Harriet Rubin

Freedom vs. Power

“Freedom is actually a bigger game than power. Power is about what you can control. Freedom is about what you can unleash.” –Harriet Rubin

Friendly terms

“Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.”  –Samuel Butler

Friends who frequent

“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.”  –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friendship lessens adversity

“Friendship makes prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it.” –Cicero

Frigidity of old age

“To resist the frigidity of old age one must combine the body, the mind and the heart -and to keep them in parallel vigor one must exercise, study and love.”  –Karl von Bonstetten

From one failure to another

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”  –Sir Winston Churchill

Full of suffering

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”  –Helen Keller

Fun is a good habit

“Fun is about as good a habit as there is.” –Jimmy Buffett

Fun on the agenda

“Unfortunately many people do not consider fun an important item on their daily agenda. For me, that was always a high priority in whatever I was doing.”  –Chuck Yeager

Future

“Future, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.”  –Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Gain that which is worth having

“To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.”  –Burnadette Devlin

Garth Brooks

“The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself.”  –Garth Brooks

Genetic heritage

“Our genetic heritage endows each of us with a series of emotional set-points that determines our temperament. But the brain circuitry involved is extraordinarily malleable; temperament is not destiny.”  –Daniel Goleman

Getting harmony

“You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note.” –Doug Floyd

Gift of oneself

“Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.”  –Jean Anouilh

Gifted leadership

“Gifted leadership occurs when heart and head–feeling and thought–meet. These are the two winds that allow a leader to soar.”  –Daniel Goleman

Give ‘em hell

“I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.”  –Harry S. Truman

Give people the latitude to

“Give people the latitude to be themselves. You would want someone to give that to you.”  –Sara Paddison

Give some time

“You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it’s a little thing, do something for others -something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.”  –Albert Schweitzer

Given up control of your life

“Every moment that you spend upset, in despair, in anguish, angry or hurt because of the behaviour of anybody else in your life is a moment in which you have given up control of your life.” –Dr. Wayne Dyer

Giving makes a life

“From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.”  –Arthur Ashe

Go confidently

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”  –Henry David Thoreau

God and the Artist

“Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.”  –Andre Gide

God placed a comma

“Never put a period where God has placed a comma.”  –Gracie Allen

God’s dream about man

“Whatever God’s dream about man may be, it seems certain it cannot come true unless man cooperates.”  –Stella Terrill Mann

God’s plans

“I was expecting to be free, but God has His own plans.”  –Mother Teresa

Golden moment

“Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.”  –Henry Miller

Good morning, Lord

“Someone has said that there are only two kinds of people in the world. There are those who wake up in the morning and say, “Good Morning, Lord,” and there are those who wake up in the morning and say, “Good Lord, it’s morning.” –Unknown

Gossips

“Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.”  –Spanish Proverb

Gratitude

“Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.”  –Jacques Maritain

Gratitude is the rake

“Gratitude is the rake, and abundance is the field.”  –heavenletters.org

Gratitude the greatest of virtues

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”  –Marcus Tullius Cicero

Great services

“Great services are not canceled by one act or by one single error.”  –Benjamin Disraeli

Great services

“Great services are not canceled by one act or by one single error.”  –Benjamin Disraeli

Greatest gain in knowledge

“The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one’s life.” –Dalai Lama

Greatest science in the world

“The greatest science in the world; in heaven and on earth; is love.”  –Mother Teresa

Greatest Weapon Against Stress

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”  –William James

Gross habits

“My problem is reconciling my net income with my gross habits.”  –Erroll Flynn

Grow happiness

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.”  –James Openheim

Grow in patience

“Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.”  –Leonardo da Vinci

Growth means change

“Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.”  –George Shinn

Grudge

“It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge.”  –Unknown

Guidance of your heart

“With the guidance of your heart, you can make quality decisions and your life will be more fun. Being alive in the heart is what makes life worthwhile. When you are in touch with your heartfelt emotions, you find your true core values and enrich your life.”  –Doc Childre

Guns and bombs

“The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure. They are necessary symbols. They protect what we cherish. But they are witness to human folly.”  –Lyndon B. Johnson

Hanging onto resentment

“Hanging onto resentment is like letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.” –Ann Landers

Happily ever after

“It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.”  –Margaret Bonnano

Happiness and bad memory

“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”  –Albert Schweitzer

Happiness depends

“Happiness depends, as Nature shows, Less on exterior things than most suppose.”  –William Cowper

Happy death

“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.”  –Leonardo da Vinci

Happy in the moment

“Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.”  –Mother Teresa

Happy in work

“In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it: They must not do too much of it: And they must have a sense of success in it.”  –John Ruskin

Happy thoughts

“A happy face does not come by chance. It comes by happy thoughts.” –Anonymous

Have it all

“You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.”  –Oprah Winfrey

He that wrestles with us

“He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”  –Edmund Burke

Health is more than the absence of illness

Health is more than the absence of illness. It is the active state of physical, emotional, mental and social well being. –World Health Organization

Hearing your inner wisdom

“Like an ability or a muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strengthened by doing it.”  –Robbie Gass

Heart capacity

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”  –Zelda Fitzgerald

Heart of an artist

“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.”  –Louis Nizer

Here lies Jack Williams

“I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says: ‘Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest.’ I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have -When he gives everything that is in him to do the job he has before him. That is all you can ask of him and that is what I have tried to do.”  –Harry S. Truman

Honesty

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”  –Thomas Jefferson

Honesty is first chapter

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” –Thomas Jefferson

Horse sense

“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”  –W. C. Fields

Horses in heaven

“God forbid that I should go to any heaven in which there are no horses.” –R.B. Cunningham Graham

How far you go in life

“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.” –George Washington Carver

How high you bounce

“Success is how high you bounce after you hit bottom.” –George Patton

How much love we put in

“It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.” –Mother Teresa

How seldom they think of us

“We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do.” –Ethel Barrett

How we meet events…

“I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.”  –Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt

How will you be polished?

