How Does One Become a Linchpin?

The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed.

Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can.
The job might be difficult, it might require skill, but it's a job.

Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.

I call the process of doing your art 'the work.' It's possible to have a job and do the work, too. In fact, that's how you become a linchpin.

The job is not the work.  ~ Seth Godin

- How does Godin distinguish between a job and work?
- To what extent do you utilize 'your art' in the endeavors of your day?
- Where can you cultivate your personal attributes as a linchpin? 

At 365 Quote Quest I provide quotes and questions such as the above for  reflection and enrichment.

Joy from Cliffs of Despair

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.  ~ John Keats


Joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.  ~ Kahlil Gibran


Words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder.  ~ Jodi Picoult

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.  ~ Mother Teresa

For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair.  ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

To Accomplish Great Things

Make sure you visualize what you really want, not what someone else wants for you.  ~Jerry Gillies 

Visualization is daydreaming with a purpose.  ~Bo Bennett

Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blue print, and begin to build.   ~ Robert Collier
 
To accomplish great things we must first dream, then visualize, then plan... believe... act!..   ~ Alfred A. Montapert

See yourself confronting your fears in your mind’s eye and handling those fears like a champ.   ~Les Brown

Tags: quotes about visualize, visualizing, planning, goals, life

Stretched by a New Idea

One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.  ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

An idea is salvation by imagination.  ~Frank Lloyd Wright

Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.  ~Sam Walton

Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them.  ~Alfred North Whitehead

Getting an idea should be like sitting down on a pin; it should make you jump up and do something.   ~ E. L. Simpson 


Tags: quotes about ideas, life

The Balance is Shifting

I have consolidated my several publications at Amazon through their Author Central.  This link provides a profile of the author, my two publications (both in paperback and e book Kindle edition), a link to this blog, and my Twitter feed. 

Here are several quotes, by the way, from Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon:

-We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better. 

-What's dangerous is not to evolve.

-I'm not saying that advertising is going away. But the balance is shifting. If today the successful recipe is to put 70 percent of your energy into shouting about your service and 30 percent into making it great, over the next 20 years I think that's going to invert.

Growing Light

I will love the light for it shows me the way. Yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.  ~ Og Mandino

We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.  ~ Mary Dunbar

There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.   ~ Edith Wharton

We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own.  ~Ben Sweetland

People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.  ~Elizabeth Kubler-Ross 




A Little Farther Up the Shore

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.  ~ Michael Caine

The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil.  ~ Cicero

When I can look life in the eyes, grown calm and very coldly wise, life will have given me the truth, and taken in exchange - my youth.  ~ Sara Teasdale

I never felt settled or calm. You can't really commit to life when you feel that.  ~ Angelina Jolie

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.  ~ Willa Cather

The secret of success is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.  ~ Cyril Connolly

Tags: quotes about calm, life

A New World Every Heart Beat

In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.  ~ William James

To be able to forget means sanity.  ~ Jack London

To forgive is wisdom, to forget is genius. And easier. Because it's true. It's a new world every heart beat.  ~ Joyce Cary

Blessed are those who give without remembering and take without forgetting.  ~ Elizabeth Bibesco

Be Good for Something

We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.  ~ John Steinbeck

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

Blushing is the color of virtue.  ~ Diogenes

The excess of virtue is a vice.  ~ Greek proverb

Virtue is its own revenge.  ~ E. Y. Harburn

Do not be too moral.  You may cheat yourself out of much of life so.  Aim above morality.  Be not simply good; be good for something.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

Tags: quotes about virtue

To Be Alive

To be truly cultivated is to think reasonably, to live grandly, to love greatly, to shun pettiness, to condemn prejudice and cruelty. In short, to be cultivated is to be alive in the very largest sense. ~ Dorothy J. Farnan
 
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Every day is a good day to be alive, whether the sun's shining or not. ~ Marty Robbins

Take in Small Doses

Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in small doses.  ~ Russell Baker

For each ecstatic instant 
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.  ~ Emily Dickinson

A Richer Culture

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.   ~ Marcus Garvey


You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.  ~ Ray Bradbury

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.  ~ Albert Camus

No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.  ~ Mahatma Gandhi

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.  ~ Arthur Miller

Real popular culture is folk art - coalminers' songs and so forth.  ~ Noam Chomsky

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.   ~Margaret Mead

Tags: quotes about culture 

When you Really Mean It

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.  ~ Dr. Seuss

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.  ~Joseph Addison

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.  ~ Mother Teresa

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.  ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

