Derives its Powers

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.  ~ Marcus Aurelius  

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.  ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.  ~ Lao Tzu

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

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.  ~ Benjamin Franklin

The cyclone derives its powers from a calm center.  So does a person.  ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Quotes about self control, life

Now Isn't That Pleasant

We are the ones for whom we have been waiting.  ~ Hopi Elders

My friend...care for your psyche...know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves.  ~ Socrates

When we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.  ~ Viktor Frankl  

Find out who you are and do it on purpose.  ~  Dolly Parton

You are you.  Now isn't that pleasant.  ~  Dr. Seuss

Quotes about self, life

Keep Stillness Inside

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.  ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.  ~ Sylvia Plath

Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.  ~ George Santayana

We live in a rainbow of chaos.  ~ Cezanne

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.  ~ William Butler Yeats

In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.  ~ Deepak Chopra

Quotes about chaos, life

You Don't Have to Cook Fancy

The more you eat, the less flavor; the less you eat, the more flavor. ~ Chinese Proverb

Hunger is the best sauce in the world. ~ Cervantes

Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live. ~ Socrates

Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent. ~ Epictetus

Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper. ~ Adelle Davis

You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients.  ~ Julia Child

Quotes about eating, food, life

The Universe is Always Speaking to Us

When I was little, I had this science book. There was a section on 'What would happen to the world if there was no friction?' Answer: 'Everything on earth would fly into space from the centrifugal force of revolution.' That was my mood.  ~ Haruki Murakami

To have darkness behind me, in front of me a bright sky, flickering lights on the water, and to feel on the stony face a southern sun.  ~ Julia Harwick

The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.  ~ Voltaire

The universe is always speaking to us, ...sending us little messages, causing coincidences, sending us serendipities, reminding us to stop, look around, to believe in something else, something more.  ~ Nancy Thayer

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams it's still a beautiful world.   Be cheerful.  Strive to be happy.  ~ Max Ehrmann

Quotes about moods, life

The Only Real Security

If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.  ~ Carl Rogers

Independence - is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes.  ~ Mark Twain

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.  ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Interdependency follows independence.  ~ Stephen R. Covey

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.  ~ Henry Ford


Quotes about independence,life

Surrender to What Is

Control is never achieved when sought after directly. It is the surprising outcome of letting go.  ~ James Arthur Ray

The closest to being in control we will ever be is in that moment that we realize we're not.  ~ Brian Kessler

The greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender.  ~ William Booth

The condition of an enlightened mind is a surrendered heart.  ~ Alan Redpath
 
Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.  ~ Eckhart Tolle

Quotes about surrender, life

I Answered Yes

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose — a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.   ~Mary Shelley

I don't know Who — or what — put the question, I don't know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone — or Something — and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.   ~Dag Hammarskjöld

The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.   ~Allan K. Chalmers

 We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.   ~Fredrick Koeing

Quotes about a meaningful life

How to Live

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.    ~ Mary Wilson Little

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.   ~ Katharine Hepburn

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.   ~ Dale Carnegie

When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth.   ~ George Bernard Shaw

People here are funny. They work so hard at living, they forget how to live.   ~ Robert Riskin

Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better.  ~ George Santayana

Quotes about fun,life

No Trumpets Sound

Destiny is not a matter of chance but of choice. Not something to wish for, but to attain.   ~ William Jennings Bryan

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.  ~ William Shakespeare

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

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

No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.  ~ Agnes De Mille

Quotes about destiny, life

Look for What is Good and Strong

Drop the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. The world would go on even without you. Don't take yourself so seriously.  ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Drop by drop fills the pot.  ~ Duala proverb

Do not think of your faults, still less of other's faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.  ~ John Ruskin

By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.  ~ Richard Dawkins

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.  ~ D. H. Lawrence

5 disparate quotes about drops, life

In Being Bold

There is plenty of intelligence in the world, but the courage to do things differently is in short supply.  ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.  ~ Winston Churchill

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.  ~ E. E. Cummings

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.  ~ Nora Ephron

A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.  ~ William G. T. Shedd

Freedom lies in being bold.  ~ Robert Frost

Quotes about courage, life

The Whole Human Family

If I have been of service, if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good, if I am inspired to reach wider horizons of thought and action, if I am at peace with myself, it has been a successful day.  ~ Alex Noble

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.  ~ Etty Hillesum

Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way.  ~ May Sarton

Success isn't measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.  ~ Mike Ditka

No one can find inner peace except by working, not in a self- centered way, but for the whole human family.  ~ Peace Pilgrim 

Quotes about inner peace,life

A Hero to Me

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. ~ Rachel Carson

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.  ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.  ~ Roald Dahl

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.  ~ W. B. Yeats

Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me.  ~ Fred Rogers

Quotes about children, life

To Dance on a Shifting Carpet

To dance, put your hand on your heart and listen to the sound of your soul.  ~ Luigi

Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.  ~ William Stafford 

Everybody should be able to make some music... That's the cosmic dance!  ~ Ruth Gordon
 
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?  ~ William Butler Yeats

Live a balanced life - Learn some and think some, and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.   ~ Robert Fulghum

Instead of seeing the rug being pulled from under us, we can learn to dance on a shifting carpet.  ~ Thomas Crum 


Quotes about dance, life

It Takes Place Every Day

A man is judged by his deeds, not by his words.  ~ Russian Proverb

Beware so long as you live, of judging people by appearances.  ~ La Fontaine

Judge not, that ye be not judged.  ~Matthew 7:1

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.  ~ Mother Teresa

You can judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing to them or for them.  ~ Malcolm Forbes

Don't wait for the Last Judgement. It takes place every day.  ~ Albert Camus

Quotes about judgement, life

Energy Waiting to Happen

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.  ~ Thomas Merton

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.  ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.  ~ Mark Twain

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.  ~ Aesop

Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen.  ~ Bill Bryson

Quotes about matter, life

Every Exit an Entry

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.  ~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Every exit is an entry somewhere.  ~ Tom Stoppard

Quotes about entrances, exits, life

Pick Up the Mirror

The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man's own eyes when they look upon his own person.  ~Alexander Pope

When you descant on the faults of others, consider whether you be not guilty of the same. To gain knowledge of ourselves, the best way is to convert the imperfections of others into a mirror for discovering our own.  ~Henry Home

We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered to-day? what passion opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.  ~Seneca

How shall we learn to know ourselves? By reflection? Never; but only through action. Strive to do thy duty; then shalt thou know what is in thee.  ~ Goethe

Put down the magnifying glass and pick up the mirror.  ~ Hippocrates


Quotes about self, life

The Purpose of Life is Not to Be Happy

How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be
When there's no help in truth!  ~ Sophocles

You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself.   ~ John Ruskin
 
The best advisers, helpers and friends, always are not those who tell us how to act in special cases, but who give us, out of themselves, the ardent spirit and desire to act right, and leave us then, even through many blunders, to find out what our own form of right action is.    ~ Phillips Brooks

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
No one has ever become poor by giving. ~ Anne Frank


Quotes about helping, life

A Thousand Times Too Short

I've reached a milestone at 365 Quote Quest with one thousand entries.  So here are some select quotes about a thousand.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.  ~ Lao Tzu

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.  ~ Buddha

Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.  ~ Marilyn Monroe

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.  ~ Plato

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories.  ~ Ray Bradbury

Is life not a thousand times too short to bore ourselves?  ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

(Quotes about a thousand, life)

If you wish to read four reflective questions about this list, feel free to visit my other blog.   I've only got 95 more entries to go before I publish Volume #3 of 365 Quote Quest.  (365 x 3=1,095)  Volumes #1 and #2 are available here.

Thanks for following quoteflections and, possibly,  my complement, 365 Quote Quest.  Recommending/sharing these blogs is appreciated.

Keep the Pathway Open

The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden.  ~ Thomas More

A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.  ~ Victor Hugo

Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful!' and sitting in the shade.  ~ Rudyard Kipling

God made a beauteous garden
With lovely flowers strown,
But one straight, narrow pathway
That was not overgrown.
And to this beauteous garden
He brought mankind to live,
And said "To you, my children,
These lovely flowers I give.
Prune ye my vines and fig trees,
With care my flowers tend,
But keep the pathway open
Your home is at the end.  ~ Robert Frost from 'God's Garden'

Quotes about the garden, life

Always Discoveries to Be Made

My kitchen is a mystical place, a kind of temple for me. It is a place where the surfaces seem to have significance, where the sounds and odors carry meaning that transfers from the past and bridges to the future.  ~Pearl Bailey

We owe much to the fruitful meditation of our sages, but a sane view of life is, after all, elaborated mainly in the kitchen.  ~Joseph Conrad

In the childhood memories of every good cook there's a large kitchen, a warm stove, a simmering pot and a mom.   ~ Barbara Costikyan 

The kitchen is a country in which there are always discoveries to be made.  ~Grimod de la Reynière

Cooking demands attention, patience, and above all, a respect for the gifts of the earth. It is a form of worship, a way of giving thanks.   ~Judith B. Jones

Quotes about kitchens, cooking, life

One of the Greatest Sources of Happiness

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.  ~ Ellen Parr

One who is too wise an observer of the business of others, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.  ~ Alexander Pope