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?” –Mevlana Rumi

How you made them feel

“People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.”  –Unknown

Human beings want to be good

“On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time.” –George Orwell

Human choice

“The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.”  –George Eliot

Humility

“Life is a long lesson in humility.”  –James M. Barrie

Hunger for love

“There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.”  –Mother Teresa

I argue very well

“I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me.”  –Dave Barry

I became a scientist

“As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.”  –M. Cartmill

I believe in God

“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”  –Frank Lloyd Wright

I have learned through bitter

“I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world.”  –Mahatma Gandhi

I think you’re better

“I think you’re better than you think you are.”  –Bill Parcells

I was in darkness

“I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word; and the third, a good deed.” –Nietzche

I went ahead without success

“I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.” –Jonathan Winters

I’ll be happy when…

“The great Western disease is, ‘I’ll be happy when. . . .’ ” he says. “When I get the money. When I get a BMW. When I get this job. Well, the reality is, you never get to when. The only way to find happiness is to understand that happiness is not out there. It’s in here. And happiness is not next week. It’s now.”  –Marshall Goldsmith

I’m not fat

“I’m not fat. I am a nutritional overachiever.”  –Weight watcher

Idiotic discrimination

“In neither the purchase of goods nor the hiring of personnel, do we ever consider the religious views, the gender, the race or the sexual orientation of the persons we are dealing with. It would not only be wrong to do so, it would be idiotic. We need all of the talent we can find, and we have learned that able and trustworthy managers, employees and suppliers come from a very wide spectrum of humanity.”  –Warren Buffet

If God had wanted people to walk around naked

“If God had wanted people to walk around naked, He would have made them that way!” –Unknown and Confused Prude

If God isn’t dead yet

“If God isn’t dead, he hasn’t stopped speaking to us yet. I would hate for my kids to read letters I’d written to them YEARS ago, over and over again and never CALL!” –Rev. Suzy

If God puts you on hold

“If God puts you on hold, just don’t hang up!”  –Unknown

If you ain’t the lead dog…

“Life is like a dog-sled team. If you ain’t the lead dog, the scenery never changes.”  –Lewis Grizzard

If you could not fail?

“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”  –Dr. Robert Schuller

If you do not risk anything

“And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.” –Erica Jong

If you have a talent

“If you have a talent, use it in every which way possible. Don’t hoard it. Don’t dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke.”  –Brendan Francis

If you limit yourself

“If you limit yourself only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.” –Robert Fritz

If you trust too much

“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.”  –Frank Crane

If your mind goes blank

“If your mind goes blank, don’t forget to turn off the sound.” –Red Green

Ignore things

“Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.”  –Robert J. Sawyer

Illimitable superior spirit

“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”  –Albert Einstein

Illiterate of the 21st century

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”  –Alvin Toffler

Illustrious ancestry

“The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry is like the potato -the best part under ground.”  –Thomas Overbury

Imagination

“Imagination is more important than knowledge…”  –Albert Einstein

Improve the world

“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”  –Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1974)

Improving yourself

“You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself.”  –John Ruskin

In a new way

“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.”  –Doris Lessing

In American elections there are no losers

“In American elections there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates win or lose, the next morning we wake up as Americans.” –John Kerry

In the midst of the crowd

“It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the service of others

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” –Mahatma Gandhi

In touch with the silence within

“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in this life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.” –Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Inside myself

“Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.”  –Pearl Buck

Inside their shell

“She did not talk to people as if they were strange hard shells she had to crack open to get inside. She talked as if she were already in the shell. In their very shell.”  –Marita Bonner

Inspired by some great purpose

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”  –Patanjali

Intellect

“We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.”  –Albert Einstein

Intimidated about selling

“I think people who are intimidated about selling should recategorize or reclassify their paradigm. I look at it as the most wonderful opportunity you have to build lifelong, rich, dear, multi-dimensional friendships – and in the process to discover and learn about all sorts of fascinating things about all sorts of fascinating aspects of people and life that you would not have ever known before.” –Jay Abraham

Intuitive mind

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.  –Albert Einstein

Invisible to the eye

“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.” –H. Jackson Browne, Jr.

