Thoughts for the Day

Thoughts on...Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the fragrance a violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. - Mark Twain


To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. - Lewis B. Smedes

Thoughts on...Persistence and Success

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. - Albert Einstein


Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.  - Jacob A. Riis


Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.
- Hal Borland


A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her. - David Brinkley


I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000 step process.  - Thomas Edison

Thoughts on...Being true to yourself

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I not to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you NOT to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
- Marianne Williamson

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. - Charles Dubois

Thoughts on...Change

Security is mostly a superstition.
It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of mean as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run, than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
- Helen Keller


When we feel stuck, going nowhere - even starting to slip backward - we may actually be backing up to get a running start.  - Dan Millman

Thoughts on...Reality

Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?" - Robert F. Kennedy


One bright day in the middle of the night tow dead boys rose to fight. Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot one another. A deaf policeman heard the noise, and saved the lives of two dead boys. If you don't believe this lie is true, ask the blind man, he saw it too.  - Author Unknown


What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable - Louise Nevelson


Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. - M.C. Esher

Thoughts on...Courage

Courage is fear that said it's prayers. - Maya Angelou


You cannot discover new oceans, unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. - Andre Gibe

Thoughts on...Befriending your Enemies


When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you. - African Proverb


Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? - Abraham Lincoln


Then it was a if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts,
the depths where neither sir nor desire can reach,
the person that each one is in God's eyes.
If only they could see themselves as they really are.
If only we could see each other that way,
there would be not reason for war, for hatred, for cruelty...
I suppose the big problem would be that
we would all fall down and worship each other.
- Thomas Merton

Thoughts on...Life

If you want to become whole,
let yourself be partial.
If you want to become straight,
let yourself be crooked.
If you want to become full,
let yourself be empty.
If you want to be reborn,
let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything,
give everything up.
 - Tae Te Ching


I heard a thousand blended notes 
While in a grove I sat reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.


To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What Man has made of Man
 - William Wordsworth

When I can look Life in the eyes,

Grown calm and very coldly wise,

Life will have given me the Truth,

And take in exchange - my youth.

- Sara Teasdale

Thoughts on...Love

Love must be as much a light as it is a flame. - Henry David Thoreau


After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.  - Mar Twain taken from Adam, in Adam's Diary


Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded.
Someone sober will worry about events going badly.
Let the lover be.
- Rumi


Him that I love, I wish to be free - even from me.
 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Thoughts on...Happiness

People from another planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us. - Iris Murdoch


Thoughts on...Silence

Speak only if it improves upon the silence. - Mahatma Mohandes Gandhi


We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is a friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence....We need silence to be able to touch souls.  - Mother Teresa


Thoughts on...Having Enough

You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need. -Vernon Howard


We don't need to increase our goods nearly as much as we need to scale down our wants. Not wanting something is as good as possessing it.  - Donald Horban


The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings. - Eric Hoffer


A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labor of other people, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. I am strongly drawn to the simple life and am often oppresses by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary amount of labor of my fellow people. I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force. I also consider that plain living is good for everybody, physically and mentally. - Einstein




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