___Every day when I wake up, I ask myself if I am happy. Because if I don't, I forget that I am.
In real life, no decision is clearly signposted. It's not like you take the right turning and you get everlasting happiness and you take the wrong one and your life's a disaster. In real life it's often well nigh impossible to tell which decision is the one you should make because what you stand to gain and what you stand to lose is sometimes - often - neck and neck.
If you don't understand my silence, you can't understand my words.
Never apologize, never explain.
This is how we go on: one day a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time, one breath at a time. Dentists go on one root canal at a time; boat builders go on one hull at a time. If you write books, you go on one page at a time. We turn from all we know and all we fear. We study catalogues, watch football games, choose Sprint over AT&T. We count the birds in the sky and will not turn from the window when we hear the footsteps behind as something comes up the hall; we say yes, I agree that clouds often look like other things - fish and unicorns and men on horseback - but they are really only clouds. Even when the lightning flashes inside them we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on. -Stephan King
Better die standing than live on your knees.
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow's a mystery. Today I'm still alive.
Doing the right thing can never be measured by the outcome of events. Judge yourself by what you do, not what happens afterwards.
There's moments in your life that make you, set the course of who you're going to be. Sometimes they're little, subtle moments. Sometimes ... they're not. Even if you see them coming, you're never ready for the big moments. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. Nobody asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. The big moments will come, can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are ... who you will be.
God save me from my friends - I can protect myself from my enemies."
Proverb
The fairest flower of them all,
I give to you as we part.
For you it is a Red Rose,
for me it is my heart.
Author unknown
There are hurts so deep that one cannot reach them or heal them with words
“May the love hidden deep inside your heart find the love waiting in your dreams. May the laughter that you find in your tomorrow wipe away the pain you find in your yesterdays.”
“You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it”
“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 frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”-Used by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural speech
“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”
“Live this day as if it will be your last. Remember that you will only find ''tomorrow'' on the calendars of fools. Forget yesterday's defeats and ignore the problems of tomorrow. This is it. Doomsday. All you have. Make it the best day of your year. The saddest words you can ever utter are, ''If I had my life to live over again. ''Take the baton, now. Run with it! This is your day! Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight. Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”-Og Mandino
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Life's not always fair. Sometimes you can get a splinter even sliding down a rainbow. ~Cherralea Morgen
Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets. ~Arthur Miller
Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. ~Author Unknown
Did they live happily ever after? They did not. No one ever does, in spite of what the stories may say. They had their good days, as you do, and they had their bad days, and you know about those. They had their victories, as you do, and they had their defeats, and you know about those, too. There were times when they felt ashamed of themselves, knowing they had not done their best, and there were times when they knew they had stood where their God had meant them to stand. All I'm trying to say is that they lived as well as they could. -Stephan King
Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym. -Stephan King
There isn't any division of time to express the marrow of our lives, the time between the explosion of lead from the muzzle and the meat impact, between the impact and the darkness. There's only barren instant replay that shows nothing new. I shot her; she fell; and there was an indescribable moment of silence, an infinite duration of time, and we all stepped back, watching the ball go around and around, ticking, bouncing, lighting for an instant, going on, heads and tails, red and black, odd and even...I think that moment ended. I really do. But sometimes, in the dark, I think that hideous random moment is still going on, that the wheel is even yet in spin, and I dreamed all the rest. What must it be like for a suicide coming down from a high ledge? I'm sure it must be a very sane feeling. That's probably why they scream all the way down. -Stephan King
Perhaps we go to the forbidden door or window willingly because we understand that a time comes when we must go whether we want to or not...and not just to look, but to be pushed through. Forever. -Stephan King
Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure. -Stephan King
It takes the average human seven minutes to go to sleep, but according to Hand's Human Physiology, it takes the same average human fifteen to twenty minutes to wake up. It is as if sleep is a pool from which emerging is more difficult than entering. When the sleeper wakes, he or she comes up by degrees, from deep sleep to light sleep to what is sometimes called "waking sleep," a state in which the sleeper can hear sounds and will even respond to questions without being aware of it later...except perhaps as fragments of dreams. -Stephan King
We fall from womb to tomb, from one blackness and toward another, remembering little of the one and knowing nothing of the other...except through faith. -Stephan King
"I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't." I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't." -Stephan King
Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home. -Stephan King
Jesus watches from the wall, but his face is cold as stone. And if he loves me - as she tells me - why do I feel so all alone? -Stephan King
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow. -Dorothy Thompson
There is a flaw with words, they always force us to feel enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without enlightenment
Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. ~Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ, c.1420
You've got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice. ~Steven D. Woodhull
Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all life really means. ~Robert Louis Stevenson
Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that's worth mentioning? ~Coleman Cox
Never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if you have to leave them alone in order to do it.
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. ~Victor Hugo
The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile. ~Plato
God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me. ~Author unknown
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. ~Theodore Roosevelt
I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.... People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back. ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982
Be pleasant until ten o'clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself. ~Elbert Hubbard
Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped. ~African Proverb
Practical life teaches us that people may differ and that both may be wrong: it also teaches us that people may differ and both be right. Anchor yourself fast in the latter faith, or the former will sweep your heart away. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
The day will happen whether or not you get up. ~John Ciardi
Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak. Sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go. ~Author Unknown
Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got. ~Janis Joplin
Never believe in mirrors or newspapers. ~Tom Stoppard
Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others. ~Buddha
You can not prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building a nest in your hair
One meets his destiny often in the road he takes to avoid it.