Invite God to lead

“When you invite God to lead what happens in a relationship, the results are out of this world.”  –Rick Wilkes

It must be lived forwards

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”  –Soren Kierkegaard

It took each and every situation

“Your journey has molded you for your greater good, and it was exactly what it needed to be. Don’t think that you’ve lost time. There is no short-cutting to life. It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now. And now is right on time.” –Asha Tyson

Journal writing

“Journal writing is a voyage to the interior.”  –Christina Baldwin

Judging success

“We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service relationship to humanity.”  –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Keep in the sunlight

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”  –Benjamin Franklin

Keep yourself clean and bright

“Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.”  –George Bernard Shaw

King and the pawn

“Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.”  –Italian Proverb

Know how to ask

“Know how to ask. There is nothing more difficult for some people, nor for others, easier.”  –Baltasar Gracian

Know how to be

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be one’s own self.” –Montaigne

Know nothing

“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing. And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all.”  –Socrates

Know the truth by heart

“We know truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart.”  –Blaise Pascal

Know what a man is

“If you wish to know what a man is, place him in authority.”  –Yugoslav Proverb

Knowledge lost in information

“Where is the knowledge that is lost in information? Where is the wisdom that is lost in knowledge?” –t.s. eliot

Lasting outer peace in the world

“It is only when each individual has achieved inner peace that we will see lasting outer peace in the world.” –Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj

Laughing

“You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.”  –Michael Pritchard

Learn to live simply

“If you want to be free, learn to live simply. Use what you have and be content where you are.”  –J. Heider

Learning people

“One learns people through the heart, not the eyes or the intellect.”  –Mark Twain

Leave the past

“The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character.”  –Isabelle Eberhardt

Let me sow love

“Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith.”  –Saint Francis of Assisi

Let there be!

“Every time we say, “Let there be!” in any form, something happens.”  –Stella Terrill Mann

Lies a silence

“Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.”  –Thomas Carlyle

Life as something separated

“A person experiences life as something separated from the rest -a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. Our task must be to free ourselves from this self-imposed prison, and through compassion, to find the reality of Oneness.”  –Albert Einstein

Life does not cease to be funny

“Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.”  –George Bernard Shaw

Life is about creating

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” –George Bernard Shaw

Life is serious?

“Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.”  –Brendan Gill

Life is too important

“Life is too important to take seriously.”  –Corky Siegel

Life is what we make it

“Life is what we make it. Always has been, always will be.” –Grandma Moses

Life will love you back

“If you love life, life will love you back.”  –Arthur Rubinstein

Life’s challenges

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.”  –Bernice Johnson Reagon

Light candles

“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it.”  –Margaret Fuller

Like what you are doing

“You never achieve real success unless you like what you are doing.” –Dale Carnegie

Listen Completely

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”  –Ernest Hemingway

Listen completely

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”  –Ernest Hemingway

Live coal in your heart

“The hatred you’re carrying is a live coal in your heart -far more damaging to yourself than to them.”  –Lawana Blackwell

Live happily

“It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.”  –Margaret Bonnano

Live happily ever after

“It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.” –Margaret Bonnano

Live upon a little

“He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.”  –Horace

Live well, laugh often, love much

“He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much.” –Bessie Anderson Stanley

Look fear in the face

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”  –Eleanor Roosevelt

Losing time

“Modern man thinks he loses something–time–when he does not do things quickly; yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains–except kill it.”  –Erich Fromm

Lot of worries in my life

“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”  –Mark Twain

Love & Skill

“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.”  –John Ruskin

Love and skill

“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.”  –John Ruskin

Love is not automatic

“Love is not automatic. It takes conscious practice and awareness, just like playing the piano or golf. However, you have ample opportunities to practice. Everyone you meet can be your practice session.”  –Doc Childre and Sara Paddison

Love the questions

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves.”  –Rainer Maria Rilke

Love’s impact on our quality of life

“Love and intimacy are the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well. I am not aware of any other factor in medicine -not diet, not smoking, not exercise… not drugs, not surgery -that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness and premature death.”  –Dean Ornish

Loving and Being Loved

“Our spiritual work is about loving and being loved, period, because the way we find some authentic and enduring sweetness and meaningfulness in life is in our commitment and devotion to cultivating authentic love and in our capacity to hold to it, no matter what. ”  –Swami Chetanananda

Lure of the distant

“The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.” –John Burroughs

Madness

“Madness is part of all of us, all the time, and it comes and goes, waxes and wanes.” –Otto Friedrich

Magnetize towards your goals

“Goals are new, forward-moving objectives. They magnetize you towards them.”  –Mark Victor Hansen

Make new friends

“If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.”  –Samuel Johnson

Make the best use

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”  –Epictetus

Making mistakes

“Only when sleeping do we make no mistakes. Mistakes are the privilege of the active person, who can start over and put things right.”  –Ingvar Kamprad

Man’s best medicine

“Walking is man’s best medicine.”  –Hippocrates

Man’s best medicine

“Walking is man’s best medicine.”  –Hippocrates

Mandela on fear

“As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”  –Nelson Mandela

Massage as a relationship

“Massage in essence is a relationship between two people who share equally with each other in order to faciliate change. That is why it is important to find a therapist thats suits you.”  –Rick Wilkes

Matter most at the mercy of the least

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” –Goethe

Measure of life

“The measure of a life is not its duration, but its donation.”  –Peter Marshall

Medical Freedom

“Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an underground dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a republic. The Constitution of this republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.” –Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the U.S. Constitution

Meet each other with a smile

“Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.”  –Mother Teresa

Men of contrary character

“When we see men of a contrary character we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.” –Confucius

Mercy

“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”  –Abraham Lincoln

Midlife crisis

“Turn your midlife crisis to your own advantage by making it a time for renewal of your body and mind, rather than stand by helplessly and watch them decline.”  –Jane E. Brody

