Make Visible

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.  ~Robert Bresson

-For what do many people yearn?
-When have you seen something illuminated?
-What valuable thing, action, or idea could you make visible?

Announcing Several Self Published Books

Dear Readers,

Volumes #1, #2, and #3 of 365 Quote Quest are now available in print and in digital format for Kindle.  These books are a product of several years of posts in which I provide a quotation and offer about three questions to encourage reflection and enrichment.

For example entry #537 is entitled 'Be thyself':
Resolve to be thyself: and know, that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery. ~ Matthew Arnold

- How much do you try to be yourself?
- To what extent do you agree with Arnold that being yourself leads to greater happiness?
- What are other personal sources of happiness?

Another sample entry which offers an interesting juxtaposition with the above is #702, 'Changing yourself.'

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. ~Leo Tolstoy
 
- What changes would you like to make to the world?
- Heeding Tolstoy's advice, what could you begin changing about yourself?

I consider each of the 1,095 entries a meditation nugget.

You may read about my background and details about these two books at Amazon's Author Central.

Thank you for your readership here and at 365 Quote Quest and for any positive recommendations to others you may want to provide.

For those who may be interested, I self published the books at Createspace which provides distribution through Amazon.  Also convenient links are provided so that I could publish them as e books through Kindle Direct Publishing.

The Ecstatic Experience

I do not seek.  I find.  ~ Pablo Picasso

You lose it if you talk about it.  ~ Ernest Hemingway

Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.  ~ Jean Cocteau

I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's.
I will not reason and compare;
My business is to create.  ~ William Blake

You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.  ~ Jack London

The soul should always stand ajar. Ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.  ~ Emily Dickinson

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try.  ~Dr. Seuss

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, the just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.  ~ Steve Jobs

The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.  ~Alan Alda

Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.  ~Mary Lou Cook

Tags: 10 quotes on creativity

Flickering Will

Don't let your will roar when your power only whispers.  ~ Thomas Fuller

-How much power do you have over yourself, others?
-What are some of your convictions, desires?
-When is the opportune time to let some of your will flicker?

Reaching Out

You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.  ~ H. L. Mencken

- Where lies your growth?
- Where do you experience enrichment?
- How can you reach out?

For All that Shall Be

Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up.

The more faithfully you listen to the voices within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside.

Never, "for the sake of peace and quiet," deny your own experience or convictions.

"Freedom from fear" could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights.

Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each one of us. To build for man a world without fear, we must be without fear. To build a world of justice, we must be just.

For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes. 

~ all quotes from Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish diplomat, UN Secretary-General, winner of Nobel Peace Prize. (1905-1961 who died in plane crash en route to ceasefire negotiations.)

Yes, you Can

If you can conceive it and believe it, you can achieve it.  ~ Jesse Jackson

- What do you believe in quite strongly?
- What action may be initiated out of this belief?
- What steps can you take to achieve it?

The Ultimate Sophistication

An oxymoron is a combination of contradictory words. Consider the following ten complex simplicities:

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.   ~Henry Thoreau

To lead the people, walk behind them.   ~Lao-Tzu

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.   ~Winston Churchill

I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.   ~Michael Jordan

If you haven't made any mistakes recently, you must be doing something wrong.   ~Paulo Coelho

If I only had a little humility, I would be perfect.   ~Ted Turner

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.   ~Mahatma Ghandi

Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad.   ~Victor Hugo

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.   ~Leonardo da Vinci

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.   ~Soren Kierkegaard

Change the World

However much concerned I was at the problem of misery in the world, I never let myself get lost in broodings over it. I always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of it to an end.  ~Dr. Albert Schweitzer

My hope still is to leave the world a bit better than when I got here.  ~ Jim Henson

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

Letting Go

Knowledge is learning something new every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day.  ~ Zen proverb

Questions I ask at 365 Quote Quest:

- What have you learned recently?
- What have you let go?
- Why is letting go an important element for personal peace?

Experience of the Butterfly

I embrace emerging experience.  I participate in discovery.  I am a butterfly.  I am not a butterfly collector.  I want the experience of the butterfly.  ~ William Stafford

Only with the Heart

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye. ~Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.  ~ Blaise Pascal

It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise.  ~ Sara Teasdale

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

Hearts Live By Being Wounded.  ~ Oscar Wilde

Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.  ~ Homer

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.  ~ Goethe

Keep Moving

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running. ~ Thomas L. Friedman

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.  ~ Conrad Hilton

Economize or Agonize

Beware of little expenses.  A small leak will sink a great ship.  ~ Benjamin Franklin

Cannot people realize how large an income is thrift?  ~ Cicero

Thrift is not an affair of the pocket, but an affair of character.  ~ S. W. Straus

Industry, thrift, and self-control are not sought because they create wealth, but because they create character.  ~ Calvin Coolidge

Be thrifty, but not covetous.  ~ George Herbert

He who does not economize will have to agonize.  ~ Confucius

Tags: quotes on frugality, thrift, opposite of extravagance

The Wise Choice of many Alternatives

The wise man (person) will always reflect concerning the quality, not the quantity of life.  ~ Seneca

