- Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.
- Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.
- There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.
- Luck is believing you're lucky.
- Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it... Success is shy - it won't come out while you're watching.
- Time is the longest distance between two places.
- The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that's true of everyone, don't you?
- Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle, you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.
- All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.
- Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.
- To be free is to have achieved your life.
- You can be young without money but you can't be old without it.
- All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.
- Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.
- Don't look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you'll know you're dead.
- When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing.
- I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.
Showing posts with label Famous quotations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Famous quotations. Show all posts
Friday, June 17, 2016
What Tennessee Williams said
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
"The world is violent and mercurial....."
I don't think it can be said better than this. Tennessee Williams, the great playwright, wrote these words. This is our reality.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
The wisdom of Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver intrigues me with her simple wisdom that goes right to the heart of things. She writes about the things that matter in life. There is no way that you can read her words without being affected by them, without some part of you knowing that you've been touched by the truth. And having been touched by the truth, that you know that you must abide by it. Here are some of her words of wisdom in the form of quotes and poems........
·
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious
life?
·
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of
darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.
·
Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
·
Listen--are you breathing just a little, and
calling it a life?
• To pay attention, this is our endless and proper
work.
·
Keep some room in your heart for the
unimaginable.
·
The most regretful people on earth are those who
felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and
uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.
·
You can have the other words-chance, luck,
coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but
I'll take it.
·
Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of
facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
·
to live in this world
you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let
it go,
to let it go
·
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to
amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking
the world into my arms.
When it is over, I don't want
to wonder
if I have made of my life
something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself
sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply
having visited this world.
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Thanksgiving quotes
Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much
will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as
from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.
--Theodore Roosevelt
Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.
--Aesop
All that we behold is full of blessings.
--William Wordsworth
Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings,
turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.
--William Arthur Ward
If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.
--W. Clement Stone
Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more.
If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.
--Oprah Winfrey
I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is
perpetual.
--Henry David Thoreau
For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dear Lord; we beg but one boon more:
Peace in the hearts of all men living,
Peace in the whole world this Thanksgiving.
--Joseph Auslander
God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a
meek and thankful heart.
--Izaak Walton
Forever on Thanksgiving Day
The heart will find the pathway home.
--Wilbur D. Nesbit
Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
--Native American Saying
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Some of Ray Bradbury's reflections about life
The National Endowment for the Arts posted these quotes by Ray Bradbury on their blog the other day (25 September 2015). I thought the quotes were very good, and wanted to share them with you. Here they are reprinted from their blog http://arts.gov/art-works/2015/our-top-ten-ray-bradbury-quotes.
----------------------------------------------------
Stuff your eyes with
wonder,’ he said, ‘live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world.
It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.
We are cups, constantly
and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and
let the beautiful stuff out.
Don't think. Thinking is
the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is
lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.
We are an impossibility
in an impossible universe.
I spent three days a week
for ten years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than
college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education
for no money. At the end of ten years, I had read every book in the library and
I'd written a thousand stories.
There are worse crimes
than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
I'm never going to go to
Mars, but I've helped inspire, thank goodness, the people who built the rockets
and sent our photographic equipment off to Mars.
Don’t worry about things.
Don’t push. Just do your work and you’ll survive. The important thing is to
have a ball, to be joyful, to be loving and to be explosive. Out of that comes
everything and you grow.
I don’t believe in being
serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously.
You've been put on
the world to love the act of being alive.
--------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Quotes about dealing with difficult people and situations
Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing
with the darknesses of other people.
Carl Jung
When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing
with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion. Dale Carnegie
Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned.
They're only powerful when you got your back turned. Eminem
A simple rule in dealing with those who are hard to get
along with is to remember that this person is striving to assert his
superiority; and you must deal with him from that point of view. Alfred Adler
One of the most important things, especially when you're
leaving school, is to realize you're going to be dealing with a lot of idiots.
And a lot of those idiots are in charge of things, so if you're in an interview
and you really want to tell the person off, don't do it. Lewis Black
I have a respect for manners as such, they are a way of
dealing with people you don't agree with or like. Margaret Mead
My recipe for dealing with anger and frustration: set the
kitchen timer for twenty minutes, cry, rant, and rave, and at the sound of the
bell, simmer down and go about business as usual. Phyllis Diller
When we label anyone 'bad', we will have more trouble
dealing with him than if we could have settled for a lesser label. William Glasser
That's what a god is. Somebody who knows more than you do
about whatever you're dealing with.
Terence McKenna
You should be able to voice your opinion and respect the
voice of the other side. You should be willing to educate yourself and know what
it is you're dealing with. Steve
Nash
Adult life is dealing with an enormous amount of
questions that don't have answers. So I let the mystery settle into my music. I
don't deny anything, I don't advocate anything, I just live with it.