Mighty oak

“The mighty oak tree was once a little nut that held its ground.”  –Naturalist

Mind can only hold one thought

“Your mind can only hold one thought at a time. Make it a positive and constructive one.” –H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Mind has great influence

“The mind has great influence over the body, and maladies often have their origin there.”  –Moliere

Mind opened by wonder

“I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.”  –Gerry Spence

Mind power

“The mind has exactly the same power as the hands; not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.” –Colin Wilson

Miserable

“Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so.”  –Jacopo Sannazaro

Moral precept inconvenience

“There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.”  –Denis Diderot

More friends in two months

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”  –Dale Carnegie

More than just healthy

“My focus in my practice is to help people thrive…that is more than just being healthy. Health is the absence of disease as far as I am concerned. Maintaining health is the first step. Thriving is a process of taking control over one’s life and setting goals for growth and happiness. It is more of a spiritual journey.”  –Doc (Larry)

Most important thing in life

“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.”  –John Wayne

Moving in the wrong direction

“Failure is God’s way of saying, ‘Excuse me, you’re moving in the wrong direction.’” –Oprah Winfrey

Musical silence

“Silence is more musical than any song.”  –Christina Rossetti

My heart is still my own

“All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is still my own.”  –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

My mother had trouble

“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.”  –Mark Twain

Mystify a lot of folks

“When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it -don’t back down and don’t give up -then you’re going to mystify a lot of folks.”  –Bob Dylan

Nation taxing itself

“We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”  –Winston Churchill

Nature of our genius

“We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other peoples’ models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open.”  –Shakti Gawain

Never be a cynic

“Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil.”  –Vanchel Lindsay

Never discourage

“Never discourage anyone…who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.”  –Plato

Never feel age

“I never feel age…If you have creative work, you don’t have age or time.”  –Louise Nevelson

Never grow a wishbone

“Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.”  –Clementine Paddleford

Never in certainty

“No great deed, private or public, had ever been undertaken in a bliss of certainty.” –Leon Wieseltier

Never look down on…

“Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up.”  –Rev. Jesse Jackson

Never stop playing

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”  –George Bernard Shaw

Never what I wanted to BUY

“It was never what I wanted to buy that held my heart’s hope. It was what I wanted to be.”  –Lois McMaster Bujold

Nice things said at funerals

“They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I’m going to miss mine by just a few days.”  –Garrison Keillor

No cheating

“The purpose of life is to increase the warm heart. Think of other people. Serve other people sincerely. No cheating…”  –Dalai Lama

No easy chair

“To the discontented man, no chair is easy.” –Benjamin Franklin

No facts

“There are no facts, only interpretations.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

No great people

“There are no great people in this world, only great challenges which ordinary people rise to meet.”  –William Frederick Halsey, Jr.

No hopeless situations

“There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them.” –Clare Boothe

No imagination

“The person with no imagination has no wings.”  –Muhammad Ali

No one to blame

“Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.”  –Erica Jong

No one to blame

“Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.” –Erica Jong

No place like home

“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, / Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”  –John Howard Payne

No rules

“Hell, there are no rules here–we’re trying to accomplish something.”  –Thomas A. Edison

No secret to success

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”  –Colin Powell

No wind

“When there is no wind, row.” –Portuguese Proverb

Nobody need wait

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment to improve the world.” –Anne Frank

Nobody spots a phony quicker

“Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child.”  –Mary MacCracken

None but a coward

“None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.”  –Ferdinand Foch

Normal people

“The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.”  –Joe Ancis

Normal?

“Normal is not something to aspire to, it’s something to get away from.”  –Jodie Foster

Not everything that counts can be counted

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” –Albert Einstein

Not happiness that makes us grateful

“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

Not here merely to make a living

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.”  –Woodrow Wilson

Not imposing

“The one thing more difficult than following a regimen is not imposing it on others.”  –Marcel Proust

Not the critic who counts

“It is not the critic who counts, not 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 with dust and sweat and blood…and who…if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”  –Theodore Roosevelt

Not to talk of being old

“Let me advise thee not to talk of thyself as being old. There is something in Mind Cure, after all, and if thee continually talks of thyself as being old, thee may perhaps bring on some of the infirmities of age. At least I would not risk it if I were thee.”  –Hannah Whitall Smith

Not you that is mortal

“Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which and be pointed out by your finger.”  –Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nowhere but in yourself

“Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself -and thus make yourself indispensable.”  –Andre Gide

Obstacle illusions

“Life is full of obstacle illusions.”  –Grant Frazier

One kind word

“One kind word can warm three winter months.” –Japanese proverb

One person to change your life

“It only takes one person to change your life – you.” –Ruth Casey

One person to change your life

“It only takes one person to change your life – you.” –Ruth Casey

One person with a belief

“One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine with only interests.” –John Stuart Mill

One really effective weapon

“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” –Mark Twain

One single word that gives peace

“Better than a thousand useless words is one single word that gives peace.” –Buddha

One step towards God

“When a man takes one step toward God, God takes more steps toward that man than there are sands in the worlds of time.”  –The Work of the Chariot

One’s own wisdom

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”  –Mahatma Gandhi

One-word secret of happiness

“Do you want my one-word secret of happiness? It’s growth — mental, financial, you name it.” –Harold S. Geneen

Only do well

“We only do well the things we like doing.”  –Colette

Only impossible until…

“Things are only impossible until they’re not.”  –Jean-Luc Picard

Only investment that never fails

“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”  –Henry David Thoreau

Only Light Can Drive Out Darkness

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”  –Martin Luther King, Jr.

