Yes, you Can

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

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

The Ultimate Sophistication

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad.   ~Victor Hugo

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.   ~Leonardo da Vinci

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

Change the World

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

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

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

Letting Go

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

Questions I ask at 365 Quote Quest:

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

Experience of the Butterfly

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

Only with the Heart

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

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

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

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

Hearts Live By Being Wounded.  ~ Oscar Wilde

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

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

Keep Moving

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

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

Economize or Agonize

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

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

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

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

Be thrifty, but not covetous.  ~ George Herbert

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

Tags: quotes on frugality, thrift, opposite of extravagance

The Wise Choice of many Alternatives

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tags: quality, quantity quotes about life

The Best Remedy

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

He who angers you conquers you.  ~ Elizabeth Kenny

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

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

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

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

Tags: quotes about anger, grudges, getting even

Flower Footnotes and Asterisks

Garden flowers are enjoying center stage these days:

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

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

Bloom where you are planted. - Mary Engelbreit

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

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

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.  ~ Heinrich Heine

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

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

Giving All to the Present

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

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

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

Gift of your Life

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

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

The Choice is Up to Us

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

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

Nature's Generous Gifts

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

Moderation is the Center

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

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

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


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

Eternal Landscapes

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

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

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

Begin to Know

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

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

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

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

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ~Alvin Toffler

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

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

Acceptance, Tolerance, Forgiveness

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

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

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

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

Wish for What You Are

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

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

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

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

Add Color to My Sunset

 

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


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


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

Get Real

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

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


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


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

Gifts each Day

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

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


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

Ego is Not You

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

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


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


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

Listen Generously

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

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

Seeking Goodness

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

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

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