#112 The Truth about Self

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. ~ Virginia Woolf

#111 What Do You Take For Granted?

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. ~ Aldous Huxley

#110 Inspiration through Work

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration. ~ Ernest Newman

#109 What Makes a Life?

Incident piled on incident no more makes life than brick piled on brick makes a house. ~ Edith Mirrielees

#108 The Key to a Balanced Life

Believing in our hearts that who we are is enough is the key to a more satisfying and balanced life. ~ Ellen Sue Stern

#107 What's your Gift?

The weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him and which worthily used will be a gift also to his race. ~ John Ruskin

#106 The Essence of Life

One must never lose time in vainly regretting the past or in complaining against the changes which cause us discomfort, for change is the essence of life. ~ Anatole France

#105 One Day at a Time

That person is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life. ~ Euripides

#104 No Need for Certainty

I said here's the river I want to flow on, here's the direction I want to go, and put my boat in. I was ready for the river to take unexpected turns and present obstacles. ~ Nancy Woodhull

#103 Making It Through the Day

Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall.
Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.
Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down.
And this is all life really means. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

#102 Confronting Fear

Fear is the fire that melts Icarian wings. ~ Florence Earle Coates

Want to review the myth of Icarus through the ages?

#101 Hopes over Fears

We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes. ~ John F. Kennedy

#100 Release

Do things for others and you'll find your self-consciousness evaporating like morning dew. ~ Dale Carnegie

(A fitting quote as I reach 100 out of 1,000 quotes. Thanks for reading and sharing.)

#99 Courage as Nurture

The best protection any woman (or man) can have... is courage. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

#98 Love First

I don't want to live- I want to love first, and live incidentally. ~ Zelda Fitzgerald

#97 Open to Opportunity

Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door. ~ Emily Dickinson

#96 Forward Thinking

I make the most of all that comes,
And the least of all that goes. ~ Sarah Teasdale

#95 A Call to the Living

The following two quotes by Algernon Black are like cool spring water. Black (1932-72) was a graduate of Harvard, a humanist leader, educator, radio commentator, and affiliated with the New York Society of Ethical Culture. I posted these two quotes over two years ago and they seem most appropriate for my new focus.

The first selection appeals to our sense of justice, to our sensitivity to the community in which we live, both locally and globally, to our human spirit which can reach out to those who are hurting.

“This is a call to the living,
To those who refuse to make peace with evil,
With the suffering and the waste of the world.
This is a call to the human, not the perfect,
To those who know their own prejudices,
Who have no intention of becoming prisoners of their own limitations.
This is a call to those who remember the dreams of their youth,
Who know what it means to share food and shelter,
The care of children and those who are troubled,
To reach beyond barriers of the past
Bringing people to communion.
This is a call to the never ending spirit
Of the common man, his essential decency and integrity,
His unending capacity to suffer and endure,
To face death and destruction and to rise again
And build from the ruins of life.
This is the greatest call of all
The call to a faith in people."

This next passage asks us to reflect upon the world's philosophies and religions, those ideas we hold quite close to our heart, and consider the common threads of each which can bind us together with a common compassionate interest.

"Why not let people differ about their answers to the great mysteries of the Universe? Let each seek one's own way to the highest, to one's own sense of supreme loyalty in life, one's ideal of life. Let each philosophy, each world-view bring forth its truth and beauty to a larger perspective, that people may grow in vision, stature and dedication.

The religions of humanity should be a unifying force, for all the great religions reveal a basic unity in ethics. Whether it be Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or Confucianism, all grow out of a sense of the sacredness of human life. This moral sensitivity to the sacredness of human personality -- the Commandments not to kill, not to hurt, not to put a stumbling block in the path of the blind, not to neglect the widow or the fatherless, not to exploit the servant or the worker -- all this can be found in the Bibles of humanity, in all the sacred books. All teach in substance: "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." There is, then, a basic unity among the great religions in the matter of ethics. True, there are religious philosophies which turn people away from the world, from the here and now, concentrating life-purposes on salvation for one's self or a mystic union with some supernatural reality. But most of the great religions agree on mercy, justice, love -- here on earth. And they agree that the great task is to move people from apathy, from an acceptance of the evils in life, to face the possibilities of the world, to make life sweet for one another instead of bitter. This is the unifying ethical task of all the religions -- yes, of all the philosophies of humankind. There is no need to force our own theological points of view upon one another or to insist that the moral life grows out of final, absolute authority."

#94 Don't Ask

Don't seek, don't search, don't ask, don't knock, don't demand- relax. If you relax, it comes. If you relax, it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it. ~ Osho

#93 Seeking and Finding

If we are not totally blind, what we are seeking is already here. This is it. ~ Alan Watts

#92 Like your Hair Cut?

A haircut is a metaphysical operation. ~ Julio Cartazar

(Had to chuckle with this one... The metaphysicist attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world such as existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility.)

#91 Kindness and Courage

Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own. ~ Adam Lindsay Gordon

#90 One Wild Place

Of all modern notions, the worst is this: that domesticity is dull. Inside the home, they say, is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and variety. But the truth is that the home is the only place of liberty, the only spot on earth where a person can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. The home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks. ~ G. K. Chesterton

#89 Three Questions

All men should strive to learn before they die
What they are running from, and to, and why. ~ James Thurber

#88 The Daily Challenge

He alone deserves liberty and life who daily must win them anew. ~ Goethe

#87 How Young are You?

It takes a long time to become young. ~ Pablo Picasso

#86 The Beauty of Microcosm

The more specific you are, the more general it will be. ~ Diane Arbus

#85 The Timid Spirit

The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever, but is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these the spirit blooms timidly and struggles to the light among thorns. ~ George Santayana

#84 A Sense of Wonder

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder. ~ Ray Bradbury

#83 Attempted and Done

Each morning sees some task begun
Each evening sees it close.
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

#82 In Pursuit

Zeal without knowledge is fire without light. ~ Thomas Fuller

#81 The Greatest Blessing

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

#80 What Do You Value?

What you really value is what you miss, not what you have. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

#79 I Have a Dream

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

~ Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963

#78 Desiderata: Things to be Desired

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

(Desiderata is Latin and means 'things to be desired.')

~ Max Ehrmann

#77 The Best Thing

I have some problems with my life, but living is the best thing they've come up with so far. ~ Neil Simon

#76 What's your Offering?

When you stop giving and offering something to the rest of the world, it's time to turn out the lights. ~George Burns

#75 The Now provides Hope

Light tomorrow with today! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

#74 A Sure Bet

Goodness is the only investment that never fails. ~ Henry David Thoreau

#73 Hearts Alive

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

(Counting my blessings on Thanksgiving Day in Canada.)

#72 Pep Talk

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son! ~ Rudyard Kipling

#71 Simple Beauty

And all the loveliest things there be
Come simply, so it seems to me. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

#70 The Only Choice

For myself I am an optimist- it does not seem to be much use being anything else. ~ Winston Churchill

#69 The Vigor of the Mind

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

#68 The Power of Incubation

It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after a committee of sleep has worked on it. ~ John Steinbeck

#67 What are you Doing Now?

You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do. ~ Henry Ford

#66 Bless the Goodness

To act with common sense, according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know and the best philosophy is to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot; bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it, whatever it is; and despise affectation. ~ Horace Walpole

Care to recommend this blog to others?

#65 Healing Wounds

He that studieth revenge keepeth his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. ~ John Milton

#64 Drink Deep

A little learning is a dangerous thing/Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. ~ Alexander Pope

#63 Pools of Sparkling Water

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? ~ T. S. Eliot