Only love holds this vision

“The mind that sees itself as whole and another as sick unquestionably requires healing. True healing is thus expressed within the mind of the healer and not within the body of the patient. When a healer sees that he or she is not separate from the patient—and only love holds this vision—healing is already accomplished.”  –Hugh Prather

Only one thing has to change

“Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention.” –Greg Anderson

Only person you can really change

“You learn in life that the only person you can really correct and change is yourself.” –Katharine Hepburn

Only power which man should aspire

“Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.”  –Elie Wiesel

Only the mediocre

“Only the mediocre are always at their best.”  –Jean Giraudoux

Only the wisdom that is in it

“We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit on a hot stove-lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.” –Mark Twain

Opportunity is missed

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”  –Thomas A. Edison

Ordinary riches can be stolen

“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.” –Oscar Wilde

Our sacred human responsibility

“We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility.” –Albert Einstein

Passive ancestors

“It is difficult to imagine how dull the world would be if our ancestors had used free time simply for passive entertainment, instead of finding in it an opportunity to explore beauty and knowledge.” –Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Path with no obstacles

“If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.” –Frank A. Clark

Patience with Yourself

“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering you own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them -every day begin the task anew.”  –Saint Francis de Sales

Peace and order

“Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary.”  –Peter Minard

Peace is not the absence of war

“Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is the presence of a system for resolving conflicts before war becomes necessary.”  –Unknown

Peace is the measure

“Of one thing I am certain, the body is not the measure of healing -peace is the measure.”  –George Melton

Peace process

“The choice between love and fear is made every moment in our hearts and minds. That is where the peace process begins. Without peace within, peace in the world is an empty wish. Like love, peace is extended. It cannot be brought from the world to the heart. It must be brought from each heart to another, and thus to all mankind.”  –Paul Ferrini

Peak Intensity

“We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”  –Thomas Merton

Peak of civilization

“Simplicity is the peak of civilization.”  –Jessie Sampter

People have vast potential

“It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever.”  –Philip Adams

Perfection

“Perfection, in God’s eyes, is being incapable of choosing deeds that are not based solely in love for oneself or another human being.”  –M. Sue Benford

Perfection is achieved

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” –Antoine de St. Exupery

Persist

“We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are.”  –Tobias Wolff

Personal dignity

“One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.”  –Michael J. Fox

Peter Minard

“Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary.”  –Peter Minard

Plant indicator

“Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.”  –Unknown

Plants thorns

“He that plants thorns must never expect to gather roses.”  –Fables of Bidpai

Positive mental attitude

“A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug.”  –Patricia Neal

Possibility Goose Bumps

“When was the last time your possibilities gave you goose bumps?” –Ben Feldman

Pout energy transformed

“I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.”  –Duke Ellington

Power and energy through relationships

“In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.”  –Margaret Wheatley

Power attracts

“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”  –David Brin

Power of a touch

“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

Praise does wonders

“Praise does wonders for our sense of hearing.” –Arnold Glasgow

Prayer is the most potent instrument

“Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.” –Mahatma Gandhi

Prelude to faith

“Humor is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer.” –Reinhold Niebuhr

Press 3

“For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press 3.”  –Alice Kahn

Principles

“If one sticks too rigidly to one’s principles, one would hardly see anybody.”  –Agatha Christie

Profound truth

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”  –Niels Bohr

Profoundly sick society

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”  –Krishnamurti

Prolonged prosperity

“If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another.”  –Winston Churchill

Psychic and emotional starvation

“When you are not physically starving, you have the luxury to realize psychic and emotional starvation.”  –Cherrie Moraga

Pure sincerity

“When pure sincerity forms within, it is outwardly realized in other people’s hearts.”  –Lao Tzu

Pursue what you are amazingly better at doing

“People put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. Pursue those few things where you are amazingly better than most others and that you enjoy the most.” –Richard Koch

Pursuit of truth and beauty

“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.” –Albert Einstein

Quit worrying

“Quit worrying about your health. It’ll go away.”  –Robert Orben

Rat race

“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”  –Lily Tomlin

Rather than accuse them

“As I get older, I’ve learned to listen to people rather than accuse them of things.”  –Po Bronson

Read in theory

“However much thou art read in theory, if thou hast no practice thou art ignorant.”  –Sa’di

Read meat

“Red meat is NOT bad for you. Now blue-green meat, THAT’S bad for you!”  –Tommy Smothers

Reading

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”  –Sir Richard Steele

Real estate above principles

“Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.”  –George Jean Nathan

Real power and energy

“In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.”  –Margaret Wheatley

Regret

“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only for wallowing in.”  –Katherine Mansfield

Relinquish our certainty

“The need to relinquish our certainty lies at the heart both of modern science and ancient spirituality. From the science of Complexity, Ilya Prigogine tells us that, “The future is uncertain. . .but such uncertainty lies at the very heart of human creativity.” It is uncertainty that creates the space for invention. We must let go, clear the space, leap into the void of not-knowing, if we want to discover anything new.”  –Margaret Wheatley

Rest satisfied

“Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please.”  –Pythagoras

Retirement

“Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.”  –George Burns

Rich according to what he is

“It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.” –Henry Ward Beecher

Ripen

“It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen.”  –Brigitte Bardot

Risk Blossoming

“And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” –Anais Nin

Risk going too far

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” –T. S. Eliot

Ruffled mind

“A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.”  –Charlotte Bronte

Scars

“Every winner has scars.”  –Herbert N. Casson

Science primitive and childlike

“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike — and yet it is the most precious thing we have.” –Albert Einstein

Scientific power

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”  –Martin Luther King Jr.