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives. ~William A. Foster

 Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. ~Steve Jobs

Quality means doing it right when no one is listening.  ~ Henry Ford

The world has changed from quality to quantity, and so have we.  ~ Santosh Kalwar

Quality, relevant content can't be spotted by an algorithm. You can't subscribe to it. You need people - actual human beings - to create or curate it.  ~ Kristina Halverston

Tags: quality, quantity quotes about life

The Best Remedy

If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?  ~ Sydney J. Harris

He who angers you conquers you.  ~ Elizabeth Kenny

Don't carry a grudge.  While you're carrying the grudge, the other guy's out dancing.  ~ Buddy Hackett

Malice drinks one-half of its own poison.  ~ Seneca 

People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.  ~ Will Rogers

The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.  ~ Jacqueline Schiff

Tags: quotes about anger, grudges, getting even

Flower Footnotes and Asterisks

Garden flowers are enjoying center stage these days:

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.  ~ Walt Whitman

I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck. - Emma Goldman

Bloom where you are planted. - Mary Engelbreit

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.  ~ Claude Monet  (Monet's painting above)
   
Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts. ~ Sigmund Freud

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.  ~ Basho

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.  ~ Heinrich Heine

With daffodils mad footnotes for the spring, and asters purple asterisks for autumn.  ~ Conrad Aiken

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.  ~ Chinese proverb

Giving All to the Present

Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized.  ~ Leo Buscaglia

The past is a ghost, the future a dream and all we ever have is now.  ~ Bill Cosby

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

Gift of your Life

Make a gift of your life and lift all...by being kind, considerate, forgiving, and compassionate at all times, in all places, and under all conditions, with everyone as well as yourself. This is the greatest gift anyone can give.   ~ David R. Hawkins

Never look down on anyone unless you're helping him up.  ~ Jesse Jackson

The Choice is Up to Us

A lot of energy is wasted in adversarial relationships.  Unless you are in a life or death situation, it's often better to disengage from someone who is set against you rather than try to defeat or outdo them.  Your time and effort is better spent finding and working with those who are aligned to your purpose.  ~ Isabel Parlett

Every conflict we face in life is rich with positive and negative potential. It can be a source of inspiration, enlightenment, learning, transformation, and growth–or rage, fear, shame, entrapment, and resistance. The choice is not up to our opponents, but to us, and our willingness to face and work through them.   ~ Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith

Nature's Generous Gifts

At the end of the day, no amount of investing, no amount of clean electrons, no amount of energy efficiency will save the natural world if we are not paying attention to it - if we are not paying attention to all the things that nature give us for free: clean air, clean water, breathtaking vistas, mountains for skiing, rivers for fishing, oceans for sailing, sunsets for poets, and landscapes for painters. What good is it to have wind-powered lights to brighten the night if you can't see anything green during the day? Just because we can't sell shares in nature doesn't mean it has no value.  ~ Thomas L. Friedman

Moderation is the Center

Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues. - Joseph Hall
 
Moderation is the last refuge for the unimaginative.  ~ Oscar Wilde

Moderation in all things, especially moderation.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Moderation. Small helpings. Sample a little bit of everything. These are the secrets of happiness and good health. ~ Julia Child


Moderation is the center wherein all philosophies, both human and divine, meet. - Benjamin Disraeli
 
A reasonable man needs only to practice moderation to find happiness. - Johann von Goethe
 
All the world is a birthday cake; so take a piece but not too much. ~ George Harrison

Eternal Landscapes

All my life I have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper — just running down the edges of different countries and continents, looking for something. ~ Elizabeth Bishop

There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for the outlines all our lives. ~ Josephine Hart

At 365 Quote Quest I ask several questions about these quotes to encourage reflection.

Begin to Know

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.  ~ Mahatma Gandhi

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.  ~ Dr Seuss

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.  ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Change is the end result of all true learning.  ~ Leo Buscaglia

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

I'm not a teacher but an awakener. ~ Robert Frost

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

Acceptance, Tolerance, Forgiveness

Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons. ~ Jessica Lange

Certainly tolerance and acceptance were at the forefront of my music.  ~ Bruce Springsteen

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.  ~ William James

Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.  ~ Rumi

Wish for What You Are

It's not good for all of our wishes to be fulfilled. Through sickness, we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest. - Greek proverb

If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so.  ~ Lev Grossman

Work will win when wishy washy wishing won't.  ~ Thomas S. Monson

Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly. ~ St. Francis De Sales

Add Color to My Sunset

 

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.  ~Samuel Ullman


Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.  ~ Rabindranath Tagore


Maturity is when your world opens up and you realize that you are not the center of it.  ~ M. J. Croan

Get Real

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.  ~ James Russell Lowell

And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned.  ~ Dorothy Parker


Nothing ever becomes real 'til it is experienced.  ~ John Keats


You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.  ~ Mary Tyler Moore

Gifts each Day

Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons.  ~ Ruth Ann Schabacker

 I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.  ~ Oprah Winfrey


When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.  ~ Boris Pasternak

Ego is Not You

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.   - Friedrich Nietzsche

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it.  ~ John Lennon


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


The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.  ~ Eckhart Tolle

Listen Generously

-The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words. ~Rachel Naomi Remen