There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures. ~James Thurber
Never saw off the branch you are on, unless you are being hanged from it. ~Stanislaw Lec
Watch the little things; a small leak will sink a great ship. ~Benjamin Franklin
You can't truthfully explain your smallest action without fully revealing your character. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
Everyone should learn to do one thing supremely well because he likes it, and one thing supremely well because he detests it. ~Brigham Young
Sometimes the only way you can take a really good look at yourself is through somebody else's eyes. ~From the television show Scrubs
The future lies before you, like paths of pure white snow. Be careful how you tread it, for every step will show. ~Author Unknown
Sandwich every bit of criticism between two thick layers of praise. ~Mary Kay Ash
I used to believe that anything was better than nothing. Now I know that sometimes nothing is better. ~Glenda Jackson
God is closest to those with broken hearts. ~Jewish Saying
When love is lost, do not bow your head in sadness; instead keep your head up high and gaze into heaven for that is where your broken heart has been sent to heal. ~Author Unknown
You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith. ~Mary Manin Morrissey
Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them. ~Brendan Francis
There is much in the world to make us afraid. There is much more in our faith to make us unafraid. ~Frederick W. Cropp
Fear is just your feelings asking for a hug. ~Danielle Sanchez-Witzel and Michael Pennie, My Name is Earl, "South of the Border Part Uno/Dos,"
Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself. ~Samuel Butler
The wise man in the storm prays God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1833
The way you overcome shyness is to become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid. ~Lady Bird Johnson
Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. ~C.S. Lewis
When we are afraid we ought not to occupy ourselves with endeavoring to prove that there is no danger, but in strengthening ourselves to go on in spite of the danger. ~Mark Rutherford
Courage is fear that has said its prayers. ~Dorothy Bernard
To him that waits all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny, in the darkness, what he has seen in the light. ~Coventry Patmore
Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears. ~Arthur Koestler
The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward. ~Jean Paul Richter
But are not this struggle and even the mistakes one may make better, and do they not develop us more, than if we kept systematically away from emotions? ~Vincent Van Gogh
One's suffering disappears when one lets oneself go, when one yields - even to sadness. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Southern Mail, 1929
Emotion turning back on itself, and not leading on to thought or action, is the element of madness. ~John Sterling
Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue. ~Andre Gide
As none can see the wind but in its effects on the trees, neither can we see the emotions but in their effects on the face and body. ~Nathaniel LeTonnerre, translated
Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary. ~Mark Twain
When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion. ~Dale Carnegie
Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. ~Paul Boese
It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. ~William Blake, Jerusalem
Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it. ~Jacques Prévert
Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy. ~Cynthia Nelms
This is my "depressed stance." When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this. ~Charlie Brown
Happiness is a form of courage. ~Holbrook Jackson
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. ~Dalai Lama
Man must search for what is right, and let happiness come on its own. ~Johann Pestalozzi
Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so. ~John Stuart Mill
The happy have whole days,
and those they choose.
The unhappy have but hours,
and those they lose. ~Colley Cibber
The happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things. ~Ernest Dimnet
The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness. ~William Saroyan
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. ~Robert Brault
In order to have great happiness you have to have great pain and unhappiness - otherwise how would you know when you're happy? ~Leslie Caron
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~Mahatma Gandhi
That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along. -Madeleine L'Engle
"Too much awareness is a sickness; it keeps me awake all night." -Yi Cho-nyon
"Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong." -Sir Winston Churchill
"The cruelest lies are often told in silence." -Robert Louis Stevenson
"I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am. I am. I am." -Sylvia Plath
"A man should carry two stones in his pocket. On one should be inscribed, "I am but dust and ashes." On the other, "For my sake was the world created." And he should use each stone as he needs it." -A Jewish rabbi, name unknown
"Strange is our situation here upon earth. However, there's one thing that we do know. Man is here for the sake of other men, above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends. And also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy." -- Albert Einstein
Living with offense is the price we have to pay for living in a free and diverse society. Being offended is not the same as being oppressed. ~ Irshad Manji
"Nothing hurts so much as an attack upon what one loves."
Depression is an insane word to describe the sane. A person who is categorized as depressed is a person believed to be sad and deeply troubled, and in today’s society, in today’s world, how can we all not be depressed? We punished the depressed by pushing over priced pills down their throat, and telling them that their thoughts are wrong, but in reality are we doing the right thing. A person who is depressed is no more a person who sees the world how it is, with all the turmoil, all the death, all the corruption. A depressed person not only sees the “actual” world, but also has feeling toward all the negative ideas and actions in the world. Shouldn’t the sane people, the people who are told they are living normal lives, be the people who need the help? For every day they live their lives blocking out the negative world, turning a shoulder to all the wrong doings, but yet they have the motivation to turn on the 5 O clock news and watch the genocides, the wars, and listen to the corrupt messages of the bias commercials. And at the same time they go to bed every night not wondering “why”, not contemplating the possibilities of other out comes, not hoping for change. So in reality who are we to punish those who actually feel the pain of the world, who are we to tell them that they are crazy and wrong. When in Reality we our self are the insane. The insane for not even caring about what goes on around us. The insane for only caring a about our immediate surroundings, and our immediate future. All in all, the answer can be solved with a question. “Why”?
Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance. ~Author Unknown
We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies. ~Roderick Thorp, Rainbow Drive
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance. ~Bruce Barton
Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway. ~Mary Kay Ash
The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable. ~Paul Tillich
They are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their own powers. ~Christian Bovee
I was thinking of my patients, and how the worst moment for them was when they discovered they were masters of their own fate. It was not a matter of bad or good luck. When they could no longer blame fate, they were in despair. ~Anaïs Nin
The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves. ~Ellen Goodman
It's me who is my enemy
Me who beats me up
Me who makes the monsters
Me who strips my confidence.
~Paula Cole, "Me," This Fire
If I am not for myself, who will be? ~Pirke Avoth
Only as high as I reach can I grow,
Only as far as I seek can I go,
Only as deep as I look can I see,
Only as much as I dream can I be.
~Karen Ravn
"It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is." -Hermann Hesse
Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. -Eleanor Roosevelt
I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war. -Eleanor Roosevelt
I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself. -Eleanor Roosevelt
It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life. -Eleanor Roosevelt
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. -Eleanor Roosevelt
People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Understanding is a two-way street. -Eleanor Roosevelt
We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
What is to give light must endure the burning. -Eleanor Roosevelt
When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it? -Eleanor Roosevelt
When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die. -Eleanor Roosevelt
With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Democracy and violence can ill go together. -Ghandi
Evolution of democracy is not possible if we are not prepared to hear the other side.
-Ghandi
What kind of victory is it when someone is left defeated? -Ghandi
To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend. -Ghandi
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?-Ghandi
Hate the sin and not the sinner is a precept which though easy enough to understand is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.-Ghandi
Depressed people think they know themselves, but maybe they only know depression. ~Mark Epstein
To be too conscious is an illness - a real thoroughgoing illness. ~Fyodor Dostoevski
Depressed? Of course we're all depressed. We've been so quickly, violently, and irreconcilably plucked from nature, from physical labor, from kinship and village mentality, from every natural and primordial anti-depressant. The further society "progresses," the grander the scale of imbalance. Just as fluoride is put in water to prevent dental caries, we'll soon find government mandating Prozac in our water to prevent mental caries. ~M. Robin D'Antan
Loneliness... is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man. ~Thomas Wolfe
Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level. ~Max L. Forman
When your suffering is a little greater than my suffering I feel that I am a little cruel. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
The total history of almost anyone would shock almost everyone. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Things are more like they are now than they have ever been. -Gerald R. Ford
The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost. ~Arthur Schopenhauer
She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts. ~George Eliot
“If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.” -Kahlil Gibran quotes
If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. ~Robert Fulghum
If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.
-- Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
Each difficult moment has the potential to open my eyes and open my heart.
-- Myla Kabat-Zinn
Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.
-- Napoleon Hill
I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.