Seed of an equal or greater benefit

“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” –Napoleon Hill

Seeing it for the first time or last

“Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.” –Betty Smith

Sees the need

“Charity sees the need not the cause.”  –German Proverb

Self pity

“There are few human emotions as warm, comforting, and enveloping as self-pity. And nothing is more corrosive and destructive. There is only one answer; turn away from it and move on.”  –Dr. Megan Reik

Self-development

“Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.”  –Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Self-respect

“Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.”  –Abraham J. Heschel

Set yourself on fire

“Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.”  –Reggie Leach

Ship in a harbor

“A ship in harbor is safe–but that’s not what a ship was built for.”  –MMF in Earlytorise

Shooting as a sport

“The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.”  –P. G. Wodehouse.

Show the world all the love in your heart

“You’ve got to get up every morning with a smile on your face, and show the world all the love in your heart.” –Carole King

Shut my eyes

“I shut my eyes in order to see.”  –Paul Gauguin

Silence within

“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.”  –Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Skinned knees

“You may get skinned knees and elbows, but it’s worth it if you score a spectacular goal.”  –Mia Hamm

Sleep like a baby

“People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.”  –Leo J. Burke

Small tasks as if they were great and noble

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks, as if they were great and noble.” –Helen Keller

Small things with great love

“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”  –Mother Teresa

Solitude

“There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.”  –Colette

Some in calm, some in storm

“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”  –Willa Cather

Some of your life

“Dedicate some of your life to others. Your dedication will not be a sacrifice. It will be an exhilarating experience because it is an intense effort applied toward a meaningful end.”  –Dr. Thomas Dooley

Somewhere along the line

“Somewhere along the line we discover who we really are, and then make our real decisions for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else’s life.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

Sorrow

“Sorrow was like the wind. It came in gusts.”  –Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Sound mind, sound body

“A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.”  –John Locke

Sounds travels slowly

“Sound travels slowly. Sometimes the things you say when your kids are teenagers don’t reach them till they’re in their 40s.”  –Parents

Space isn’t remote

“Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards.”  –Fred Hoyle

Speak when angry

“Speak when you are angry–and you will make the best speech you’ll ever regret.”  –Laurence J. Peter

Speak when angry

“Speak when you are angry–and you will make the best speech you’ll ever regret.”  –Laurence J. Peter

Spending oneself

“Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.” –Sarah Bernhardt

Spirit working with the hand

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.”  –Leonardo da Vinci

Still and alive

“We must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to vibrantly alive in repose.”  –Indira Gandhi

Still in the midst

“We must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”  –Indira Gandhi

Still learning

“I am still learning.”  –Michelangelo

Still mind

“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.”  –Lao Tzu

Still more complicated

“I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.”  –Poul Anderson

Strain in each other

“Be on the lookout for strain in each other, and with compassion and understanding, lend a helping hand and a mature heart. Helping each other manage emotional strain can yield creative alternatives and build a new foundation for heart-based communication and hope.”  –Doc Childre

Strong Will

“The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.” –Henry Ward Beecher

Sundial in the shade

“Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?” –Ben Franklin

Survive every moment except…

“We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one.”  –John Updike

Tact and courtesy

“Don’t flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them.”  –Oliver Wendell Holmes

Take the rest as it happens

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”  –Epictetus

Take to the oars

“If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.”  –Latin Proverb

Television education

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”  –Groucho

That word is love

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.”  –Sophocles

That’s funny…

“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’, but ‘That’s funny…’  –Isaac Asimov

The Answer

“There is no answer. There never has been an answer. There never will be an answer. That’s the answer.” –Gertrude Stein

The best and most beautiful things

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor touched…but are felt in the heart.”  –Hellen Keller

The best time to plant

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”  –Chinese Proverb

The chain of destiny

“It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped on link at a time.”  –Sir Winston Churchill

The flexible

“Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.”  –Unknown

The great rulers

“The great rulers -the people do not notice their existence. The lesser ones they attach to and praise them. The still lesser ones -they fear them. The still lesser ones -they despise them. For where faith is lacking it cannot be met by faith.”  –Tao Te Ching

The harder I work

“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”  –Thomas Jefferson

The highest reward

“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.”  –John Ruskin

The kinds of things that come from the heart

“Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied, you won’t be envious, you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things. On the contrary, you’ll be overwhelmed with what comes back.” –Morrie Schwartz

The Life Imagined

“It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.”  –Henry James

The medium of television

“Television -a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well-done.”  –Ernie Kovacs

The mind can’t possibly address these issues

“It’s an illusion that the mind, through technological inventions, will correct the current environment of stress, because this environment is powered by self-centeredness, ambition, competition, and addiction to stimulation. As I’ve said many times, the mind can’t possibly address these issues without consulting the intelligence of the heart. It’s essential for us to learn the ways of love and then shape them into an intelligent format for basic living. Through intentionally practicing more love and care, people can bring in more of their own spirit, resulting in a deeper bonding with one another and with God or their personal Source.”  –Doc Childre