-Listen first. Give your opponents a chance to talk. Let them finish. Do not resist, defend or debate. This only raises barriers. Try to build bridges of understanding. ~ Dale Carnegie
 
-The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Seeking Goodness

Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed. William Saroyan

People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.  ~ Kent M. Keith

A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.  ~ Nelson Mandela

Bold Beginnings

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. ~ Goethe

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
 
A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. ~ Frank Herbert

A Day Spent

A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search for truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life. ~ Lewis Mumford
 
- Where have you recently experienced beauty?
- Mystery?
- Truth and perfection?
- How were you enriched?

Haunted by Waters

I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.   ~John O'Donohue

The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper, I cannot make it out.  ~ Annie Dillard


Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.  ~ Norman Maclean

Springing from the Soul

I wanted no part of politics. And I wasn't in Berlin (1936) to compete against any one athlete. The purpose of the Olympics, anyway, was to do your best. As I'd learned long ago from Charles Riley, the only victory that counts is the one over yourself.   ~Jesse Owens

There is something in the Olympics, indefinable, springing from the soul, that must be preserved.   ~Chris Brasher

The Olympic Games must not be an end in itself, they must be a means of creating a vast programme of physical education and sports competitions for all young people.   ~Avery Brundage

Innovating, Creating, Implementing

Innovation opportunities do not come with the tempest but with the rustling of the breeze.   ~Peter Drucker

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct arising from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves.   ~Carl Jung

I want to put a ding in the universe.   ~Steve Jobs

I will act as if what I do will make a difference.  ~William James

Love Light

The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for love.  ~Margaret Atwood

Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.  ~ Oliver Wendall Holmes 

Love must be as much a light,  as it is a flame.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

Theme Series: Success

Perhaps there is no more motivating dream than the pursuit of success. The following quotes provide illuminating perspectives:

-Failure is success if we learn from it. ~ Malcolm Forbes

-Success is like death. The more successful you become, the higher the houses in the hills get and the higher the fences get. ~ Kevin Spacey

-Success is that old ABC - ability, breaks, and courage. ~ Charles Luckman

-Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. ~ Booker T. Washington

-The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

-Can success change the human mechanism so completely between one dawn and another? Can it make one feel taller, more alive, handsomer, uncommonly gifted and indomitably secure with the certainty that this is the way life will always be? It can and it does. ~ Moss Hart

Selected by quoteflections.

-Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag today
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,
As he defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear. ~ Emily Dickinson

-Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it. ~ Elbert Hubbard

-Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. ~Albert Einstein

-Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. ~Winston Churchill

-Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. ~Lily Tomlin

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

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

The big questions

All my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them.  ~Stephen Hawking


Philosophers wrestling with the big questions of life are no longer alone. Now scientists are struggling to define life as they manipulate it, look for it on other planets, and even create it in test tubes.  ~Seth Borenstein

Science is what you know.  Philosophy is about what you don't know.  ~ Bertrand Russell

Mirror Image

Life is for each person a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors. ~ Eugene O'Neill
 
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. ~ Rudolph Steiner

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

I Have Had My Hour

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour. ~ Horace

- How secure are you within?
- To what extent have you lived your life to the fullest with each passing day?
- What can you say about your hour?

What Makes you Come Alive?

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that.  Because what the world needs is people who are alive.   ~Howard Thurman

Acceptance of Life

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.
Willa Cather


- What tree amidst difficult circumstances comes to your mind after reading this quote?
- How resigned/ accepting are you to the conditions of your life?
- How might you, like the tree, gain strength and beauty amidst the challenges?

Who Are You?

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. ~ Oscar Wilde
 
Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else. ~ Judy Garland
 
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself. ~ Harvey Fierstein

You are you; now isn't that pleasant?  ~ Dr. Seuss

Press Pause

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?  ~ William Henry Davies

Sometimes you need to press pause to let everything sink in. ~ Sebastion Vettel

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.  ~ Confucius 

To Feel that we Exist

Oh, for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts. ~ John Keats
 
Acting is a total physical, emotional sensation. ~ Armand Assante
 
The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain. ~ Lord Byron

- What sensations have you experienced recently?
- Do you prefer living more with sensations or thoughts?
- How do you cultivate the former?

Back in the Saddle

After a hiatus from blogging for several months, I have decided to return.  I realize that it is within my nature to read, write, and inquire.   This hobby provides a needed outlet for my energies.  

A number of readers also encouraged me to continue because they valued the thought nuggets which the quotations provided.

So here I am.  I apologize for the vacillation and hope that you may gain some enrichment from my continued posts. 

(The photo is taken from Signal Hill, St. John's, Newfoundland where my wife and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation.)

I also continue with my other blog 365 Quote Quest where I provide a select quotation and provide several questions for personal reflection.