#138 A Crack in Everything

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

Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"

William Blake: Visionary Poet, Painter

William Blake (1757-1827) was a British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver of the Romantic era who illustrated and printed his own books.

His father was a successful London hosier who encouraged Blake's artistic talents. Blake was first educated at home, chiefly by his mother. In 1767 he was sent to drawing school, and at the age of 14 apprenticed with an engraver for seven years. Blake has recorded that from his early years, he experienced visions of angels and ghostly monks and that he saw and conversed with them.

Blake engraved and published most of his major works himself. In the "Prophetic Books", Blake expressed his lifelong concern with the struggle of the soul to free its natural energies from reason and organized religion. Among Blake's later artistic works are drawings and engravings for Dante's Divine Comedy and the 21 illustrations to the book of Job, which was completed when he was almost 70 years old.

- He who binds to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in Eternity's sunrise.

-If a thing loves, it is infinite.

-Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

-The most sublime act is to set another before you.

-To See a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

-What is now proved was once only imagined.

-If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.

Selected by quoteflections.

-The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

-I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's.

-Man was made for joy and woe
Then when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine
A clothing for the soul to bind.

-Knowledge is Life with wings.

-Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

-Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

Labels: best top quotes, quotations, reflections, instructional, inspirational, life lessons, insights, self help, great author series

#137 The Reminder

While I watch the Christmas blaze
Paint the room with ruddy rays,
Something makes my vision glide
To the frosty scene outside.

There, to reach a rotting berry,
Toils a thrush -constrained to very
Dregs of food by sharp distress,
Taking such with thankfulness.

Why, O starving bird, when I
One day's joy would justify,
And put misery out of view,
Do you make me notice you? ~ Thomas Hardy

#136 Good, Beautiful, and Kind

I am so tired of waiting,
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two--
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.
~Langston Hughes

#135 Filled with Joy

One filled with joy preaches without preaching. ~ Mother Teresa

#134 What do you Seek?

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought. ~Matsuo Basho

Dr. Seuss Stands Out!

Theodor Seuss Geisel, known to his avid readers as Dr. Seuss, is the author of such beloved children's books as "Green Eggs and Ham", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", and perhaps his most famous work, "The Cat in the Hat", which was created as a reader for children and used only 225 words.

Before writing and illustrating these classics, Geisel served as an illustrator and cartoonist, turning out advertising campaigns for Standard Oil for 15 years. At the time of his death in 1991, (born 1904) Geisel had authored and illustrated 44 children's books as well as provided the source materials for 11 children's specials, a Broadway musical and a major motion picture. He is the recipient of two Academy Awards, two Emmys and a Pulitzer.

Many of his works were written in anapestic tetrameter, an engaging, poetic meter for children and adults:

And today the Great Yertle,
that Marvelous he
Is King of the Mud.
That is all he can see...

-Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

-I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.

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

-Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not."

- You are you. Now, isn't that pleasant?

-You're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So... get on your way!"

Selected by quoteflections.

-So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life's A Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you'll move mountains."

-I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues.

-Words and pictures are yin and yang. Married, they produce a progeny more interesting than either parent."

-Why fit in when you were born to stand out?

-You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.

-Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.

- If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn't show up.

Labels: best top quotes, quotations, reflections, instructional, inspirational, life lessons, insights, self help, great author series

#133 The Gift of Love

We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it. ~ John Lennon

#132 Discipline

Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly. ~ Julie Andrews

Quoteflections: Embark on a Journey

The suggestion of a boat having left the dock on a picturesque lake is appropriate. In my quest to find engaging quotes about life, I hope to provide readers with a sampling of the accumulated wisdom through the ages.

Their insights are not always a simple affirmation, but a plea to think about life's intricacies and subtleties. Amidst life's challenges and heartaches, the journey provides wonderful opportunities and delights.

Thanks for joining me through the calm and stormy seas of life. I hope that ultimately the quotes are enriching and rewarding.

#131 Calmness

Tranquility! thou better name
Than all the family of Fame. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

#130 Enemies of the Truth

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie- deliberate, contrived and dishonest- but the myth- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. ~ John F. Kennedy

Emerson: Champion of Individualism

(This is my fourth in a series of select quotes by great authors.)

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was an American essayist, poet, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early nineteenth century. He was a champion of individualism, and a critic of the countervailing pressures of society. Emerson's nature was more philosophical than naturalistic. He disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.

-To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

-Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

-To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

-Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

-It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

-What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

-Always do what you are afraid to do.

-Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

-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.

Selected by quoteflections.

-Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.

-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.

-Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

-All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

-Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.

-Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

-There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.

Labels: quotes, quotations, reflections, instructional, inspirational, life lessons, insights, self help, great author series

#129 Looking Within

(I am on an intriguing quest to find 1,000 engaging quotes about life...)

Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself- and thus make yourself indispensable. ~ Andre Gide

#128 Find your Voice

Three women who fought injustice, dictatorship and sexual violence in Liberia and Yemen accepted the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Sirleaf, Africa's first democratically elected female president, shared the award with women's rights campaigner Leymah Gbowee, also from Liberia, and Tawakkul Karman, a female icon of the protest movement in Yemen.

My sisters, my daughters, my friends- find your voice. ~ Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

We used our pains, broken bodies and scarred emotions to confront the injustices and terror of our nation... We must continue to unite in sisterhood to turn our tears into triumph. There is no time to rest until our world achieves wholeness and balance, where all men and women are considered equal and free. ~ Leymah Gbowee

This should haunt the world's conscience because it challenges the very idea of fairness and justice. ~ Tawakkul Karman

#127 Right Now

If I had wings and I could fly,
I know where I would go.
But right now I'll just sit here so contentedly
And watch the river flow. ~ Bob Dylan

#126 Who really lives?

Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I have little, and seek no more.
They are but poor, though much they have.
And I am rich with little store.
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I leave; they pine, I live. ~ Edward Dyer (1543-1607)

Albert Einstein: Poignant Quotes

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity effecting a revolution in physics. In 1921 he won the Nobel Prize in physics. After Hitler came to power in 1933, Einstein moved to the U.S. where he became a citizen in 1940. Einstein wrote more than 300 scientific papers and 150 non-scientific works.

-Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

-Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.

- Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.

-A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.

-Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

-I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.

-Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

-Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.

Selected by quoteflections.

-The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer somebody else up.

-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.

-We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.

-It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

-The search for truth is more precious than its possession.

- A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

- The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms- this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the rank of devoutly religious men.

Labels: quotes, quotations, reflections, instructional, inspirational, life lessons, insights, self help, great author series

#125 Within Us

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven. ~ William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

#124 The Waters of the Heart

Light breaks where no sun shines,
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides. ~ Dylan Thomas