Bruce Springsteen
Good leaders need a positive agenda, not just an agenda
of dealing with crisis. Michael Porter
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
CS Lewis and A Grief Observed
CS Lewis wrote A Grief
Observed after the death of his wife, the American poet and writer Helen Joy
Davidman. It is a book that is well worth reading. He offers his personal
insights into the mystery that is grief, what it did to him and how it made him
feel and act. Some of what he says resonates with me, like when he talks about how
difficult it is to focus or to start anything. Or running on autopilot at work.
Lewis became impatient with people who said that death doesn’t matter
or that there is no death. But I am not impatient with people who say that to
me, because I know that they are just trying to do and say the right thing, and
it isn’t really possible to do that. There is no one right thing to say to
someone who has lost a loved one. It is not easy to talk about death or to deal
with it in our society. I appreciate their caring and the thoughts involved.
Here are some excerpts from his book, A Grief Observed:
- We cannot understand. The best is perhaps what we understand least.
- Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.
- It is hard to have patience with people who say, ‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn’t matter.
- I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process.
- For in grief nothing 'stays put.' One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?
- Feelings, and feelings, and feelings. Let me try thinking instead.
- Do I hope that if feeling disguises itself as thought I shall feel less?
- Grief ... gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn't seem worth starting anything. I can't settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness.
- No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.
- And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief. Except at my job--where the machine seems to run on much as usual--I loath the slightest effort. Not only writing but even reading a letter is too much.
- At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in……
- Aren't all these notes the senseless writings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Quotes about loyalty
Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in
every walk of life.
--Napoleon Hill
Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning
from failure, loyalty, and persistence.
--Colin Powell
Honor your commitments with integrity.
--Les Brown
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your
strength lies.
--Mother Teresa
I married an archaeologist because the older I grow, the
more he appreciates me.
--Dame Agatha Christie
Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do
not tell.
--Emily Dickinson
Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie: a fault which needs
it most, grows two thereby.
--George Herbert
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government
when it deserves it.
--Mark Twain
Patriotism is just loyalty to friends, people, families.
--Robert Santos
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
--Thomas Paine
Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down.
Respect for one’s superiors; care for one’s crew.
--Grace Murray Hopper
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how
we finally die.
--Maya Angelou
Friday, December 5, 2014
What Eckhart Tolle said
A man of wisdom--Eckhart Tolle, as revealed by the following.........
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
Whatever
you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.
The primary cause of unhappiness is never the
situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are
thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as
it is.
Death is a stripping away of all that is not
you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" --- and find that
there is no death.
Some
changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is
being created in your life for something new to emerge.
Acknowledging
the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.
Being
spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with
your state of consciousness.
Life will give you whatever experience is most
helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the
experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the
moment.
You do not
become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already
within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if
something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.
Sometimes letting things go is an act of far
greater power than defending or hanging on.
Realize deeply that the present moment is all
you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.
Whatever
the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.
The past
has no power over the present moment.
You can
only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.
Anything that you resent and strongly react to
in another is also in you.
All true artists, whether they know it or not,
create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Quotes about birthdays
Today I thought I'd share with you some good quotes having to do with birthdays, since today is my birthday and I was in the mood for some wisdom from the minds and hearts of others...........
--------------------------------------------
Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you! --Dr. Seuss
--------------------------------------------
Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you! --Dr. Seuss
God gave us
the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well. –Voltaire
It takes a
long time to become young. --Pablo
Picasso
I think, at
a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the
most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity. --Eleanor Roosevelt
Don't just
count your years, make your years count.
--George Meredith
My life is
better with every year of living it. --Rachel
Maddow
Let
gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And
let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good. --Maya Angelou
With mirth
and laughter let old wrinkles come. --William
Shakespeare
A birthday
is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun. Enjoy the
trip. --author unknown
Just
remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed. --Charles Schulz
They're not
gray hairs. They're wisdom highlights.
--author unknown
You're not
40, you're eighteen with 22 years experience.
--author unknown
A diplomat
is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her
age. --Robert Frost
The secret
of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. --Lucille Ball
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Quotes about Thanksgiving
Best wishes for a very Happy Thanksgiving! There is much to be grateful for--family, good friends, a roof over our heads, a job, and life itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
There is
one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American. -- O. Henry
Let us be
grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who
make our souls blossom. ---Marcel Proust
To give
thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go.
Your prayer knows much more about it than you do. ---Victor Hugo
Be thankful
for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you
don't have, you will never, ever have enough. ---Oprah Winfrey
Gratitude
is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. --- Marcus
Tullius Cicero
Cultivate
the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give
thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your
advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude. ---Ralph Waldo Emerson
I would
maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is
happiness doubled by wonder. ---G.K.