-- Jewish Proverb
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
-- Henry David Thoreau
Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
-- Voltaire
There are times in everyone's life when something constructive is born out of adversity... when things seem so bad that you've got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it.
-- Author Unknown
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out. ~Anton Chekhov
Life was a damned muddle - a football game with everyone offside and the referee gotten rid of - everyone claiming the referee would have been on his side. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
In life we all have an unspeakable secret, an irreversible regret, an unreachable dream and an unforgettable love. ~Diego Marchi
For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. ~Albert Camus
Life is a mixed blessing, which we vainly try to unmix. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
“Laughter brings you to reality as it is. The world is a play of God, a cosmic joke. And unless you understand it as a cosmic joke you will never be able to understand the ultimate mystery.” ~Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Today is the last day of some of your life. ~Author Unknown
A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name. ~Evan Esar
Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen. ~Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer. ~Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve it. ~Immanuel Hermass von Fichte
God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless. ~Chester W. Nimitz
For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse. ~Samuel Richardson
The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart. ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Persons with weight of character carry, like planets, their atmospheres along with them in their orbits. ~Thomas Hardy
If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted. I don't accept it. ~Pablo Casals
Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul? ~Socrates
I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill. ~Mahatma Gandhi
I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self. ~Martin Luther
How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light. ~Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams
Live so that your friends can defend you but never have to. ~Arnold H. Glasow
Do whatever you can to capture, or recapture, your life spark - unless it harms others, in which case suffer with as much happiness as you can muster. Your nobility of spirit will spark itself. ~Corri Alius
It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways. ~Buddha
The time is always right to do what is right. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Tis better to suffer wrong than do it. ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. ~Mark Twain
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims. ~Harriet Woods
I tell you this, and I tell you plain:
What you have done, you will do again;
You will bite your tongue, careful or not,
Upon the already-bitten spot.
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Anything you lose automatically doubles in value. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
Never do anything that you wouldn't want to explain to the paramedics. ~Author Unknown
Neurosis is no worse than a bad cold; you ache all over, and it's made you a mess, but you won't die from it. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
There are now electrical appliances with the main unit so sealed in that it cannot be got at for repair. There have always been human beings like that. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
An old Cherokee was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A battle is raging inside me ... it is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The old man fixed the children with a firm stare. "This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."
They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee replied: "The one you feed."
Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen. - John le Carre
A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul. ~Plato
Why do you hasten to remove anything which hurts your eye, while if something affects your soul you postpone the cure until next year? ~Horace
One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way. ~Vincent Van Gogh
Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor. ~Dr. Alexis Carrel
All men should strive
to learn before they die
what they are running from, and to, and why.
~James Thurber
If you don't get lost, there's a chance you may never be found. ~Author Unknown
One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. ~G.K. Chesterton, "The Logic of Elfland," Orthodoxy, 1908
It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts. ~K.T. Jong
There's a period of life when we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside. ~Pearl Bailey
There are... things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind. ~Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be. ~Douglas Adams
Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it. ~Buddha
By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear. ~George Herbert
Becoming conscious is of course a sacrilege against nature; it is as though you had robbed the unconscious of something. ~Carl G. Jung
We catch frightful glimpses of ourselves in the hostile eyes of others. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Your distress about life might mean you have been living for the wrong reason, not that you have no reason for living. ~Tom O'Connor
For souls in growth, great quarrels are great emancipators. ~Logan Pearsall Smith
There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away. ~Henry Ward Beecher
The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change. ~Richard Bach
I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. ~Mahatma Gandhi
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.
- Charles M. Schulz
For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.
- Alice Kahn
It is not enough for a man to know how to ride; he must know how to fall. ~Mexican Proverb
Everybody's talking about people breaking into houses but there are more people in the world who want to break out of houses. ~Thornton Wilder, The Matchmaker, 1955
An apology for the Devil: It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books. ~Samuel Butler, Note-Books
The shadows: some hide, others reveal. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is the lightning that does the work. ~Mark Twain
When you look kool uoy nehW
into a mirror rorrim a otni
it is not ton si ti
yourself you see, ˛ees uoy flesruoy
but a kind dnik a tub
of apish error rorre hsipa fo
posed in fearful lufraef ni desop
symmetry yrtemmys
~John Updike, "Mirror,"
Telephone Poles and Other Poems
If a man could have half his wishes, he would double his troubles. ~Benjamin Franklin
The same fence that shuts others out shuts you in. ~Bill Copeland
For a nation which has an almost evil reputation for bustle, bustle, bustle, and rush, rush, rush, we spend an enormous amount of time standing around in line in front of windows, just waiting. ~Robert Benchley, Benchley - or Else!
Each moment is a place you've never been. ~Mark Strand
We have them just where they want us. ~James T. Kirk
Never is a long, long word, but it's less frustrating than "God knows when." ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
Every exit is an entrance somewhere else. ~Tom Stoppard
It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem. ~G.K. Chesterton
A gifted small girl has explained that pins are a great means of saving life, "by not swallowing them." ~Charles Edward Montague, Dramatic Values
[E]very saint has a past and every sinner has a future. ~Oscar Wilde
The answer to poverty is not charity, the solution to abortion is not laws, the key to saving the environment is not recycling. As Thoreau so wisely noted, we must strike at the root, not hack at the branches. ~Tere Saudavel
There are always three sides to every story: your side, the other side, and the truth. ~Author Unknown
The Past lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables
Shame is a sickness of the soul. It is the most poignant experience of the self by the self, whether felt in humiliation or cowardice, or in a sense of failure to cope successfully with a challenge. Shame is a wound felt from the inside, dividing us both from ourselves and from one another. - Kaufman
The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it. ~Wendell Berry
Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title. ~Virginia Woolf
“One man scorned and covered with scars still strive with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.” -The Impossible Dream (The Quest), Joe Darion
“I wanted to tell her everything, maybe if I'd been able to, we could have lived differently, maybe I'd be there with you now instead of here. Maybe... if I'd said, 'I'm so afraid of losing something I love that I refuse to love anything,' maybe that would have made the impossible possible. Maybe, but I couldn't do it, I had buried too much too deeply inside me. And here I am, instead of there.― Jonathan Safran Foer
“Over the last couple of years, the photos of me when I was a kid... well, they've started to give me a little pang or something - not unhappiness, exactly, but some kind of quiet, deep regret... I keep wanting to apologize to the little guy: "I'm sorry, I've let you down. I was the person who was supposed to look after you, but I blew it: I made wrong decisions at bad times, and I turned you into me.”― Nick Hornby
Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. ~Author Unknown
I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. ~Edward Everett Hale
It seems to me that any full grown, mature adult would have a desire to be responsible, to help where he can in a world that needs so very much, that threatens us so very much. ~Norman Lear
This is the true joy in life - being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. ~George Bernard Shaw
When you dig another out of their troubles, you find a place to bury your own. ~Author Unknown
Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing. - Rachel Naomi Remen
The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have the capacity do not possess it. - Simone Weil
“One should . . . be able to see things as hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”- F. Scott Fitzgerald
When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful. ~Barbara Bloom
When written in Chinese the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity. ~John F. Kennedy
You learn you can do your best even when it's hard, even when you're tired and maybe hurting a little bit. It feels good to show some courage. ~Joe Namath
Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience is genius. ~Georges-Louis Leclerc
I don't know that there are haunted houses. I know that there are dark staircases and haunted people. ~Robert Brault
In what you say of another, apply the test of kindness, necessity and truth, and let nothing pass your lips without a 2/3 majority. ~Liz Armbruster
I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum. ~Frances Willard
Always when judging
Who people are,
Remember to footnote
The words "So far."