Every man ought to be inquisitive through every hour of his great adventure down to the day when he shall no longer cast a shadow in the sun. For if he dies without a question in his heart, what excuse is there for his continuance?  ~ Frank Moore Colby

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.  ~ Samuel Johnson

Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.  ~ Linus Pauling 

Quotes about curiosity, life

Forever is Composed of Now

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.  ~ C. S. Lewis

The point of power is always in the present moment.  ~ Louise L. Hay

With the past I have nothing to do; nor with the future.  I live now.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

People are always asking about the good old days.  How about the good now days?  ~ Robert M. Young

Forever is composed of now.  ~  Emily Dickinson

Quotes about the present, life

Growing through a Crack in the Concrete

It is a beautiful truth that all men contain something of the artist in them. And perhaps it is the case that the greatest artists live and die, the world and themselves alike ignorant what they possess.  ~ Walt Whitman

We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land. It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other's opposite and complement.  ~ Herman Hesse

Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.  ~ Beatrix Potter

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It's so heroic.  George Carlin

Quotes about uniqueness, life

A Secret Place

We may forget with whom we laughed, but not with whom we shared tears.   ~Tansanian proverb

My eyes were glued on life
and they were full of tears.  ~ Jack Kerouac
 
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.   ~ Charles Dickens
 
Tears are the noble language of eyes, and when true love of words is destitute. The eye by tears speak, while the tongue is mute.   ~ Robert Herrick
 
It is such a secret place, the land of tears.   ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Quotes about tears, life

That's How the Light Gets In

As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.  ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.  ~ Ezra Pound

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.  ~ Leonard Cohen

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.  ~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Love is not consolation. It is light.  ~ Simone Weil

Quotes about light, life

Will Not Appreciate Your Neutrality

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.  ~ Archibald MacLeish

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.  ~ William Faulkner

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.  ~ Leonardo da Vinci

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.  ~ Benjamin Franklin

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.  ~ Desmond Tutu

Quotes about dissent, life

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A Race to Be Worthy

Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity (happiness).   ~ Mahatma Gandhi
 
I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.   ~ Herman Hesse

One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.   ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.  ~ Walt Whitman

A lot of my life happened in great, wonderful bursts of good fortune, and then I would race to be worthy of it.   ~ Julie Andrews

Quotes about good fortune, life

Not All Who Wander

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

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion. - Charles Kuralt

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain

You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note. - Doug Floyd

 Not all those who wander are lost. - J.R.R. Tolkien

Quotes about nonconformity, life

Work Joyfully and Peacefully

Establishing goals is all right if you don't let them deprive you of interesting detours.  ~ Doug Larson

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.  ~ Winston Churchill

We should work on our process, not the outcome of our processes.  ~ W. Edwards Deming

Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will inevitably bring about right results.  ~ James Allen

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.  ~ Golda Meir 

Quotes about outcome, life

Back into Integration

We seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves... We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own . . . We demand windows.  ~ C.S. Lewis

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.  ~ Oscar Wilde

One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on.  ~ D.H. Lawrence

In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.  ~ Anthony Robbins

There is only one story - going out into disunity and coming back into integration.  ~ Joseph Campbell 


Quotes about doing, life

Purpose and Passion

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.  ~ Carl Jung
 
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.  ~ Helen Keller

This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.  ~ Oswald Spengler

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.  ~ William Cowper 

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.  ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Quotes about purpose, life

An Attitude of the Heart

It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear. ~ H.D. Thoreau

If you spend more time asking appropriate questions rather than giving answers or opinions, your listening skills will increase. ~ Brian Koslow

Listening is the only way to entertain some folks. ~ Kin Hubbard

The older I grow the more I listen to people who don’t talk much. ~ Germain G. Glien

Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. ~ Dr. Joyce Brothers

Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals.  ~ J. Isham 

Quotes about listening, life

Life is Fun or Suffering?

Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better.  ~ George Santayana

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.  ~ Katharine Hepburn

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.  ~ Dale Carnegie

The world is a funny paper read backwards. And that way it isn't so funny.  ~ Tennessee Williams

The making of fun where no real occasion for fun exists is essentially what comedy is about.  ~ David L. Hall

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.  ~ George Orwell 

Quotes about fun, life

The Best of Our Nature

Intimacy is being seen and known as the person you truly are.  ~ Amy Bloom

Man's life would be wretched and confined if it were to miss the candid intimacy developed by mutual trust and esteem.  ~ Edwin Dummer

Our most intimate friend is not the one to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.  ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets.   ~ Dorothy Parker

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.   ~ Thomas Jefferson

Communication leads to community, that is, understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.  ~ Rollo May