Chesterton
When I
started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. -- Willie Nelson
Reflect
upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past
misfortunes, of which all men have some. -- Charles Dickens
I give
thanks to my Creator for this wonderful life where each of us has the
opportunity to learn lessons we could not fully comprehend by any other means.
-- Joseph B. Wirthlin
God is glorified,
not by our groans, but by our thanksgivings. -- Edwin Percy Whipple
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Quotes about Forgotten
·
“Write
what should not be forgotten.”
― Isabel Allende
― Isabel Allende
·
“I
left the library. Crossing the street, I was hit head-on by a brutal
loneliness. I felt dark and hollow. Abandoned, unnoticed, forgotten, I stood on
the sidewalk, a nothing, a gatherer of dust. People hurried past me. And
everyone who walked by was happier than I. I felt the old envy. I would have
given anything to be one of them.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
·
“When
do you think people die? When they are shot through the heart by the bullet of
a pistol? No. When they are ravaged by an incurable disease? No. When they
drink a soup made from a poisonous mushroom!? No! It’s when… they are
forgotten.
Dr. Hiriluk (One Piece)” ― Eiichiro Oda
Dr. Hiriluk (One Piece)” ― Eiichiro Oda
·
“She
existed in her friends; there she was. All the parts of herself she'd
forgotten. She knew herself best when she was with them.”
― Ann Brashares, Sisterhood Everlasting
― Ann Brashares, Sisterhood Everlasting
·
“And
none will hear the postman’s knock
Without a quickening of the heart.
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?”
― W.H. Auden
Without a quickening of the heart.
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?”
― W.H. Auden
·
“But
that was New Orleans for you. The old didn’t die here. They were just
forgotten.”
― Amanda Stevens, The Dollmaker
― Amanda Stevens, The Dollmaker
·
“No
matter what happens, I don’t think that anyone will remember me when I
disappear. It will be like I was never here. There will be no proof that I ever
existed … you can’t be sad if you disappear, because disappeared people can’t
feel sad. They can only be remembered or forgotten.”
― Matthew Green, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend
― Matthew Green, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend
·
“Be
bold in life. Seize the moment. There is no surrender, no retreat. There is
only conquer or be conquered, victory or defeat. Anything less is to be
forgotten to history.”
― Jeffrey Fry
― Jeffrey Fry
----------------------------------------------------------------
Thinking about situations and times in life when people feel forgotten by others--old age, sickness, personal crises. All those times when people might feel completely alone, left on their own, pushed aside or slighted. I remember my mother saying that in old age, she felt invisible. Ignored and forgotten by the world. It hurt to hear her say that, because many older people I know have said the same thing to me. And most of them didn't and don't take kindly to being treated that way. But it happened all the same. So it's something to think about.......
Saturday, July 12, 2014
What Georges Bernanos said
Faith is
not a thing which one 'loses,' we merely cease to shape our lives by it.
Hope is
a risk that must be run.
It's a
fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so.
No one
ever discovers the depths of his own loneliness.
The wish
to pray is a prayer in itself. God can ask no more than that of us.
Hell,
madam, is to love no longer.
It is
the perpetual dread of fear, the fear of fear, that shapes the face of a brave
man.
Truth is
meant to save you first, and the comfort comes afterward.
Little
things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which
individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.
The
first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end
justifies the means.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Georges
Bernanos wrote a wonderful book, Diary of
a Country Priest, that I read many years ago, but stumbled upon again
recently. First published in 1937, it is the story of an unassuming parish
priest, who tries his best to serve his people. His trials and tribulations,
his poor health and his feelings of inferiority are really what the novel is
about—how he tries to be a good and humble priest, a good man and a good
Catholic. Well worth reading.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Reflections on and some quotes about cynicism
It might be
my imagination, but it seems that there is a lot more cynicism in society now
than ever before. How is cynicism defined? The online dictionary defines it as ‘an
attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the
integrity or professed motives of others’. Another definition is ‘the beliefs
of a cynic, a person who believes all people are motivated by selfishness or
whose outlook is scornfully and often habitually negative’. It manifests itself
in the snappy retorts I often get when I comment (infrequently) about some good
thing that a politician or a large company has said or done—for example, comments like 'so-and-so is an idiot and a jerk', or 'that company is corrupt and worthless'. For
example, in today’s news, it was reported that Starbucks will pay for its
employees to get an online college degree at Arizona State University. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/15/starbucks-online-college-arizona-state_n_5497622.html).
There are no strings attached—employees can work at Starbucks, study whatever
they like, and are free to leave the company when they have achieved their goal.