~Robert Brault
Just remember, there's a right way and a wrong way to do everything and the wrong way is to keep trying to make everybody else do it the right way. ~M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter
Never let a problem to be solved become more important than the person to be loved. ~Barbara Johnson
It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed. ~Horace
“The past is never where you think you left it.” -Katherine Anne Porter
“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
“It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us...on the inside, looking out.” -Jonathan Safran Foer
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.” -William Faulkner
“When you understand," Brandy says, "that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan," Brandy says, "then we'll figure out who you're going to be. -Chuck Palahniuk
“We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic - now mercifully stilled, thank God - might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion as it had before.” -Daphne du Maurier
“I’ll tell you another secret, this one for your own good. You may think the past has something to tell you. You may think that you should listen, should strain to make out its whispers, should bend over backward, stoop down low to hear its voice breathed up from the ground, from the dead places. You may think there’s something in it for you, something to understand or make sense of.
But I know the truth: I know from the nights of Coldness. I know the past will drag you backward and down, have you snatching at whispers of wind and the gibberish of trees rubbing together, trying to decipher some code, trying to piece together what was broken. It’s hopeless. The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside of you like a stone.
Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do—the only thing—is run.”
-Lauren Oliver
“Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies.” -Julio Cortázar
“Scars show us where we have been, they do not dictate where we are going.” -David Rossi
“All that is left to bring you pain, are the memories. If you face those, you’ll be free. You can’t spend the rest of your life hiding from yourself; always afraid that your memories will incapacitate you, and they will if you continue to bury them.” -J.D. Stroube
“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” -Rose Kennedy
“Scars are but evidence of life," Coquette said. "Evidence of choices to be learned from...evidence of wounds...wounds inflicted of mistakes...wounds we choose to allow the healing of. We likewise choose to see them, that we may not make the same mistakes again.” -Marcia Lynn McClure, The Whispered Kiss
We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it. ~John Newton
There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with. -Harry Crews
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” -Kahlil Gibran
“The defects of the mind are like the wounds of the body. Whatever care we take to heal them the scars ever remain, and there is always danger of their reopening.” -François de la Rochefoucauld
“Because that is what happens when you try to run from the past. It doesn't just catch up: it overtakes, blotting out the future, the landscape, the very sky, until there is no path left except that which leads through it.”-Sarah Dessen, Just Listen
There is always sufficient reason for despair, but there is never sufficient purpose. ~Robert Brault
Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due. ~William Ralph Inge
Love looks forward, hate looks back, anxiety has eyes all over its head. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. ~Axel Munthe
To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect. ~Joan Didion
They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them. ~Mahatma Gandhi
No man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear. ~George MacDonald
Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth we have spoken it. ~Whitney Griswold
I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Don't you dare, for one more second, surround yourself with people who are not aware of the greatness that you are. ~Jo Blackwell-Preston
I wish I could show you, When you are lonely or in darkness, The astonishing light of your own being. ~Hafiz
To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
If you're wearing a disguise for too long, it will be difficult for the mirror to recognize you. At the end of the day I hope you become the person they didn't expect you to be. Be proud to wear you. ~Dodinsky
You are wonderful. Valuable. Worthwhile. Lovable. Not because others think so. Self worth comes from only one place: self. ~Karen Salmansohn
So long as you are still worried about what others think of you, you are owned by them. Only when you require no approval from outside yourself can you own yourself. ~Neale Donald Walsch
Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret. ~Don Miguel Ruiz
Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don't do it. There is someone who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill. ~Jacob M. Braude
I wonder why it is that we so often imprison ourselves in the opinions of other people. There can be no punishment worse than conspiring in our own diminishment. ~Dawna Markova
It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to. ~W.C. Fields
It is rewarding to find someone you like, but it is essential to like yourself. It is quickening to recognize that someone is a good and decent human being, but it is indispensable to view yourself as acceptable. It is a delight to discover people who are worthy of respect and admiration and love, but it is vital to believe yourself deserving of these things. ~Jo Coudert
If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself. ~Barbara De Angelis
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. ~Charles Dickens
If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person. ~Fred Rogers
Accept everything about yourself - I mean everything. You are you and that is the beginning and the end - no apologies, no regrets. ~Clark Moustakas
Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality. ~Les Brown
It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head. ~Sally Kempton, Esquire, 1970
People are crying up the rich and variegated plumage of the peacock, and he is himself blushing at the sight of his ugly feet. ~Sa'Di
Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember - the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you. ~Zig Ziglar
Once you become self-conscious, there is no end to it; once you start to doubt, there is no room for anything else. ~Mignon McLaughlin
“Some people cannot stand that you’re moving on with your life and so they will try to drag your past to catch up with you. Do not help them by acknowledging their behavior. Keep moving forward.” – Dodinsky
“They can betray me, but I choose not to betray my peace of mind.” – Dodinsky
"Every day you either see a scar or courage. Where you dwell will define your struggle." – Dodinsky
"Do not let your shadow walk you. You are not a slave of the past." – Dodinsky
What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
“If people refuse to look at you in a new light and they can only see you for what you were, only see you for the mistakes you've made, if they don't realize that you are not your mistakes, then they have to go.”― Steve Maraboli
“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”― Paulo Coelho
“I cut an inch off of every straw I see, just to make the world suck a little less.
”― Jarod Kintz
“Right now I want a word that describes the feeling that you get--a cold sick feeling, deep down inside--when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don't want it to, but you can't stop it. And you know, for the first time, for the very first time, that there will now be a before and an after, a was and a will be. And that you will never again quite be the same person you were.”― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light
“I was, but then I realized that I was holding on to something that didn't exist anymore. That the person I missed didn't exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And we can wish they couldn't all day long but that never works.”― Sarah Ockler, Fixing Delilah
“Sincere forgiveness isn't colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don't worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.” -Sara Paddison
In real life, no decision is clearly signposted. It's not like you take the right turning and you get everlasting happiness and you take the wrong one and your life's a disaster. In real life it's often well nigh impossible to tell which decision is the one you should make because what you stand to gain and what you stand to lose is sometimes - often - neck and neck.
