The Only Sure Road

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

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

Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.  ~ Philip Chesterfield

Egotism is the art of seeing in yourself what others cannot see.  ~ George V. Higgins

Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser.  ~ Donald Trump

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

Quotes about ego

Dwell in Possibility

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

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.  ~ Joseph Campbell

Life is a gift and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.  ~ Tony Robbins

Rank does not confer privilege or give power.   It imposes responsibility.  ~ Peter F. Drucker

Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege.  Use it.  Dwell in possibility.  ~ Oprah Winfrey

Quotes about privilege

As Simple as ABC

You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.   ~Abraham Maslow

The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. ~Maya Angelou

For now, I just want things all safe and familiar. My life may not be perfect, but it is what I have known. ~Ann M. Martin

Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety.   ~ Aeschylus

Prepare and prevent, don't repair and repent.  ~ unknown

Safety is as simple as ABC- Always Be Careful.   ~ unknown

Quotes about safety

The Interdependence of All Things

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.  ~ James Thurber

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others.  If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.  ~ Emily Post

Be present in all things, and thankful for all things.  ~ Maya Angelou

Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.  ~ Eckhart Tolle

Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.  ~ Thomas Merton

Quotes about awareness

Stop Digging

Don't let other people's opinions burn holes in your dreams.   ~Elsa Joy Bailey

Only he that has traveled the road knows where the holes are deep.  ~ Chinese proverb

When I was a little girl you use to learn to sew all the holes in things, darning socks, but nobody mends things anymore.   ~ Vivienne Westwood

Fill your every day holes with patches of gratitude.  ~ unknown

It's a good thing to follow The First Law of Holes: if you are in one, stop digging.  ~ Denis Healey

Hope fills the holes of frustration in my heart.  ~ Emanuel Clever 

Quotes about holes, resilience

Animating Everything

Those who wish to sing always find a song.  ~ Swedish proverb

Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.  ~ Voltaire

Some day there won't be a song in your heart; sing anyway.  ~ Emory Austin

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.  ~ Emily Dickinson

Be cheerful, animating everything around you.  ~ Catherine McAuley

Quotes about cheerfulness, lightheartedness

The Finest Remedy

Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.  ~ William Shakespeare

Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.  ~ Plato

Action is the antidote to despair.   ~ Joan Baez

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

When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy.  ~ Salman Rushdie

Quotes about action

To Taste Experience

The purpose in life is not to win but to grow and share.  ~ Harold S. Kushner

The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.  ~ Robert F. Kennedy

The purpose of life is to live, learn, and love.  ~ Christine Rice

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

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Quotes about discovering the purpose of life

One Small Room

The quality of your thinking determines the quality of your life.   ~A.R. Bernard

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.  ~ Eden Phillpotts

Change your thoughts and you change the world.  ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Man lives in only one small room of the enormous house of his consciousness.  ~ William James

Quotes about thinking

Stronger than the Oak

If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it.  ~ Mary Engelbreit

When you are through changing, you are through.  ~ Bruce Barton

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

They must often change, who can be constant in happiness or wisdom.  ~ Confucius

The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists.  ~ Japanese proverb

Quotes about ourselves and change

The Way you Carry It

Do you want to know who you are?  Don't ask.  Act!  Action will delineate and define you.  ~ Thomas Jefferson

The road to success is always under construction.  ~ Lily Tomlin

Dreams don't work unless you do.  ~ John C. Maxwell

Motivation is what gets you started.  Habit is what keeps you going.  ~ Jim Rohn

Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creativity.  ~ Bo Bennett

It's not the load that breaks you down; it's the way you carry it.  ~ Lou Holtz

Quotes about motivation

The Realm of Your Own

Movement is tranquility.  ~ Stirling Moss

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.  ~ James Thurber

It is neither wealth nor splendor but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.  ~ Thomas Jefferson

It is within your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire.  Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.  ~ Marcus Aurelius 

I love tranquil solitude and such society as is quiet, wise, and good.  ~ Percy Shelley


Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement.  Mankind has to be stirred up.  ~ Alfred North Whitehead

Quotes about tranquility

Everything we Look Upon

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

The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.  ~Julia Cameron

If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.  ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

To hold, you must first open your hand. Let go.  ~Lao Tzu

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.  ~Blaise Pascal

When such as I cast out remorse

So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blessed.  ~William Butler Yeats

Quotes about surrender

Rolling Up Your Sleeves

Life without idealism is empty indeed.  We just hope or starve to death.  ~ Pearl S. Buck

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.  ~ Aldous Huxley

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.  ~ Herbert Hoover

That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds.  ~ Charles Dickens

We are inclined to judge ourselves by our ideals; others, by their actions.  ~ Harold Nicolson

Idealism detached from action is just a dream.  But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting.  It's very real.  It's very strong.  ~ Bono

Quotes about ideals, idealism

The Treasure you Seek

Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.  ~ W. Clement Stone

Fear is a darkroom where negatives develop.  ~ Usman B. Asif

Fear makes us feel our humanity.  ~ Benjamin Disraeli

That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.  ~ Anatole France 

Nothing in life is to be feared.  It is to be understood.  ~ Marie Curie 

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.  ~ Joseph Campbell

Quotes about fear

The Sturdiest Tree

Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before.  ~ Elizabeth Edwards

My life was my life; I would have to stare it down, somehow, and make it work for me.  ~ Paula McLain

Bless are the hearts that can bend, for they can never be broken.  ~ Albert Camus

I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.  ~ Maya Angelou

Sometimes resilience arrives in the moment you discover your own unshakeable goodness.  ~ Gregory Boyle

The greatest glory in living
lies not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.  ~ Nelson Mandela

The sturdiest tree is not found in the shelter of the forest but high upon some rocky crag, where its daily battle with the elements shapes it into a thing of beauty.  ~ unknown

Quotes about resilience

Those Who Bring Sunshine

We are what we believe we are.  ~ C. S. Lewis

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

If you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy expectations, you put yourself into a condition conducive to your goal.  ~ Norman Vincent Peale

We see the brightness of a new page where everything yet can happen.  ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.  ~ James Matthew Barrie

Quotes about bright, brightness in life

Magic in It

Every day do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow.  ~ Doug Firebaugh

Doing what needs to be done may not make you happy, but it will make you great.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

What one does is what counts. Not what one had the intention of doing.  ~ Pablo Picasso

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

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

Quotes about doing

By Three Methods

You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.  ~ Arthur Conan Doyle 

Be firm on principle but flexible in method.  ~ Zig Ziglar

The true method of knowledge is experiment.  ~ William Blake

Take a method and try it.  If it fails, admit it frankly and try another.  But, above all, try something.  ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt  

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

Man must evolve for all human conflict, a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation.  The foundation of such a method is love.  ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: first by reflection which is the noblest, second by imitation which is the easiest, and third by experience which is the bitterest.  ~ Confucius

Quotes about methods

To Push for What we Need

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than by attempting to satisfy them.  ~ John Stuart Mill

A life directed chiefly towards the fulfillment of personal desires sooner or later always leads to bitter disappointment.   ~ Albert Einstein

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.  ~ Lao Tzu

Every man is rich or poor in proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.  ~ Samuel Johnson

Boredom:  the desire for desires.  ~ Leo Tolstoy

Needs cause motivation.  Deep-rooted desires for esteem, affection, belonging, achievement, self-actualization, power, and control motivate us to push for what we want and need in our lives.  ~ Lorii Myers

Quotes about desires

Live By Them

Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.  ~ Voltaire

Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.  ~ William Thackeray

Hopeful thinking can get you out of the fear zone and into your appreciation zone.  ~ Martha Beck

Trade your expectation for appreciation and the world changes instantly.  ~ Tony Robbins

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.   ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Quotes about appreciation

Things that Matter

Enjoy the little things for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.  ~ Robert Brault

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.  For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.  ~ Kahlil Gibran

In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you let go?  ~ Jack Kornfield

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

Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.  ~ Goethe

Quotes about things that matter

Sunbeam of the Soul

Order and simplification are the first steps toward mastery of a subject.