If you smile when you are alone, then you really mean it.  ~ Andy Rooney

Tags: quotes about smiles, life

A Measure of Darkness

Balance is the perfect state of still water. Let that be our model. It remains quiet within and is not disturbed on the surface.  ~ Confucius
 
Don't hold on too long, but don't let go too soon. Find a balance.  ~ Morrie Swartz

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.   ~ Albert Einstein

Balance is the enemy of art.   ~ Richard Eyre

As we look deeply within, we understand our perfect balance. There is no fear of the cycle of birth, life and death. For when you stand in the present moment, you are timeless.   ~ Rodney Yee

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.  ~ Carl Jung 

Tags: quotes about balance, life

Have Nothing to Do with It

The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.  ~ Publilius Syrus

Man imagines that it is death he fears, but what he fears is the unknown.  ~ Saint Exupéry

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.  ~ George Santayana

Be of good cheer about death and know this as a truth - that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.  ~ Socrates

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.  ~ Dylan Thomas

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.  ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Tags: quotes about death, life, living

How did it get late so soon?

Go for it now.  The future is promised to no one.  ~ Wayne Dyer

Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.  ~ Allen Saunders

 The right person is the one that seizes the moment.  ~ Goethe

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

How did it get late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flown.
How did it get so late so soon?  ~ Dr. Seuss

Tags: quotes on seize the moment, living life to the fullest

Make Facts Live

Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get em, get em right, or they will get you wrong.  ~ Thomas Fuller

Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions. But no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.  ~ Bernard Baruch

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.  ~ Albert Einstein

The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.  ~ Arnold H. Glasow
 
The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make facts live.  ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes


Tags: quotes about facts, opinion, truth

The Only Really Effective Weapon

Humanity takes itself too seriously.  It is the world's original sin.  If the cavemen had known how to laugh, history would have been different.  ~ Oscar Wilde

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person.  ~ Audrey Hepburn

If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane.  ~ Robert Frost

There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.  ~ Charles Dickens

Life is worth living as long as there is a laugh in it.  ~ L. M. Montgomery

The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.  ~ Mark Twain

Tags: quotes about humor, laughter, life

One Rule of Practice

I expect to pass through life but once. If, therefore, there can be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. ~ William Penn
 
Always be a little kinder than necessary. ~ James M. Barrie

Never look down on anyone unless you are helping him up.  ~ Jess Jackson
 
There is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life - reciprocity. ~ Confucius
 
Tags: quotes about kindness, love, life

The Greatest of the Arts

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.  ~ Aristotle

A closed mind is a dying mind.  ~ Edna Ferber

The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one. ~ Malcolm Forbes

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. ~ John Steinbeck


Tags: quotes about the mind, tolerance, education, life

They were So Delicious

Never ruin an apology with an excuse.  ~ Benjamin Franklin

A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.  ~ Guilbert K. Chesterton

An apology is the superglue of life. It can repair just about anything.  ~Lynn Johnston

The most important trip you could take in life is meeting people halfway.  ~ Henry Boye

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.  ~ William Carlos Williams 

Tags: quotes about apology, forgiveness, life

The Main Thing in Life

The true human is infinitely deeper than the merely human.  ~Blaise Pascal

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself. ~ Henry David Thoreau 

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. ~ Horace Mann

My first world is humanity. My second world is humanism. And, I live in the third world being merely a human.  ~ Santosh Kalwar

Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. ~ Carl Sagan

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.  ~ George Orwell

The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that. And yes, there are certainly times when we aren't able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It's called being human.  ~ Elizabeth Edwards

The main thing in life is not to be afraid to be human.  ~ Aaron Carter

Tags: quotes about being human, humanity, life

The Only Sure Road Out of Darkness

Healing comes only from that which leads the patient beyond himself and beyond his entanglements with ego. ~ Carl Jung

An egotist is a person more interested in himself than in me!  ~ Ambrose Bierce

Big egos are big shields for lots of empty space.  ~ Diana Black

Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries.  ~ Thomas Carlyle

Egotism is usually subversive of sagacity. (insight)  ~ Marianne Moore

Loving is the only sure road out of darkness, the only serum known that cures self-centeredness.  ~ Roger McKuen 

Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.   ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Tags: quotes about ego, life 

To Be Believed

One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests.  ~John Stuart Mill

Man is what he believes.  ~ Anton Chekhov

If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.  ~ Malcolm X

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.  ~ Abraham Lincoln

Some things have to be believed to be seen.  ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.  ~ Mitch Albom

Tags: quotes on belief

Think of the Possibilities

In motivating people, you've got to engage their minds and their hearts.  ~ Rupert Murdoch

Help people become more motivated by guiding them to the source of their own power.  ~ Paul G. Thomas