The more you need imagination

“The more you revere facts, the more resistant you are to change. The faster things change, the less you can use facts and the more you need imagination.” –Stanley Davis

The most handicapped person

“The most handicapped person in the world is a negative thinker.” –Heather Whitestone, former Miss America…she is deaf

The most pleasant and useful persons

“The most pleasant and useful persons are those who leave some of the problems of the universe for God to worry about.” –Don Marquis

The Power to Change

“In the power to change yourself is the power to change the world around you.”  –Anwar Sadat

The problem is not that there are problems

“The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.” –Theodore Rubin

The shoe that fits

“The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.”  –Carl Jung

The state of your life

“The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind.”  –Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

The thing you think you cannot do

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face… You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”  –Eleanor Roosevelt

The third and fourth tries

“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” –James Michener

The universe is full of magical things

“The Universe is Full of magical things Patiently waiting For our Wits to grow sharper.”  –Eden Phillips

The universe is full of magical things

“The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” –Eden Phillpotts

The work of one extraordinary one

“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.”  –Elbert Hubbard

There is no greater investment

“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There is no greater investment.” –Stephen Covey

There you are!

“There are two types of people. Those who come into a room and say, ‘Well, here I am!’ and those who come in and say, ‘Ah, there you are.’”  –Frederick Collins

They have the heart

“Volunteers don’t necessarily have the time, but they have the heart.”  –Unknown

Third act of life

“Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.”  –Truman Capote

Thoroughly used up

“I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live.”  –George Bernard Shaw

Those who win

“Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.” –Richard Bach

Three ingredients to the good life

“There are three ingredients to the good life; learning, earning, and yearning.” –Christopher Morley

Three R’s

“You know there is a problem with the education system when you realize that out of the 3 Rs, only one begins with an R.”  –Dennis Miller

Three winter months

“One kind word can warm three winter months.”  –Japanese proverb

Through changing

“When you’re through changing, you’re through.”  –Bruce Barton

Throwing kisses

“People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.”  –Bob Hope

Tie a knot

“When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”  –Franklin D. Roosevelt

Time changes

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”  –Andy Warhol

Time cools, clarifies

“Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.”  –Mark Twain

Time doing nothing

“You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think.”  –Mortimer Adler

Time is also a companion

“Someone once told me that time is a predator that stalks us all our lives. But maybe time is also a companion … who goes with us on a journey and reminds us to cherish the moments of our lives – because they will never come again. We are, after all, only mortal.” –Captain Jean-Luc Picard – “Star Trek Generations”

Time is not a line

“Time is not a line, but a series of now-points.” –Taisen Deshimaru

Time to be dead

“Enjoy life. There’s plenty of time to be dead.” –Anonymous

Times of disorder

“Just as the tumultuous chaos of a thunderstorm brings a nurturing rain that allows life to flourish, so too in human affairs times of advancement are preceded by times of disorder. Success comes to those who can weather the storm.”  –I CHING

To avoid criticism

“To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.”  –Elbert Hubbard

To exist is to change

“For a conscious person, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” –Henri Bergson

To find peace

“There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub.”  –Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

To get what they want…

“People may or may not say what they mean … but they always say something designed to get what they want.” –David Mamet

To have more to give

“The whole reason to get is to have more to give.”  –Mark Victor Hansen

Toiling to Become

“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.”  –John Ruskin

Tomorrow

“‘Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’ Under the influence of this pestilent morality, I am forever letting tomorrow’s work slop backwards into today’s, and doing painfully and nervously today what I could do quickly and easily tomorrow.”  –J. A. Spender

Tomorrow is a new day

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.”  –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Too small for you

“Anything that does not bring you fully alive is too small for you.” –David Whyte

Touching hands

“Touching hands are not like pharmaceuticals or scalpels. They are like flashlights in a darkened room. The medicine they administer is self-awareness. And for many of our painful conditions, this is the aid that is most urgently needed.”  –Deane Juhan

Translate intention into reality

“Power is the capacity to translate intention into reality and then sustain it.” –Warren Bennis

Treasures

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”  –Thornton Wilder

Treating the whole person

“Experience has taught me that we have to take care of ourselves from the outside in as well as from the inside out. In other words, we need to take care of our internal health as well as our physical appearance, and our mental and spiritual well-being. You may think I’m stating the obvious, but I think the reason so many programs fail is that they focus on one body part at a time instead of treating the whole person.”  –Dr. Julian Whitaker

Triumph of machine

“[Television is] the triumph of machine over people.”  –Fred Allen

True leisure

“He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul’s estate.”  –Henry David Thoreau

True silence

“True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.”  –William Penn

Trust men

“Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.”  –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trusted with everything

“He who needs nothing can be trusted with everything.” –Gary Renard

Trusting and being myself

“When I’m trusting and being myself… everything in my life reflects this by falling into place easily, often miraculously.” –Shakti Gawain

Trustworthy

“The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.”  –Henry L. Stimson

TV news performs well when…

“The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were.”  –David Brinkley

Underestimate the power of touch

“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 F. Buscaglia

Unhurried sense of time

“An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth.”  –Bonnie Friedman

Unlived life

“Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.”  –Carl Jung

Unmasked by fortune

“Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.” –Suzanne Necker

Veggie humor

“We’ll have a hamburger and a Veggie Burger, please.” “Two burgers, one regular, one de-calf!”  –Heard in a west coast diner