Speech is civilization itself.  

Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.

Distance in a straight line has no mystery. The mystery is in the sphere.

Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.

Quotes by Thomas Mann

The Desire to Go Forward

Be willing to take the first step, no matter how small it is.  Concentrate on the fact that you are willing to learn.  Absolute miracles will happen.  ~ Louise Hay

The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you find yourself.  ~ Mark Caine

The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.  ~ Albert Schweitzer

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase.  ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

But you can build a future out of anything. A scrap, a flicker. The desire to go forward, slowly, one foot at a time.  ~ Lauren Oliver

Quotes about taking the first step

Something to Believe In

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ~ Gwendolyn Brooks

We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race.  ~ Cicero

We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.  ~  Dorothy Day

We cannot live only for ourselves.  A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow man.  ~ Herman Melville

I want to work for a company that contributes to and is part of the community.  I want something not just to invest in.  I want something to believe in.  ~ Anita Roddick

Quotes about community

Coaxed Downstairs

When you change your habits, you change your life.  ~ Gretchen Rubin

Ill habits gather by unseen degrees-
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.  ~ John Dryden

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.  ~ Mark Twain

Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables. ~ Spanish proverb

Good habits are worth being fanatical about.  ~ John Irving

Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.  ~ Confucius

Quotes about habits

Nourish your Courage

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.  ~ James Joyce

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.   ~John Powell

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.   ~Oscar Wilde

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

Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.   ~Mary Tyler Moore

Quotes about mistakes

Creative Force

We were meant to be masters of destiny, not victims of fate.  ~ Ronald Reagan 

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.  ~ William Jennings Bryan

The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.  ~ William James

Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes.  ~ Kenneth Hildebrand

Find a purpose in life so big it will challenge every capacity to be at your best.  ~ David McKay

Thought allied fearlessly to purpose becomes creative force.  ~ James Allen

Quotes about destiny and purpose

Only to be Understood

Inaction breeds doubt and fear.  Actions breeds confidence and courage.  If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home and think of it.  Go out and get busy.  ~ Dale Carnegie

There is no illusion greater than fear.  ~ Lao Tzu

To escape fear, you have to go though it, not around.  ~ Richie Norton

Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will.  ~ W. Clement Stone

Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.  ~ Japanese proverb

Nothing in life is to be feared.  It is only to be understood.  ~ Marie Curie

Quotes about overcoming fear

Clean and Bright

Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film.   ~Ansel Adams

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.  ~ James Thurber

Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.  ~ Eckhart Tolle

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.   ~ George Bernard Shaw

Quotes about life and perspective

A Funny Thing about Life

Do all things with love, passion, and dedication.  ~ Patrick Driessen

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

I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.  ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

A goal casually set and lightly taken is freely abandoned at the first obstacle.  ~ Zig Ziglar

It's a funny thing about life : if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.  ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Quotes about dedication, commitment

Hand-in-hand

I have made a career of bumbling around places, stumbling on landmarks and generally being quite shambolic about the way I go about things.  ~ Bill Bryson

Flops are a part of life's menu and I've never been a girl to miss out on any of the courses.  ~ Rosalind Russell

Sometimes it takes a good fall to really know where you stand.  ~ Hayley Williams

In the end, it all comes to choices to turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.  ~ Amber Frey

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us.  That's why it's a comfort to go hand-in-hand.  ~ Emily Kimbrough

Quotes about falling, stumbling

Our Proper Work

Do stuff; be clenched, curious, not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.  ~ Susan Sontag

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.  ~ Mary Oliver

Where attention goes, energy flows and results show.  ~ T. Harv Eker

You learn something every day if you pay attention.  ~ Ray LeBlond

The greatest gift you can give someone is the purity of your attention.  ~ Richard Moss

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand.  The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.  ~Alexander Graham Bell

