#173 Friday Exploits

Youth is like a long weekend on Friday night. Middle age is like a long weekend on Monday afternoon. ~ Richard Nelson Bolles

One More Select Quote

People are surprised at how down-to-earth I am. I like to stay home on Friday nights and listen to 'The Art of Happiness' by the Dalai Lama. ~ Carmen Electra

#172 Be Daring, Be Different

My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day.

I told them this story:
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day. ~Tom Waits

One more select quote:

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. ~Sir Cecil Beaton

Gandhi: Empowering Message

Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) was the preeminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He pioneered the rise of nonviolent resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience.

Here is a list of select quotations which offers a glimpse of his enlightened perspectives:

-Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

-An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.

-Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

-Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

-Seven Deadly Sins

Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Science without humanity
Knowledge without character
Politics without principle
Commerce without morality
Worship without sacrifice.

-God has no religion.

-The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Selected by quoteflections.

-Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.

-You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

-Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.

-Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

-I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.

Selected by quoteflections.

-Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.

-In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

Labels: best top quotes, quotations, reflections, instructional, inspirational, life lessons, insights, self help, great author series

(Sharing, recommending this post, this blog is appreciated.)

#171 Real Discovery Lies Within

To most of us the real life is the life we do not lead. ~ Oscar Wilde

And one more select quote:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes. ~Marcel Proust

#170 Laughter as liberation

Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or whining self-pity, but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain, cure your depression, and help you to put in perspective that seemingly terrible defeat and worry with laughter at your predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly toward the solution that is certain to come. ~Og Mandino

Additional Quote

The best definition of humour I know is: humour may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and the artistic expression thereof. I think this is the best I know because I wrote it myself. ~ Stephen Leacock

Theme Series: The Fruit of our Labours

Work: is it a blessing or curse? For some it can be liberating, for others tedious. How does one fill the void without it? For those in retirement, the absence without a career presents its challenges. For those seeking employment, however, what a dream come true to find a productive vocation.

Here are some select quotes about our labours:

- We can redeem anyone who strives unceasingly. ~ Goethe

- Work banishes those three great evils, boredom, vice, and poverty. ~ Voltaire

- Work is the inevitable condition of human life, the true source of human welfare. ~ Leo Tolstoy

- How do I work? I grope. ~ Albert Einstein

- No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt. ~ Max Beerbohm

- By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be a boss and work 12 hours a day. ~ Robert Frost

Selected by quoteflections.

- All work is seed sown. It grows and spreads, and sows itself anew. ~ Thomas Carlyle

- We work to become, not to acquire. ~ Elbert Hubbard

- It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure why take the chance? ~ Ronald Reagan

- When I can no longer create anything, I'll be done for. ~ Coco Chanel

- To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness. ~ John Dewey

(Tags: select top quotes, quotations, theme series, self help, life, inspiring, enriching, uplifting, motivational, educational, philosophical, ethics.)

#169 Rising above circumstances

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -- George Bernard Shaw, "Mrs. Warren's Profession," 1893

Maxim of the Day

They are able who think they are able. ~ Virgil

#168 The Final Wisdom

The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it. ~Reinhold Niebuhr

Definition of incongruous: out of place, inappropriate, unbecoming, not harmonious in character, inconsistent

Maxim of the Day

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity. ~ William Hazlitt

#167 The Big Picture

I do not believe in a simplistic and inflammatory view of good and evil. I believe this is a big world full of men, women, and children who struggle to eat, to love, to work, to protect their families, their beliefs, and their dreams. ~ Sean Penn

Additional Quote

Everyone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life. ~ Jimmy Carter