If you don't understand my silence, you can't understand my words.
Never apologize, never explain.
This is how we go on: one day a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time, one breath at a time. Dentists go on one root canal at a time; boat builders go on one hull at a time. If you write books, you go on one page at a time. We turn from all we know and all we fear. We study catalogues, watch football games, choose Sprint over AT&T. We count the birds in the sky and will not turn from the window when we hear the footsteps behind as something comes up the hall; we say yes, I agree that clouds often look like other things - fish and unicorns and men on horseback - but they are really only clouds. Even when the lightning flashes inside them we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on. -Stephan King
Better die standing than live on your knees.
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow's a mystery. Today I'm still alive.
Doing the right thing can never be measured by the outcome of events. Judge yourself by what you do, not what happens afterwards.
There's moments in your life that make you, set the course of who you're going to be. Sometimes they're little, subtle moments. Sometimes ... they're not. Even if you see them coming, you're never ready for the big moments. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. Nobody asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. The big moments will come, can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are ... who you will be.
God save me from my friends - I can protect myself from my enemies."
Proverb
The fairest flower of them all,
I give to you as we part.
For you it is a Red Rose,
for me it is my heart.
Author unknown
There are hurts so deep that one cannot reach them or heal them with words
“May the love hidden deep inside your heart find the love waiting in your dreams. May the laughter that you find in your tomorrow wipe away the pain you find in your yesterdays.”
“You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it”
“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 frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”-Used by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural speech
“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”
“Live this day as if it will be your last. Remember that you will only find ''tomorrow'' on the calendars of fools. Forget yesterday's defeats and ignore the problems of tomorrow. This is it. Doomsday. All you have. Make it the best day of your year. The saddest words you can ever utter are, ''If I had my life to live over again. ''Take the baton, now. Run with it! This is your day! Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight. Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”-Og Mandino
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Life's not always fair. Sometimes you can get a splinter even sliding down a rainbow. ~Cherralea Morgen
Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets. ~Arthur Miller
Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. ~Author Unknown
Did they live happily ever after? They did not. No one ever does, in spite of what the stories may say. They had their good days, as you do, and they had their bad days, and you know about those. They had their victories, as you do, and they had their defeats, and you know about those, too. There were times when they felt ashamed of themselves, knowing they had not done their best, and there were times when they knew they had stood where their God had meant them to stand. All I'm trying to say is that they lived as well as they could. -Stephan King
Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym. -Stephan King
There isn't any division of time to express the marrow of our lives, the time between the explosion of lead from the muzzle and the meat impact, between the impact and the darkness. There's only barren instant replay that shows nothing new. I shot her; she fell; and there was an indescribable moment of silence, an infinite duration of time, and we all stepped back, watching the ball go around and around, ticking, bouncing, lighting for an instant, going on, heads and tails, red and black, odd and even...I think that moment ended. I really do. But sometimes, in the dark, I think that hideous random moment is still going on, that the wheel is even yet in spin, and I dreamed all the rest. What must it be like for a suicide coming down from a high ledge? I'm sure it must be a very sane feeling. That's probably why they scream all the way down. -Stephan King
Perhaps we go to the forbidden door or window willingly because we understand that a time comes when we must go whether we want to or not...and not just to look, but to be pushed through. Forever. -Stephan King
Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure. -Stephan King
It takes the average human seven minutes to go to sleep, but according to Hand's Human Physiology, it takes the same average human fifteen to twenty minutes to wake up. It is as if sleep is a pool from which emerging is more difficult than entering. When the sleeper wakes, he or she comes up by degrees, from deep sleep to light sleep to what is sometimes called "waking sleep," a state in which the sleeper can hear sounds and will even respond to questions without being aware of it later...except perhaps as fragments of dreams. -Stephan King
We fall from womb to tomb, from one blackness and toward another, remembering little of the one and knowing nothing of the other...except through faith. -Stephan King
"I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't." I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't." -Stephan King
Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home. -Stephan King
Jesus watches from the wall, but his face is cold as stone. And if he loves me - as she tells me - why do I feel so all alone? -Stephan King
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow. -Dorothy Thompson
There is a flaw with words, they always force us to feel enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without enlightenment
Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. ~Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ, c.1420
You've got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice. ~Steven D. Woodhull
Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all life really means. ~Robert Louis Stevenson
Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that's worth mentioning? ~Coleman Cox
Never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if you have to leave them alone in order to do it.
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. ~Victor Hugo
The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile. ~Plato
God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me. ~Author unknown
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. ~Theodore Roosevelt
I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.... People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back. ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982
Be pleasant until ten o'clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself. ~Elbert Hubbard
Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped. ~African Proverb
Practical life teaches us that people may differ and that both may be wrong: it also teaches us that people may differ and both be right. Anchor yourself fast in the latter faith, or the former will sweep your heart away. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
The day will happen whether or not you get up. ~John Ciardi
Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak. Sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go. ~Author Unknown
Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got. ~Janis Joplin
Never believe in mirrors or newspapers. ~Tom Stoppard
Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others. ~Buddha
You can not prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building a nest in your hair
One meets his destiny often in the road he takes to avoid it.