Quotes about attention

Make you Great

Do more than belong: participate.
Do more than care: help.
Do more than believe: practice.
Do more than be fair: be kind.
Do more than forgive: forget.
Do more than dream: work.  ~ William Arthur Ward

To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.  ~ Confucius

Doing what needs to be done may not make you happy, but it will make you great.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

Act as if what you do makes a difference; it does.  ~ William James

Quotes about doing

Everything is Practice

To practice any art no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.  So do it.  ~ Kurt Vonnegut

What I have achieved by industry and practice, anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve.  ~ Johann Sebastian Bach

Practice doesn't make perfect.
Practice reduces the imperfection.  ~ Toba Beta

Tomorrow's victory is today's practice.  ~ Chris Bradford

Everything is practice.  ~ Pele

Quotes about practice

The Wise Choice

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

The quality of your life will be determined by the quality of your contribution.  ~ Kurek Ashley

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

I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.  ~ Roger Ebert

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

Quotes about quality

The Beauty of Life

The adventure of life is to learn.
The purpose of life is to grow. 
The nature of life is to change. 
The challenge of life is to overcome. 
The essence of life is to care. 
The opportunity of life is to serve. 
The secret of life is to dare. 
The spice of life is to befriend. 
The beauty of life is to give.

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

It is wise to direct your anger towards problems - not people; to focus your energies on answers - not excuses.

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today.  Have you used one to say thank you?

Quotes by William Arthur Ward

A Feat of Association

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. ~ Truman Capote
 
I want to change my punctuation. I long for exclamation marks, but I'm drowning in ellipses (...). ~ Isaac Marion
 
Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar. ~ Jim Butcher
 
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. ~ Victor Hugo
 
Happiness is a china shop; love is the bull. ~ H. L. Mencken
 
An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.  ~ Robert Frost

Quotes about metaphors and life

Where You Need It

The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.

The trouble with learning from experience is that you never graduate.

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.

Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.

Wisdom is the quality that keeps you from getting into situations where you need it.

Quotes by Doug Larson

Sliding Down a Rainbow

Life is not fair; get used to it.  ~ Bill Gates

I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.  ~ William Shakespeare

It's hard to fight when the fight ain't fair.  ~ Taylor Swift 

Fair is whatever God wants to do.  ~ Leif Enger

Life is not always fair. Sometimes you get a splinter even sliding down a rainbow. ~Terri Guillemets

Quotes about the fair and unfair in life

It Hopes We've Learned

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.  ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

The future depends on what you do today.  ~ Mahatma Gandhi

The only way you can predict the future is to build it.  ~Alan Kay

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.  ~John Wayne

You can't stop the future
You can't rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
...is to press play.  ~ Jay Asher

Quotes about the future

The Presence of Wonder

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

Life's meaning has always eluded me and I guess it always will. But I love it just the same.

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.

The future seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done.

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.

Quotes by E. B. White

Winged Air

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup...~ Sara Teasdale

My soul can find no staircase to heaven unless it is through earth's loveliness.  ~ Michelangelo 

Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.  ~ Pedro Calderonde la Barca

What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness, star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air.  ~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Quotes about loveliness

Where I Need to Be

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.  ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

A good plan is like a road map: it shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.  ~H. Stanley Judd

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.  ~ Zig Ziglar

If you lose direction, go to a higher ground.  ~ Toba Beta

We are asleep with compasses in our hands.  ~ W.S. Merwin

I seldom end up where I wanted to go but almost always end up where I need to be. ~ Douglas Adams

Quotes about direction

Dragons can be Beaten

The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in it.  ~ W. H. Auden

Fairy dust is very useful. I use it to turn oatmeal into cake.  ~ David Shannon

Every fairy tale had a bloody lining. Every one had teeth and claws.  ~ Alice Hoffman

In fairy tales the children are saved by caring adults.  We need more caring adults in the lives of our children.  ~ Donna Shalala