Victory over one’s self

“There is no finer sensation in life than that which comes with victory over one’s self. It feels good to go fronting into a hard wind, winning against its power; but it feels a thousand times better to go forward to a goal of inward achievement, brushing aside all your old internal enemies as you advance.”  –Vash Young

Virtue of Gratitude

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”  –Cicero

Vision

“We go where our vision is.”  –Joseph Murphy

Vision is not enough

“Vision is not enough. It must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.”  –Vaclav Havel

Volunteers

“Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation’s compassion, unselfish caring, patience, and just plain loving one another.”  –Erma Brombeck

Voyage of discovery

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in making new landscapes but in having new eyes.”  –Marcel Proust

Waiting to be known

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

Wake up and claim our birthright

“I’ve continued to recognize the power individuals have to change virtually anything and everything in their lives in an instant. I’ve learned that the resources we need to turn our dreams into reality are within us, merely waiting for the day when we decide to wake up and claim our birthright.” –Tony Robbins

Walking

“Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.”  –Thomas Jefferson

Wanting what you have

“When you can’t have what you want, it’s time to start wanting what you have.”  –Kathleen A. Sutton

Wasted days

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”  –e e cummings

We are what we…

“We are what we repeatedly do.”  –Aristotle

We cannot teach people anything

“We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.”  –Galileo Galilei

We Dance!

“We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.” –Albert Einstein

We don’t know

“We don’t know a millionth of one percent about anything.”  –Thomas A. Edison

We have much to do together

“We have much to do together. Let us do it in wisdom and love and joy. Let us make this the human experience.” –Gary Zukav

We shape our lives

“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”  –Eleanor Roosevelt

Weak can never forgive

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”  –Mahatma Gandhi

Wear out!

“It is better to wear out than to rust out.”  –Bishop Richard Cumberland

What a pessimist is

“Do you know what a pessimist is? A person who thinks everybody as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.” –George Bernard Shaw

What lies within

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”  –Ralph Waldo Emerson

What makes us sick and well

“Love and intimacy are the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well. I am not aware of any other factor in medicine – not diet, not smoking, not exercise… not drugs, not surgery – that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness and premature death.” –Dean Ornish

What someone else thinks of you

If your happiness depends on what someone else thinks of you, you’ll never have control of your life. And you’ll never be happy.  –Paul Myers

What we do for others

“The greatest good is what we do for others.”  –Mother Teresa

What we may be

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”  –William Shakespeare

What you believe

“Remember that what you believe will depend very much on what you are.”  –Noah Porter

What you can do…

“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”  –John Wooden

Whatever comes…

“Trust yourself to meet and greet whatever comes, and no one need be ‘trustworthy’ again.” –Christine Felker

When eagles are silent

“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”  –Sir Winston Churchill

When everything goes dead wrong

“Tis easy enough to be pleasant, when life flows like a song. But the man worthwhile is the one who will smile when everything goes dead wrong.”  –Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When love and skill work together

“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.” –John Ruskin

When they believe in themselves

“People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success.” –Norman Vincent Peale

Where others end in failure

“Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure.” –Edward Eggleston

Where the fruit is

“Why not go out on a limb–that’s where all the fruit is!”  –Mark Twain

White lies

“Those that think it permissible to tell white lies soon grow color blind.”  –Austin O’Malley

Who can never repay

“You have not lived until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”  –Unknown

Who will be really happy?

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”  –Albert Schweitzer

Whole Universe

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘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 his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compasion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”  –Albert Einstien

Why not at seventeen?

“Why can’t life’s problems hit us when we’re seventeen and know everything?”  –A.C. Jolly

William Shakespeare

“Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.”  –Shakespeare

Winners do the uncomfortable

“Winners are those people who make a habit of doing the things losers are uncomfortable doing.”  –Ed Foreman

Wise and otherwise

“Some folks are wise and some are otherwise.”  –Tobias George Smolett

With time and patience

“With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.” –Chinese Proverb

World peace from inner peace

“It is essential to know that to be a happy person, a happy family, a happy society, it is very crucial to have a good heart, that is very crucial. World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just the absence of violence but the manifestation of human compassion.”  –Dalai Lama

You are not alone

“When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within.”  –Epictetus

You are what you think

“You are what you think about all day long.” –Dr. Robert Schuller

You can become blind

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

You can’t choose

“You can’t choose the ways in which you’ll be tested.”  –Robert J. Sawyer

You live the consequences

“You choose, you live the consequences. Every yes, no, maybe, creates the school you call your personal experience.”  –Richard Bach

You wouldn’t have them over…

“Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn’t have in your home.”  –David Frost

You’ll be right

“Think you can, think you can’t; either way, you’ll be right.”  –Henry Ford

You, too, can become great

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”  –Mark Twain

You, too, can become great!

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”  –Mark Twain

Young soldiers

“It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray-haired. But most of them were boys when they died, they gave up two lives –the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for their county, for us. All we can do is remember.”  –Ronald Reagan

Younger at sixty

“Though it sounds absurd, it is true to say I felt younger at sixty than I felt at twenty.”  –Ellen Glasgow

Your best is going to change

“Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstances, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.” –Don Miguel Ruiz

Your own recovery

“Make your own recovery the first priority in your life.”  –Robin Norwood