There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures. ~James Thurber
Never saw off the branch you are on, unless you are being hanged from it. ~Stanislaw Lec
Watch the little things; a small leak will sink a great ship. ~Benjamin Franklin
You can't truthfully explain your smallest action without fully revealing your character. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
Everyone should learn to do one thing supremely well because he likes it, and one thing supremely well because he detests it. ~Brigham Young
Sometimes the only way you can take a really good look at yourself is through somebody else's eyes. ~From the television show Scrubs
The future lies before you, like paths of pure white snow. Be careful how you tread it, for every step will show. ~Author Unknown
Sandwich every bit of criticism between two thick layers of praise. ~Mary Kay Ash
I used to believe that anything was better than nothing. Now I know that sometimes nothing is better. ~Glenda Jackson
God is closest to those with broken hearts. ~Jewish Saying
When love is lost, do not bow your head in sadness; instead keep your head up high and gaze into heaven for that is where your broken heart has been sent to heal. ~Author Unknown
You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith. ~Mary Manin Morrissey
Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them. ~Brendan Francis
There is much in the world to make us afraid. There is much more in our faith to make us unafraid. ~Frederick W. Cropp
Fear is just your feelings asking for a hug. ~Danielle Sanchez-Witzel and Michael Pennie, My Name is Earl, "South of the Border Part Uno/Dos,"
Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself. ~Samuel Butler
The wise man in the storm prays God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1833
The way you overcome shyness is to become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid. ~Lady Bird Johnson
Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. ~C.S. Lewis
When we are afraid we ought not to occupy ourselves with endeavoring to prove that there is no danger, but in strengthening ourselves to go on in spite of the danger. ~Mark Rutherford
Courage is fear that has said its prayers. ~Dorothy Bernard
To him that waits all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny, in the darkness, what he has seen in the light. ~Coventry Patmore
Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears. ~Arthur Koestler
The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward. ~Jean Paul Richter
But are not this struggle and even the mistakes one may make better, and do they not develop us more, than if we kept systematically away from emotions? ~Vincent Van Gogh
One's suffering disappears when one lets oneself go, when one yields - even to sadness. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Southern Mail, 1929
Emotion turning back on itself, and not leading on to thought or action, is the element of madness. ~John Sterling
Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue. ~Andre Gide
As none can see the wind but in its effects on the trees, neither can we see the emotions but in their effects on the face and body. ~Nathaniel LeTonnerre, translated
Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary. ~Mark Twain
When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion. ~Dale Carnegie
Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. ~Paul Boese
It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. ~William Blake, Jerusalem
Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it. ~Jacques Prévert
Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy. ~Cynthia Nelms
This is my "depressed stance." When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this. ~Charlie Brown
Happiness is a form of courage. ~Holbrook Jackson
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. ~Dalai Lama
Man must search for what is right, and let happiness come on its own. ~Johann Pestalozzi
Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so. ~John Stuart Mill
The happy have whole days,
and those they choose.
The unhappy have but hours,
and those they lose. ~Colley Cibber
The happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things. ~Ernest Dimnet
The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness. ~William Saroyan
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. ~Robert Brault
In order to have great happiness you have to have great pain and unhappiness - otherwise how would you know when you're happy? ~Leslie Caron
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~Mahatma Gandhi
That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along. -Madeleine L'Engle
"Too much awareness is a sickness; it keeps me awake all night." -Yi Cho-nyon
"Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong." -Sir Winston Churchill
"The cruelest lies are often told in silence." -Robert Louis Stevenson
"I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am. I am. I am." -Sylvia Plath
"A man should carry two stones in his pocket. On one should be inscribed, "I am but dust and ashes." On the other, "For my sake was the world created." And he should use each stone as he needs it." -A Jewish rabbi, name unknown
"Strange is our situation here upon earth. However, there's one thing that we do know. Man is here for the sake of other men, above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends. And also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy." -- Albert Einstein
Living with offense is the price we have to pay for living in a free and diverse society. Being offended is not the same as being oppressed. ~ Irshad Manji
"Nothing hurts so much as an attack upon what one loves."
Depression is an insane word to describe the sane. A person who is categorized as depressed is a person believed to be sad and deeply troubled, and in today’s society, in today’s world, how can we all not be depressed? We punished the depressed by pushing over priced pills down their throat, and telling them that their thoughts are wrong, but in reality are we doing the right thing. A person who is depressed is no more a person who sees the world how it is, with all the turmoil, all the death, all the corruption. A depressed person not only sees the “actual” world, but also has feeling toward all the negative ideas and actions in the world. Shouldn’t the sane people, the people who are told they are living normal lives, be the people who need the help? For every day they live their lives blocking out the negative world, turning a shoulder to all the wrong doings, but yet they have the motivation to turn on the 5 O clock news and watch the genocides, the wars, and listen to the corrupt messages of the bias commercials. And at the same time they go to bed every night not wondering “why”, not contemplating the possibilities of other out comes, not hoping for change. So in reality who are we to punish those who actually feel the pain of the world, who are we to tell them that they are crazy and wrong. When in Reality we our self are the insane. The insane for not even caring about what goes on around us. The insane for only caring a about our immediate surroundings, and our immediate future. All in all, the answer can be solved with a question. “Why”?
Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance. ~Author Unknown
We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies. ~Roderick Thorp, Rainbow Drive
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance. ~Bruce Barton
Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway. ~Mary Kay Ash
The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable. ~Paul Tillich
They are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their own powers. ~Christian Bovee
I was thinking of my patients, and how the worst moment for them was when they discovered they were masters of their own fate. It was not a matter of bad or good luck. When they could no longer blame fate, they were in despair. ~Anaïs Nin
The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves. ~Ellen Goodman
It's me who is my enemy
Me who beats me up
Me who makes the monsters
Me who strips my confidence.
~Paula Cole, "Me," This Fire
If I am not for myself, who will be? ~Pirke Avoth
Only as high as I reach can I grow,
Only as far as I seek can I go,
Only as deep as I look can I see,
Only as much as I dream can I be.
~Karen Ravn
"It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is." -Hermann Hesse
Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. -Eleanor Roosevelt
I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war. -Eleanor Roosevelt
I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself. -Eleanor Roosevelt
It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life. -Eleanor Roosevelt
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. -Eleanor Roosevelt
People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Understanding is a two-way street. -Eleanor Roosevelt
We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
What is to give light must endure the burning. -Eleanor Roosevelt
When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it? -Eleanor Roosevelt
When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die. -Eleanor Roosevelt
With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Democracy and violence can ill go together. -Ghandi
Evolution of democracy is not possible if we are not prepared to hear the other side.
-Ghandi
What kind of victory is it when someone is left defeated? -Ghandi
To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend. -Ghandi
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?-Ghandi
Hate the sin and not the sinner is a precept which though easy enough to understand is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.-Ghandi
Depressed people think they know themselves, but maybe they only know depression. ~Mark Epstein
To be too conscious is an illness - a real thoroughgoing illness. ~Fyodor Dostoevski
Depressed? Of course we're all depressed. We've been so quickly, violently, and irreconcilably plucked from nature, from physical labor, from kinship and village mentality, from every natural and primordial anti-depressant. The further society "progresses," the grander the scale of imbalance. Just as fluoride is put in water to prevent dental caries, we'll soon find government mandating Prozac in our water to prevent mental caries. ~M. Robin D'Antan
Loneliness... is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man. ~Thomas Wolfe
Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level. ~Max L. Forman
When your suffering is a little greater than my suffering I feel that I am a little cruel. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
The total history of almost anyone would shock almost everyone. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Things are more like they are now than they have ever been. -Gerald R. Ford
The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost. ~Arthur Schopenhauer
She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts. ~George Eliot
“If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.” -Kahlil Gibran quotes
If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. ~Robert Fulghum
If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.
-- Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
Each difficult moment has the potential to open my eyes and open my heart.
-- Myla Kabat-Zinn
Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.
-- Napoleon Hill
I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.