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.  ~ Neil Gaimon

I don't know what to think about magic and fairy tales. ~ Richard Dawkins

Quotes about fairy tales

Always in Proportion

Sadness gives depth.
Happiness gives height.
Sadness gives roots.
Happiness gives branches.
Happiness is like a tree
going into the sky,
and sadness is like the roots
going down into the womb of the earth.
Both are needed,
and the higher a tree goes,
the deeper it goes,
simultaneously.
The bigger the tree,
the bigger will be its roots.
In fact, it is always in proportion.
That's the balance.  ~ Osho

The word happiness would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. ~ Carl Jung 

I am both happy and sad at the same time, and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.  ~ Stephen Chbosky

Quotes about balancing happiness and sadness

My Motto

No man becomes rich unless he enriches others.

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.

Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself. 

There is little success where there is little laughter.  

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all by himself or get all the credit for doing it.

Concentration is my motto- first honesty, then industry, then concentration.  

Quotes by Andrew Carnegie

Steer yourself

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.  ~ Paul Coelho

One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.  ~ Jack Penn

This is the secret of life- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now.  And instead of calling it work realize it is play.  ~ Alan Watts

You have brains in your head and feet in your shoes,
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.  ~ Dr. Seuss 

Quotes about the secret of life

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Just be Real

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.  ~ John Templeton

It is not true that nice guys finish last. Nice guys are winners before the game even starts.   ~Addison Walker

Be nice to people on the way up because you will meet them on your way down.  ~  Wilson Mizner

Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.  ~ Phyllis Diller

Better to just be real. Show up and do your job and be a nice person.  ~Elisabeth Rohm

Quotes about being nice

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Sees a Green Light

Many an optimist has become rich simply by buying out a pessimist.  ~ Laurence Peter

Don't wait until you feel positive to move forward. Act your way into feeling good.  ~ John Maxwell

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.  James Cabell

Spare me the grim litany of the "realist." Give me the unrealistic aspirations of the optimist any day.  ~ Colin Powell

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while the pessimist sees only the red stoplight. The truly wise person is colorblind.  ~ Albert Schweitzer

Quotes about optimism, pessimism 

I Never Dreamed

Keep thy hook always baited, for a fish lurks even in the most unlikely swim.   ~ Ovid

Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly that waiting for one big one to come along.    ~ Hugh Allen

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.   ~ Milton Berle

I never dreamed about success; I worked for it.  ~ Estee Lauder
 
Ships in harbor are safe, but that's not what ships are built for.  ~ John Shedd

Quotes about anticipation and action

Reach Each Other

Love doesn't just sit there,like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.  ~ Ursula LeGuin

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.  ~ Victor Hugo

Love is not measured by how many times you touch each other but by how many times you reach each other.  ~ Cathy Morancy 

If you want to be loved, be lovable.  ~ Ovid 

Love is a great beautifier.  ~ Louisa May Alcott

I have enjoyed the happiness of the world; I have loved.  ~ Schiller

Quotes about love

Before You Say or Do

Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.  ~ Henry Ford

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.  ~ John Locke

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.  ~ Plutarch

Stop thinking and end your problems.  ~ Lao Tzu

Before you say or do...

T-   Is it True?
H-  Is it Helpful?
I-    Is it Inspiring?
N-  Is it Necessary?
K-  Is it Kind?  ~ unknown

Quotes about thinking

Embrace the Gifts Within

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls. ~ Joseph Campbell

Where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.  ~ Thomas Gray

And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss.  ~ J. K. Rowling 

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.   ~Katharine Hepburn

When we embrace the gifts within our soul we create a blissful state of happiness to be savoured, pondered, and cherished.  ~ Michael Teal

Quotes about bliss

In the Midst

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness.  Just because they're not on your road, doesn't mean they've gotten lost.  ~ Dalai Lama

True salvation is freedom from negativity.  ~ Eckhart Tolle

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.  ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

Life is God's joke on us.  It's our mission to figure out the punch line.  ~ John Guarrine

The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence.  No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now.  ~ Henri Nouwen

Quotes about the spiritual life

Three Great Essentials

I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.  ~ Thomas Paine

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.  ~ Gertrude Stein

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.  ~ Josh Billings

Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.  ~ Thomas Huxley

The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are hard work, stick-to-itiveness, and common sense.  ~ Thomas Edison

Quotes about common sense

In the Stream of Life

Every one of us has in him a continent of undiscovered character.  Blessed is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul.  ~ Charles Wallis

Character is a strange blending of flinty strength and pliable warmth.  ~ Robert Shaffer

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.  ~ Phillips Brooks

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.  ~ James Michener

Character develops itself in the stream of life.  ~ Goethe

Quotes about character

Habits or Passions?