Quotes about intimacy, life

That's All that Matters

Laughter has no foreign accent.  ~ Paul B. Lowney

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.  ~ Erma Bombeck

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.  ~ Victor Borge

Tell the truth. Sing with passion. Work with laughter. Love with heart. 'Cause that's all that matters in the end.  ~ Kris Kristofferson

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell
Of saddest thought.  ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Quotes about laughter, life

A Bizarre Sensation

It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.  ~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.  ~ William Hazlitt

Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?  ~ Dame Edith Sitwell

Appearances are often deceiving.  ~ Aesop

A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.  ~ Maya Angelou 

Quotes about pretense, life

Believe in Yourself

Just keep coming home to yourself. You are the one you’ve been waiting for.  ~ Byron Katie

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

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.  ~ Harvey Fierstein

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.  ~ Dalai Lama

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.  ~ Tecumseh

Quotes about yourself, life

Your Better Days

Imagine that yes is the only living thing.  ~ e. e. cummings

Forever is composed of nows.  ~ Emily Dickinson

The future is no place to place your better days.  ~ Dave Matthews

We steal if we touch tomorrow.  It is God's.  ~ Henry Ward Beecher

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.  ~ Abraham Lincoln

Quotes about living, life

What Sets Us Apart

Existence is a party. You join after it's started and you leave before it's finished.  ~ Elsa Maxwell

It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawn on you.  ~ Phillips Brooks

I believe that we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.  ~ Rosa Parks

Wonder is what sets us apart from other life forms. No other species wonders about the meaning of existence or the complexity of the universe or themselves.  ~ Herbert W. Boyer

When one has great gifts, what answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise them?  ~ W. H. Auden


Quotes about existence, life

Into Fullness of Being

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.  ~ Oscar Wilde

Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, an integrated wholeness.  ~ Stephen R. Covey

There are some people who have the quality of richness and joy in them and they communicate it to everything they touch. It is first of all a physical quality; then it is a quality of the spirit.  ~ Thomas Wolfe

The living self has one purpose only: to come into its own fullness of being, as a tree comes into full blossom, or a bird into spring beauty, or a tiger into luster.  ~ D.H. Lawrence

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.  ~ Melody Beattie 

Quotes about wholeness, life

This Grotesque Folly

Folly is the direct pursuit of happiness and beauty .  ~ George Bernard Shaw

The most exquisite folly is made of wisdom too fine spun.  ~ Benjamin Franklin

I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.   ~ Anatole France

There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair.   ~ Miguel de Cervantes

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.  ~ Winston Churchill
 
Why was the human race created? Or at least why wasn't something creditable created in place of it? God had His opportunity. He could have made a reputation. But no, He must commit this grotesque folly -- a lark which must have cost Him a regret or two when He came to think it over and observe effects.  ~ Mark Twain 

Quotes about folly, life

Must Pass Through Fire

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.  ~ Mahatma Gandhi

One must marry one's feelings to one's beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one's life.  ~ Etty Hilsum

Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.  ~ Barbara De Angelis 

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.  ~ Pablo Picasso
 
What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes. Take fifty of our current proverbial sayings-- they are so trite, so threadbare. None the less they embody the concentrated experience of the race, and the man who orders his life according to their teachings cannot be far wrong. Has any man ever attained to inner harmony by pondering the experience of others? Not since the world began! He must pass through fire.    ~ Norman Douglas


Quotes about harmony, life

Teaching My Blood Whispers

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

Instinct is the nose of the mind.  ~ Madame De Girardin

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.  ~ Michael Burke

There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.  ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.  ~ Hermann Hesse

Quotes about instinct, life

Something Incredible is Waiting

We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.  ~ Voltaire

Waiting is a form of passive persistence.  ~ Ogwo David Emenike

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.  ~ Carl Sagan

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.  ~ E. M. Forster

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.  ~ Bertrand Russell

Quotes about waiting, life

If We Opened Our Hearts More

Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.  ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Trouble creates a capacity to handle it....meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.   ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.  ~ Montesquieu

I believe much trouble would be saved if we opened our hearts more.  ~ Chief Joseph

Quotes about trouble, life

Get Up and Do Something

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.  ~ Abraham Lincoln

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.  ~ Barack Obama

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.  ~ Mother Teresa

The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can't are both right. Which one are you?  ~ Henry Ford

If plan A doesn't work, the alphabet has 25 more letters - 204 if you're in Japan.  ~ Claire Cook

Quotes about determination, life

Let It Produce Joy

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.  ~ Mark Twain

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

Go forth into the busy world and love it. Interest yourself in its life, mingle kindly with its joys and sorrows.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man dies. Not every man lives.  ~ William Ross Wallace

-Do anything, but let it produce joy.
-The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.  ~ Walt Whitman

Quotes about living, life