-- Jewish Proverb
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
-- Henry David Thoreau
Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
-- Voltaire
There are times in everyone's life when something constructive is born out of adversity... when things seem so bad that you've got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it.
-- Author Unknown
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out. ~Anton Chekhov
Life was a damned muddle - a football game with everyone offside and the referee gotten rid of - everyone claiming the referee would have been on his side. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
In life we all have an unspeakable secret, an irreversible regret, an unreachable dream and an unforgettable love. ~Diego Marchi
For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. ~Albert Camus
Life is a mixed blessing, which we vainly try to unmix. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
“Laughter brings you to reality as it is. The world is a play of God, a cosmic joke. And unless you understand it as a cosmic joke you will never be able to understand the ultimate mystery.” ~Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Today is the last day of some of your life. ~Author Unknown
A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name. ~Evan Esar
Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen. ~Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer. ~Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve it. ~Immanuel Hermass von Fichte
God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless. ~Chester W. Nimitz
For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse. ~Samuel Richardson
The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart. ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Persons with weight of character carry, like planets, their atmospheres along with them in their orbits. ~Thomas Hardy
If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted. I don't accept it. ~Pablo Casals
Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul? ~Socrates
I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill. ~Mahatma Gandhi
I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self. ~Martin Luther
How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light. ~Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams
Live so that your friends can defend you but never have to. ~Arnold H. Glasow
Do whatever you can to capture, or recapture, your life spark - unless it harms others, in which case suffer with as much happiness as you can muster. Your nobility of spirit will spark itself. ~Corri Alius
It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways. ~Buddha
The time is always right to do what is right. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Tis better to suffer wrong than do it. ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. ~Mark Twain
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims. ~Harriet Woods
I tell you this, and I tell you plain:
What you have done, you will do again;
You will bite your tongue, careful or not,
Upon the already-bitten spot.
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Anything you lose automatically doubles in value. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
Never do anything that you wouldn't want to explain to the paramedics. ~Author Unknown
Neurosis is no worse than a bad cold; you ache all over, and it's made you a mess, but you won't die from it. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
There are now electrical appliances with the main unit so sealed in that it cannot be got at for repair. There have always been human beings like that. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
An old Cherokee was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A battle is raging inside me ... it is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The old man fixed the children with a firm stare. "This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."
They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee replied: "The one you feed."
Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen. - John le Carre
A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul. ~Plato
Why do you hasten to remove anything which hurts your eye, while if something affects your soul you postpone the cure until next year? ~Horace
One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way. ~Vincent Van Gogh
Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor. ~Dr. Alexis Carrel
All men should strive
to learn before they die
what they are running from, and to, and why.
~James Thurber
If you don't get lost, there's a chance you may never be found. ~Author Unknown
One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. ~G.K. Chesterton, "The Logic of Elfland," Orthodoxy, 1908
It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts. ~K.T. Jong
There's a period of life when we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside. ~Pearl Bailey
There are... things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind. ~Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be. ~Douglas Adams
Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it. ~Buddha
By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear. ~George Herbert
Becoming conscious is of course a sacrilege against nature; it is as though you had robbed the unconscious of something. ~Carl G. Jung
We catch frightful glimpses of ourselves in the hostile eyes of others. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Your distress about life might mean you have been living for the wrong reason, not that you have no reason for living. ~Tom O'Connor
For souls in growth, great quarrels are great emancipators. ~Logan Pearsall Smith
There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away. ~Henry Ward Beecher
The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change. ~Richard Bach
I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. ~Mahatma Gandhi
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.
- Charles M. Schulz
For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.
- Alice Kahn
It is not enough for a man to know how to ride; he must know how to fall. ~Mexican Proverb
Everybody's talking about people breaking into houses but there are more people in the world who want to break out of houses. ~Thornton Wilder, The Matchmaker, 1955
An apology for the Devil: It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books. ~Samuel Butler, Note-Books
The shadows: some hide, others reveal. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is the lightning that does the work. ~Mark Twain
When you look kool uoy nehW
into a mirror rorrim a otni
it is not ton si ti
yourself you see, ˛ees uoy flesruoy
but a kind dnik a tub
of apish error rorre hsipa fo
posed in fearful lufraef ni desop
symmetry yrtemmys
~John Updike, "Mirror,"
Telephone Poles and Other Poems
If a man could have half his wishes, he would double his troubles. ~Benjamin Franklin
The same fence that shuts others out shuts you in. ~Bill Copeland
For a nation which has an almost evil reputation for bustle, bustle, bustle, and rush, rush, rush, we spend an enormous amount of time standing around in line in front of windows, just waiting. ~Robert Benchley, Benchley - or Else!
Each moment is a place you've never been. ~Mark Strand
We have them just where they want us. ~James T. Kirk
Never is a long, long word, but it's less frustrating than "God knows when." ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
Every exit is an entrance somewhere else. ~Tom Stoppard
It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem. ~G.K. Chesterton
A gifted small girl has explained that pins are a great means of saving life, "by not swallowing them." ~Charles Edward Montague, Dramatic Values
[E]very saint has a past and every sinner has a future. ~Oscar Wilde
The answer to poverty is not charity, the solution to abortion is not laws, the key to saving the environment is not recycling. As Thoreau so wisely noted, we must strike at the root, not hack at the branches. ~Tere Saudavel
There are always three sides to every story: your side, the other side, and the truth. ~Author Unknown
The Past lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables
Shame is a sickness of the soul. It is the most poignant experience of the self by the self, whether felt in humiliation or cowardice, or in a sense of failure to cope successfully with a challenge. Shame is a wound felt from the inside, dividing us both from ourselves and from one another. - Kaufman
The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it. ~Wendell Berry
Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title. ~Virginia Woolf
“One man scorned and covered with scars still strive with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.” -The Impossible Dream (The Quest), Joe Darion
“I wanted to tell her everything, maybe if I'd been able to, we could have lived differently, maybe I'd be there with you now instead of here. Maybe... if I'd said, 'I'm so afraid of losing something I love that I refuse to love anything,' maybe that would have made the impossible possible. Maybe, but I couldn't do it, I had buried too much too deeply inside me. And here I am, instead of there.― Jonathan Safran Foer
“Over the last couple of years, the photos of me when I was a kid... well, they've started to give me a little pang or something - not unhappiness, exactly, but some kind of quiet, deep regret... I keep wanting to apologize to the little guy: "I'm sorry, I've let you down. I was the person who was supposed to look after you, but I blew it: I made wrong decisions at bad times, and I turned you into me.”― Nick Hornby
Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. ~Author Unknown
I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. ~Edward Everett Hale
It seems to me that any full grown, mature adult would have a desire to be responsible, to help where he can in a world that needs so very much, that threatens us so very much. ~Norman Lear
This is the true joy in life - being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. ~George Bernard Shaw
When you dig another out of their troubles, you find a place to bury your own. ~Author Unknown
Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing. - Rachel Naomi Remen
The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have the capacity do not possess it. - Simone Weil
“One should . . . be able to see things as hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”- F. Scott Fitzgerald
When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful. ~Barbara Bloom
When written in Chinese the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity. ~John F. Kennedy
You learn you can do your best even when it's hard, even when you're tired and maybe hurting a little bit. It feels good to show some courage. ~Joe Namath
Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience is genius. ~Georges-Louis Leclerc
I don't know that there are haunted houses. I know that there are dark staircases and haunted people. ~Robert Brault
In what you say of another, apply the test of kindness, necessity and truth, and let nothing pass your lips without a 2/3 majority. ~Liz Armbruster
I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum. ~Frances Willard
Always when judging
Who people are,
Remember to footnote
The words "So far."