Don't smoke too much, drink too much, eat too much, or work too much. We're all on the road to the grave — but there's no reason to be in the passing lane.  ~Robert Orben

Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess. ~ Charles Dickens

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

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. ~ Winston Churchill

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Vices are often habits rather than passions. ~ Antoine Rivarol

Quotes about vices

What Sustains?

Enthusiasm... the sustaining power of all great action.   ~Samuel Smiles

If you didn't have some sense of idealism, then what is there to sustain you?    ~James Carville

The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least not try to defy them.   ~Paul Hawken

To live for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.    ~Robert M. Pirsig

I am sustained by the tranquility of an upright and loyal heart.    ~Peter Stuyvesant

The living environment is what really sustains us.    ~E. O. Wilson

Quotes about sustain, sustaining in life

An Open Heart

If you light a lamp for someone, it will brighten your own path.  ~ Buddha

The Simple Path
Silence is Prayer
Prayer is Faith
Faith is Love
Love is Service
The Fruit of Service is Peace.  ~ Mother Teresa

It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think yours is the only path.  ~ Paulo Coelho

The best way to find out if you are on the right path?  Stop looking at the path.  ~ Marcus Buckingham

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.  ~  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Keep your head up, your heart open, stay on the positive  path and the right people will come along and join you on it.  ~ Mandy Hale

Quotes about the path in life

The Key to Success

Dig the well before you are thirsty.  ~ Chinese proverb

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  ~ Benjamin Franklin

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.  ~ John F. Kennedy

I will prepare and someday my chance will come. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.  ~ Alexander Graham Bell

Quotes about preparing for success

A Light in the Heart

Whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace.  ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

What comes from the heart, goes to the heart.  ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

Words that come from the heart are never spoken, they get caught in the throat and can only be read in one's eyes.  ~ Jose Saramago 

Beauty is not in the face; it is a light in the heart.  ~Kahlil Gibran

A person's world is only as big as their heart.  ~ Tanya A. Moore

Quotes about sincerity and the heart

Wanting to Win

Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence.  ~ George F. Will

These young guys are playing checkers. I'm out there playing chess.  ~Kobe Bryant

A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.    ~Wayne Gretzky

The score never interested me, only the game.  ~ Mae West

Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records.  ~ William Arthur Ward

Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is.    ~Vince Lombardi

Quotes about sports

With New Life

The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.  ~ Arthur Koestler

Originality is unexplored territory.  You get there by carrying a canoe- you can't take a taxi.  ~ Alan Alda 

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new and landscapes but in having new eyes.  ~ Marcel Proust

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.  ~ Thomas Carlyle 

Originality is doing what has been done countless times with new life, new breath.  ~ Marie Chapian

Quotes about originality

The Igniter

I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.  ~ Francis Willard

One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals.  ~ Michael Korda

Ride the energy of your own unique spirit.  ~ Gabrielle Roth

If you're coasting, you're either losing momentum or else you're headed downhill.  ~ Joan Welsh

If your position is everywhere, your momentum is zero.  ~ William Lipscomb

Commitment is the igniter of momentum.  ~ Peg Wood

Quotes about momentum 

Sundial in the Shade

Everyone must row with the oars he has.  ~ English proverb

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

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

Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.  ~ Francis Bacon

Hide not your talents, they for use were made,
What's a sundial in the shade?  ~ Benjamin Franklin

Quotes about ability, talents

An Ever-shifting Kaleidoscope

Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.