If you ask me, this is a positive gesture on the part of a large corporation
that has a lot of money, one that looks ahead and has understood that the
middle class is having a difficult time paying for college education and making
ends meet. They are trying to meet the needs of the future. I read the newspaper
article about this and then the reader comments that accompanied it. At least half
of the comments were blatantly cynical. It struck me that it is nearly impossible
to be taken seriously these days, whether you are an individual or a large
company interested in trying to do the right thing. You will meet the cynics,
the negative people, and the attackers—no matter what good thing you do or try
to do. I say, do it anyway and let
the cynics and all the other negative people wallow in the mud of their
negativity. It will not do any of us any good to become like them. Each time we
respond cynically to a particular event, we undo ourselves; we dismantle our
own belief systems. We essentially say that there is no reason to believe in
anyone or to believe that anything good ever happens in the world, that there is no
altruism, and that all people have ulterior motives and are ultimately selfish. In other words, there is no such thing as a good deed.
I’m not
advocating naivete, ignorance or stupidity about what goes on in the world. There
are enough societal problems to solve that will keep us busy for many years to
come. But I am an advocate of accepting the goodness in others when they do a good
deed and of taking things at face value if someone does you a good turn. I’m an
advocate of kindness, civility, and respect toward oneself and others. If we
respond cynically to everything around us, we disrespect and destroy ourselves
and others, we disrespect and destroy our relationships, and ultimately we disrespect
and destroy the societies we live in. Cynicism negates gratitude; in a cynic’s
world, there is no need for gratitude, because there is nothing to really be
grateful for. Living in a world full of cynics is about the closest thing to
hell on earth that I can imagine.
Here are
some quotes about cynicism:
- A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing. ― Oscar Wilde
- Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist. ― George Carlin
- Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes'.― Stephen Colbert
- Life is not an easy matter…. You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness. ― Leon Trotsky, Trotsky's Diary in Exile, 1935
- Cynicism was a one-way path, and once taken the way back was lost forever. ― Chris Wooding, Poison
- Cynicism is when a small mind and a hurt heart reject the hope, love, and truth of a big and caring God.― Jayce O'Neal
- I fight cynicism. It`s too easy. It`s really boring. It`s much harder to be positive and see the wonder of everything. Cynicism is a bunch of people who aren`t as talented as other people, knocking them because they make them feel even more untalented. ― Ewan McGregor
- To be cynical is to be distant. While offering a false intimacy of being "in the know," cynicism actually destroys intimacy. It leads to a creeping bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit...A praying life is just the opposite. …..Prayer is feisty. Cynicism, on the other hand, merely critiques. It is passive, cocooning itself from the passions of the great cosmic battle we are engaged in. It is without hope. ― Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
Monday, June 2, 2014
Quotes about Life
You've
gotta dance like there's nobody watching, love like you'll never be hurt, sing
like there's nobody listening, and live like it's heaven on earth.
―
William W. Purkey
To live
is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
― Oscar
Wilde
There
are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The
other is as though everything is a miracle.
― Albert
Einstein
Life is
like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.
― Albert
Einstein
Life is
what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
― Allen
Saunders
Life
isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
― George
Bernard Shaw
Finish
each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and
absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a
new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered
with your old nonsense.
― Ralph
Waldo Emerson
The fear
of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to
die at any time.
― Mark
Twain
If you
don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there.
― George
Harrison
You cannot
find peace by avoiding life.
―
Virginia Woolf
Get busy
living or get busy dying.
―
Stephen King, Different Seasons
Life can
only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
― Søren
Kierkegaard
It isn't
what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes
you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.
― Dale
Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Quotes about Guests
If it
were not for guests all houses would be graves. --Khalil Gibran
You must
come home with me and be my guest; You will give joy to me, and I will do All
that is in my power to honour you. -- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Every
house where love abides And friendship is a guest, Is surely home, and home,
sweet home For there the heart can rest. --Henry van Dyke
Visitor's
footfalls are like medicine; they heal the sick. --African Proverb
The
ornaments of your home are the people who smile upon entering time and time
again. --Maralee McKee
Any
celebration meal to which guests are invited, be they family or friends, should
be an occasion for generous hospitality.
--Julian Baggini
If you
are a host to your guest, be a host to his dog also. --Russian Proverb
The
magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers
like guests and employees like people.
--Tom Peters
Few
enjoy noisy overcrowded functions. But they are a gesture of goodwill on the
part of host or hostess, and also on the part of guests who submit to them. --Fannie Hurst
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Quotes about Light and Darkness
A Happy Easter to you all!
- I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. ― Jesus Christ
- The true contemplative is not one who prepares his mind for a particular message that he wants or expects to hear, but is one who remains empty because he knows that he can never expect to anticipate the words that will transform his darkness into light. He does not even anticipate a special kind of transformation. He does not demand light instead of darkness. He waits on the Word of God in silence, and, when he is answered it is not so much by a word that bursts into his silence. It is by his silence itself, suddenly, inexplicably revealing itself to him as a word of great power, full of the voice of God. ― Thomas Merton
- It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. ― