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