The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.

We often get caught up in our own reactions and forget the vulnerability of the person in front of us.

Mindfulness isn't difficult, we just need to remember to do it.

Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope-  a slight change, and all patterns alter.

Quotes by Sharon Salzberg

Recovered

Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go.  ~ Bernard Malamud

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes.  ~ Maya Angelou

We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by.  ~ Will Rogers

My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.  ~ Bono

My heroes don't have anything special.  They have something to tell other people but they don't know how, so they talk to themselves.  ~ Haruki Murakami

Quotes about heroes, recovery, inspiration

Will Come Back to You

Laugh your heart out,
Dance in the rain,
Cherish each moment,
Ignore the pain;
Live, laugh, love,
Forgive and forget;
Life’s too short
To live with regrets!

Everyone wants to be happy,
Nobody wants pain;
But you can't have rainbows
Without any rain.

Be kin, be honest,
be loving, be true,
and all of these things
will come back to you.  ~ unknown authors

Lyrical sayings, quotes about life

Expanding what is Possible

The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate.  ~Seth Godin

You raze the old to raise the new.  ~ Justina Chen

The beginning is always today.  ~ Mary Shelley

There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.  ~ John Steinbeck

I want every day to be a fresh start on expanding what is possible.  ~ Oprah Winfrey

Quotes about fresh start, new beginnings

The Storm Will Pass

Hope for the best.  Expect the worst.  Life is a play.  We're unrehearsed.  ~ Mel Brooks

Whether it is the best of times or the worst of times, it is the only time we've got.   ~Art Buchwald

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.   ~Joyce Carol Oates

Never cut a tree down in the winter time.  Never make a negative decision in the low time.  Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods.  Wait.  Be patient.  The storm will pass.  The spring will come.   ~ Robert H. Schuller

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.  ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Quotes about worst

What Needs to Be Done

We spend most of our lives conjugating three verbs: to want, to have, and to do.  ~ Evelyn Underhill

What one does is what counts. Not what one had the intention of doing.  ~ Pablo Picasso

Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph.  Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.  If we do our best, we are a success. ~ Zig Ziglar

Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.  ~ Jim Rohn

Not what I have but what I do is my kingdom.  ~ Thomas Carlyle

Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.  ~ William Shakespeare

Doing what needs to be done may not make you happy, but it will make you great.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

Quotes about doing

If Only in your Heart

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon.    ~Edward Lear

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

Let your life lightly dance on the edges of
Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.    ~Rabindranath Tagore

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.  ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart.  ~ author unknown

Quotes about dancing through life

Let Me Embrace Thee

Life should be embraced, not merely endured.  ~ Karen Chaffee

The remarkable thing is, we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.  ~ Charles R. Swindoll

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.  ~ Lao Tzu

Don't fear change; embrace it.  ~ Anthony J. D'Angelo

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.  ~ William Shakespeare

Quotes about embracing life

The Best of This

Life is a song...sing it.
Life is a game...play it.
Life is a challenge...meet it.
Life is a dream...realize it.
Life is a sacrifice...offer it.
Life is love...enjoy it.   ~ Sai Baba

If there is another world, he lives in bliss
If there is none, he made the best of this.  ~ Robert Burns

Quotes about life

Up Hill all the Way

The first and best victory is to conquer self.   ~Plato

There are no short cuts to any place worth going.   ~Beverly Sills

The only discipline that lasts is self-discipline.    ~ Bum Phillips

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.    ~H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.    ~Rene Descartes

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?  Yes, to the very end.    ~Christina Rossetti

Quotes about self discipline

Best Worth Doing

Our great business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.  ~ Thomas Carlyle

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non essentials.  ~ Lin Yu Tang

If you continually ask yourself, "What's important now?", you won't waste time on the trivial.  ~ Lou Holtz

The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes.  ~ Harold B. Lee

True wisdom is to know what is best worth knowing, and to do what is best worth doing.  ~ Edward Humphrey