~Robert Brault
Just remember, there's a right way and a wrong way to do everything and the wrong way is to keep trying to make everybody else do it the right way. ~M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter
Never let a problem to be solved become more important than the person to be loved. ~Barbara Johnson
It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed. ~Horace
“The past is never where you think you left it.” -Katherine Anne Porter
“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
“It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us...on the inside, looking out.” -Jonathan Safran Foer
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.” -William Faulkner
“When you understand," Brandy says, "that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan," Brandy says, "then we'll figure out who you're going to be. -Chuck Palahniuk
“We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic - now mercifully stilled, thank God - might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion as it had before.” -Daphne du Maurier
“I’ll tell you another secret, this one for your own good. You may think the past has something to tell you. You may think that you should listen, should strain to make out its whispers, should bend over backward, stoop down low to hear its voice breathed up from the ground, from the dead places. You may think there’s something in it for you, something to understand or make sense of.
But I know the truth: I know from the nights of Coldness. I know the past will drag you backward and down, have you snatching at whispers of wind and the gibberish of trees rubbing together, trying to decipher some code, trying to piece together what was broken. It’s hopeless. The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside of you like a stone.
Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do—the only thing—is run.”
-Lauren Oliver
“Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies.” -Julio Cortázar
“Scars show us where we have been, they do not dictate where we are going.” -David Rossi
“All that is left to bring you pain, are the memories. If you face those, you’ll be free. You can’t spend the rest of your life hiding from yourself; always afraid that your memories will incapacitate you, and they will if you continue to bury them.” -J.D. Stroube
“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” -Rose Kennedy
“Scars are but evidence of life," Coquette said. "Evidence of choices to be learned from...evidence of wounds...wounds inflicted of mistakes...wounds we choose to allow the healing of. We likewise choose to see them, that we may not make the same mistakes again.” -Marcia Lynn McClure, The Whispered Kiss
We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it. ~John Newton
There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with. -Harry Crews
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” -Kahlil Gibran
“The defects of the mind are like the wounds of the body. Whatever care we take to heal them the scars ever remain, and there is always danger of their reopening.” -François de la Rochefoucauld
“Because that is what happens when you try to run from the past. It doesn't just catch up: it overtakes, blotting out the future, the landscape, the very sky, until there is no path left except that which leads through it.”-Sarah Dessen, Just Listen
There is always sufficient reason for despair, but there is never sufficient purpose. ~Robert Brault
Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due. ~William Ralph Inge
Love looks forward, hate looks back, anxiety has eyes all over its head. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. ~Axel Munthe
To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect. ~Joan Didion
They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them. ~Mahatma Gandhi
No man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear. ~George MacDonald
Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth we have spoken it. ~Whitney Griswold
I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Don't you dare, for one more second, surround yourself with people who are not aware of the greatness that you are. ~Jo Blackwell-Preston
I wish I could show you, When you are lonely or in darkness, The astonishing light of your own being. ~Hafiz
To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
If you're wearing a disguise for too long, it will be difficult for the mirror to recognize you. At the end of the day I hope you become the person they didn't expect you to be. Be proud to wear you. ~Dodinsky
You are wonderful. Valuable. Worthwhile. Lovable. Not because others think so. Self worth comes from only one place: self. ~Karen Salmansohn
So long as you are still worried about what others think of you, you are owned by them. Only when you require no approval from outside yourself can you own yourself. ~Neale Donald Walsch
Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret. ~Don Miguel Ruiz
Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don't do it. There is someone who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill. ~Jacob M. Braude
I wonder why it is that we so often imprison ourselves in the opinions of other people. There can be no punishment worse than conspiring in our own diminishment. ~Dawna Markova
It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to. ~W.C. Fields
It is rewarding to find someone you like, but it is essential to like yourself. It is quickening to recognize that someone is a good and decent human being, but it is indispensable to view yourself as acceptable. It is a delight to discover people who are worthy of respect and admiration and love, but it is vital to believe yourself deserving of these things. ~Jo Coudert
If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself. ~Barbara De Angelis
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. ~Charles Dickens
If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person. ~Fred Rogers
Accept everything about yourself - I mean everything. You are you and that is the beginning and the end - no apologies, no regrets. ~Clark Moustakas
Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality. ~Les Brown
It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head. ~Sally Kempton, Esquire, 1970
People are crying up the rich and variegated plumage of the peacock, and he is himself blushing at the sight of his ugly feet. ~Sa'Di
Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember - the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you. ~Zig Ziglar
Once you become self-conscious, there is no end to it; once you start to doubt, there is no room for anything else. ~Mignon McLaughlin
“Some people cannot stand that you’re moving on with your life and so they will try to drag your past to catch up with you. Do not help them by acknowledging their behavior. Keep moving forward.” – Dodinsky
“They can betray me, but I choose not to betray my peace of mind.” – Dodinsky
"Every day you either see a scar or courage. Where you dwell will define your struggle." – Dodinsky
"Do not let your shadow walk you. You are not a slave of the past." – Dodinsky
What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
“If people refuse to look at you in a new light and they can only see you for what you were, only see you for the mistakes you've made, if they don't realize that you are not your mistakes, then they have to go.”― Steve Maraboli
“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”― Paulo Coelho
“I cut an inch off of every straw I see, just to make the world suck a little less.
”― Jarod Kintz
“Right now I want a word that describes the feeling that you get--a cold sick feeling, deep down inside--when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don't want it to, but you can't stop it. And you know, for the first time, for the very first time, that there will now be a before and an after, a was and a will be. And that you will never again quite be the same person you were.”― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light
“I was, but then I realized that I was holding on to something that didn't exist anymore. That the person I missed didn't exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And we can wish they couldn't all day long but that never works.”― Sarah Ockler, Fixing Delilah
“Sincere forgiveness isn't colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don't worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.” -Sara Paddison