You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things -- to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.  ~ Sir Edmund Hillary

A champion needs a motivation above and beyond winning.  ~ Pat Riley

Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities.  ~Terry Josephson

Tags: quotes on motivation, motivating others, yourself

The Happy Heart

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.  ~ Maya Angelou

The happy heart gives away the best. To know how to receive is also a most important gift, which cultivates generosity in others and keeps strong the cycle of life.  ~Dhyani Ywahoo

No one has ever become poor by giving.  ~ Anne Frank

Giving is true having.  ~ Charles Spurgeon

Think of giving not as a duty but as a privilege.  ~ John D. Rockefeller

Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act.  ~ Jack Welch

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.  ~ Albert Camus

For it is in giving that we receive.  ~ St. Francis of Assisi

Tags: quotes on giving

For reflective questions on each day's quotations or theme stream, journey to 365 Quote Quest.

A Quantum Leap

Do what you love, and you will find the way to get it out to the world. ~ Judy Collins

I'm back to doing everything I used to, loving life as ever. ~ Donna Mills
 
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. ~ Peter Drucker
 
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
 
Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment. ~ Oprah Winfrey
 
Doing is a quantum leap from imagining. ~ Barbara Sher
 
Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things. ~ Elbert Hubbard

Tags: quotes about doing, life, personal development

The Person of Worth

Why do you climb philosophical hills? Because they are worth climbing ... There are no hills to go down unless you start from the top.  ~ Margaret Thatcher

Worry not that no one knows of you; seek to be worth knowing.  ~ Confucius

Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.  ~ Booker T. Washington

Only the person of worth can recognize the worth in others.  ~ Thomas Carlyle

We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.  ~ French Proverb

Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have.  ~ Thomas A. Edison 

Tags: quotes about worth, life

Let Things Flow Naturally

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.  ~ Arthur Rubinstein
 
We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.  ~ Carl Jung  

Acceptance is such an important commodity, some have called it "the first law of personal growth."  ~ Peter McWilliams

Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.   ~ Chuang-tzu

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.   ~Lao Tzu

Tags: quotes about acceptance

Pleasure in the Pathless Woods

Never, no never does Nature say one thing and wisdom another.  ~Johann Christolph Frederick von Schuller

Vitality and beauty are gifts of Nature for those who live according to its laws.  ~ Leonard Da Vinci

The earth has music for those who listen.  ~ George Santayana

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again."  ~ Lewis Carroll

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.  ~ Rachel Carson

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roars:
I love not man the less, but Nature more..  ~ George Gordon Byron

Tags: quotes on nature, wisdom, happiness, peace, life

With a Musical Score and Laugh Track

I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet, raised to an alarming extent by Hollywood and Madison Avenue, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak.

I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal.

It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.

Reality continues to ruin my life.

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.

I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep my expectations.

You can drag my body to school but my spirit refuses to go.

I thought my life would seem more interesting with a musical score and a laugh track.  

You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens.  ~ all quotes by Bill Watterson, of Calvin and Hobbes fame (1985-1995)

Sight of the Stars

When we are not sure, we are alive.  ~ Graham Greene

When nothing is sure, everything is possible.  ~ Margaret Drabble

He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions.  ~ Louisa May Alcott

Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.  ~ Benjamin Franklin

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.   ~ Bertrand Russell 

The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.  ~ Erich Fromm

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

Tags: quotes on certainty, philosophy, decisions, perspective

The Greatest Wealth

To insure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life.  ~William Londen

Good health and good sense are two of life's greatest blessings.  Publilius Syrus

Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished.  ~ Og Mandino

I believe that parents need to make nutrition education a priority in their home environment. It's crucial for good health and longevity to instill in your children sound eating habits from an early age.  ~ Cat Cora

The greatest wealth is health.  ~ Virgil

Those obsessed with health are not healthy; the first requisite of good health is a certain calculated carelessness about oneself.  ~ Syndney J. Harris

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.  ~ Mark Twain

To avoid sickness eat less; to prolong life worry less.  ~ Weng Chu Hui

The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results.  ~ Anthony Robbins

Tags: quotes on good health, vitality, life, happiness

The Level of Civilization

It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs.  ~ Margaret Thatcher

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

A woman's whole life is a history of the affections.  ~ Washington Irving

What one beholds of a woman is the least part of her.  ~ Ovid

By nice women...you probably mean selfish women who have no more thought for the underprivileged, overworked women than a pussycat in a sunny window for the starving kitten in the street.  Now in that sense I am not a nice woman, for I do care.  ~ Nellie McClung

Social science affirms that a woman's place in society marks the level of civilization.  ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton 

Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it exists principally in dealing with men.  ~ Joseph Conrad

Many of our troubles in the world today arise from an over-emphasis of the masculine, and a neglect of the feminine. This modern world is an aggressive, hyperactive, competitive, masculine world, and it needs the woman's touch as never before.  ~ Eva Burrows

Tags: quotes about women

Calm and Storm

Keep calm and carry on.  ~ was a propaganda poster produced by the Government of the United Kingdom in 1939 during the beginning of the Second World War

I'm full of fears and I do my best to avoid difficulties and any kind of complications. I like everything around me to be clear as crystal and completely calm. ~ Alfred Hitchcock

I never felt settled or calm. You can't really commit to life when you feel that.  ~ Angelina Jolie

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.  ~ Willa Cather

Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.  ~ Martin Luther

After a storm comes a calm.  ~ Matthew Henry

The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good.  Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful joys of wisdom....Calmness is power.   ~ James Allen

He who angers you, conquers you.  ~ Elizabeth Kenny

They sicken of the calm who know the storm.  ~ Dorothy Parker

Tags: quotes on calm, composure, life, enrichment

The Intensity

One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum.  ~ Walter Scott

Measurement of life should be proportioned rather to the intensity of the experience than to its actual length.  ~ Thomas Hardy

Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.  ~ D. H. Lawrence

Tags: quotes about life, vitality, empowerment, enrichment

Pay Close Attention

The little things? The little moments? They aren't little.   ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.  ~ Mother Teresa

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.  ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

If you take care of the small things,
the big things take care of themselves.
You can gain more control over your life by
paying closer attention to the little things.  ~ Emily Dickinson

Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you will look back and realize they were the big things.  ~Robert Bradt

You need to let the little things that would ordinarily bore you suddenly thrill you.  ~ Andy Warhol

Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
and the pleasant land.

Thus the little minutes,
Humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages
Of eternity.  ~ Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney

Tags: quotes about the little things, every day life, simple, simplicity, happiness, life 

Stay Involved, Flexible, Committed

The dedicated life is the life worth living.  ~ Annie Dillard

The resolved mind hath no cares.  ~ George Herbert

Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it. No involvement, no commitment.  ~ Stephen R. Covey

Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek.  ~ Mario Andretti

Our future and our fate lie in our wills more than in our hands, for our hands are but the instruments of our wills.  ~ B.C. Forbes 

Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.  ~ Tom Robbins

Tags: quotes about commitment, resolve, dedication, success, life

Court Chance

It's choice - not chance - that determines your destiny.  ~ Jean Nidetch

Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The harder you work, the luckier you get.  ~ Gary Player

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be a fish. ~ Ovid

If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances.  ~ Julia Sorel

Chance favors only those who court her.  ~ Charles Nicolle 

How can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites?  ~ Amy Tan

Tags: quotes on/about chance, cause/effect, decisions, choice, destiny, life, vulnerability

The Turning Point

Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.  ~ Charles De Gaulle
 
I think for anyone who's gone through a crisis, there comes a turning point, an epiphany, that marks the beginning of the end.  ~ Deborah Norville

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

Conflict builds character. Crisis defines it.   ~ Steven V. Thulon

Any idiot can face a crisis, it's the day to day living that wears you out.  ~ Anton Chekhov

Tags: quotes on crisis, decision making, character, endurance, life, success

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Believing in Ourselves

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.   Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.  ~ Golda Meir

It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes.   ~ Sally Field

We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch.   Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.   ~ e.e. cummings 

Tags: quotes on confidence, self esteem, success

A Glimpse of Paradise

Rice is a beautiful food. It is beautiful when it grows, precision rows of sparkling green stalks shooting up to reach the hot summer sun. It is beautiful when harvested, autumn gold sheaves piled on diked, patchwork paddies. It is beautiful when, once threshed, it enters granary bins like a (flood) of tiny seed-pearls. It is beautiful when cooked by a practiced hand, pure white and sweetly fragrant. ~ Shizuo Tsuji 

Chicken, brown rice, and veggies is a great healthy dinner option. It's full of whole grain and protein, and will keep you full for a long time. ~ Mia Hamm

Rice is great if you're really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something.  ~ Mitch Hedberg

Same old slippers, Same old rice, Same old glimpse of paradise.  ~ William James Lampton

Tags: quotes about rice, food, nutrition, health

Bread is King

How can a nation be great if their bread tastes like kleenex?   ~Julia Childs

‘A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said, ‘is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides are very good indeed.’ ~ Lewis Caroll

The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight.  ~M.F.K. Fischer

With bread all sorrows are less, Sancho Panza in Don Quixote.  ~Miguel de Cervantes

Give me yesterday’s Bread, this Day’s Flesh, and last Year’s Cider.  ~Benjamin Franklin

Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread.  ~Pablo Neruda

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.  ~ Mahatama Gandhi

Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread. Without it, it’s flat.  ~Carmen McRae

Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.  ~Nikoli Berdyaev

Bread is the king of the table and all else is merely the court that surrounds the king. The countries are the soup, the meat, the vegetables, the salad, but bread is king.   ~Louis Bromfield

If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.  ~Robert Browning

Avoid those who don’t like bread and children.  ~ Swiss Proverb

With a piece of bread in your hand you’ll find paradise under a pine tree.  ~Russian Proverb

What hymns are sung.
What praises said.
For homemade miracles of bread?   ~ Louis Untermeyer

Tags: quotes on bread, food, nourishment, life, happiness

Involved in the Same Quest

You can make it, but it's easier if you don't have to do it alone.  ~ Betty Ford

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.  ~ M. Scott Peck

When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that.  ~ Gertrude Stein

The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.  ~ William James

For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people's love and concern for each other.  ~ Millard Fuller 

First, we are challenged to rise above the narrow confines of our individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.  ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

A healthy social life is found only, when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection, and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living.  ~ Rudolf Steiner 

To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.  ~ John Locke

Simply being with other people who are also seekers and who are involved in the same quest you are is very meaningful.  ~ Dan Wakefield

We're all just walking each other home.   ~Ram Dass

Tags: quotes, quotations on community, sharing

Democracy as Daily Citizenship

Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right to govern himself with reason and justice.  ~ Harry S. Truman

If you want to understand democracy, spend less time in the library with Plato, and more time in the buses with people.  ~ Simeon Strunsky

The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom.  But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.  ~ Bernard Baruch

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.  This expresses my idea of democracy.  ~ Abraham Lincoln 

I understand democracy as something that gives the weak the same chance as the strong.  ~Mohandas Gandhi

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.  ~ Winston Churchill

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

There cannot be daily democracy without daily citizenship.   ~Ralph Nader

The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.  ~ Gunter Grass

We talk about problems, issues, policies, but we don't talk about what democracy means — what it bestows on us — the revolutionary idea that it isn't just about the means of governance but the means of dignifying people so they become fully free to claim their moral and political agency.  ~ Bill Moyers

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The Gentle Herb

I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.  ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Drinking a daily cup of tea will surely starve the apothecary.  ~ Chinese proverb

Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.  ~ Ann Patchett

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.  ~ Henry James

There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.  ~ Lin Yutang

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?  ~ D. T. Suzuki

Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage.  ~ Catherine Douzel

I am so fond of tea that I could write a whole dissertation on its virtues. It comforts and enlivens without the risks attendant on spirituous liquors. Gentle herb! Let the florid grape yield to thee. Thy soft influence is a more safe inspirer of social joy.  ~ James Boswell

Tea tempers the spirits and harmonizes the mind, dispels lassitude and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents drowsiness, lightens or refreshes the body, and clears the perceptive faculties.  ~ Confucius

Tea is the elixir of life.  ~ Lao Tsu

Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.  ~ Alice Walker

Tags: quotes, quotations on tea, meditation, life, pleasures

Ideas Begin to Move

I orchestrate my mornings to the tune of coffee.   ~Harry Mahtar 

Coffee smells like freshly ground heaven.   ~Jessi Lane Adams 

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.   ~T.S. Eliot 

Actually, this seems to be the basic need of the human heart in nearly every great crisis - a good hot cup of coffee.   ~Alexander King 

Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical.   ~Jonathan Swift 

Only one thing is certain about coffee.... Wherever it is grown, sold, brewed, and consumed, there will be lively controversy, strong opinions, and good conversation.   ~Mark Pendergrast 

As soon as coffee is in your stomach, there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move...similes arise, the paper is covered. Coffee is your ally and writing ceases to be a struggle.    ~Honore de Balzac

The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.   ~Oliver Wendall Holmes.  

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The Elusive Search

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.  ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

 A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.  ~ George Edward Moore

The noblest search is the search for excellence.  ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Search others for their virtue, and yourself for your vices.  ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.  ~ Bertrand Russell

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.  ~ Albert Einstein

Tags: quotes about search, searching, discovery, quest, meaning

The Sweetest Things in Life

If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it.  ~ Lucy Larcom

Find a need and fill it.  ~ Ruth Stafford Peale

How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it.  ~ George Elliston

The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.  ~Robert Louis Stevenson

Tags: quotes on life, kindness, simple pleasures, action, goodness