Quotes about priorities

Constant Kindness

The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.  ~ Rudyard Kipling

It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other.  ~ L. M. Montgomery

Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Constant kindness can accomplish much.  As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.  ~ Albert Schweitzer

Quotes about misunderstanding

The Best Six Doctors

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

Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.  ~ Hippocrates

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

Fresh air impoverishes the doctor.  ~ Danish proverb

The best six doctors anywhere
And no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing
Your mind they'll ease
Your will they'll mend
And charge you not a shilling.   ~ quoted in "The Health Club" in School Life, Vol. IV (January - June 1920)

Quotes about good health, healing

Talent working with Joy

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.    ~Stephen King

A talent can be cultivated in tranquility; a character only in the rushing stream of life.  ~ Goethe

Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.  ~ Roy L. Smith

One of the greatest talents of all is the talent to recognize and to develop talent in others.  ~ Frank Tyger

Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.  ~ Leo Buscaglia

Talent for talent's sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quotes about talents

Make the Heart Bigger

We owe it to each other to tell stories. ~ Neil Gaiman

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. ~ Maya Angelou

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten. ~ Rudyard Kipling

Stories are the only enchantment possible, for when we begin to see our suffering as a story, we are saved.  ~ Anais Nin

Stories can conquer fear; they can make the heart bigger.  ~ Ben Okri

Quotes about stories

Sometimes you Weep

To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.  ~ Studs Terkel

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.  ~ Thomas More

In every community there is work to be done.  In every nation there are wounds to heal.  In every heart there is the power to do it.  ~ Marianne Williamson

The wound is the place where the light enters you.  ~ Rumi

Life is like an onion.  You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.  ~ Carl Sandburg

Quotes about wounds, healing, recovery

The Beauty that Remains

Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.  ~ Tom Stoppard

Each moment is a place you've never been.  ~ Mark Strand

What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight.  ~ Joseph Joubert

If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.  ~Frances Hodgson Burnett

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.  ~Anne Frank

Quotes about perspective

Confident Tomorrows

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.  ~ Winston Churchill

Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.   ~ Hans Selye

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude.  ~ Zig Ziglar

A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays
And confident tomorrows.  ~ William Wordsworth

Quotes about attitude

The Walls We Build

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
 
You cannot change your destination overnight. You can change your direction.
 
Either you run the day, or the day runs you.
 
Take care of your body; it's the only place you have to live.
 
The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keep out the joy.
 
Quotes by Jim Rohn

The Most Beautiful

The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. (who rolled a rock up a mountain only to see it roll back down)  ~ Albert Camus

Don't feel entitled to anything you didn't sweat and struggle for. ~ Marian Wright Edelman

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.  ~ Muhammad Ali

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.  ~ Abraham Lincoln

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.  ~ Rebecca West

We struggle with the complexities and avoid the simplicities.  ~ Norman Vincent Peale

One day the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.  ~ Sigmund Freud 

Quotes about struggle

Make our Souls Blossom

Friendship with oneself is all important because without it one cannot be friends with anybody else in the world.  ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Men kick friendship  around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack.  Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.  ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The best way to destroy an enemy is to  make a friend.  ~ Abraham Lincoln

A true friend stabs you in the front.  ~ Oscar Wilde

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners  who make our souls blossom.  ~ Marcel Proust

But if the while I think of thee dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.  ~ William Shakespeare

Quotes about friendship

True Spiritual Growth

Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.   ~ Anne Frank

Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science.   ~ Charles Darwin
 
History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul. ~ Lord Acton
 
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.  ~Alexis de Tocqueville

Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can be achieved only through persistent exercise of real love.  ~ M. Scott Peck 

Quotes about illumination, enlightenment

See the Light

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




One is wise to cultivate the tree that bears fruit in our soul.  ~Henry David Thoreau




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

Love is not consolation; it is light.    ~Simone Weil

Light
Light
The invisible reminder of invisible light.    ~ T. S. Eliot

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.   ~Aristotle Onassis

To love beauty is to see the light.    ~Victor Hugo

Quotes about light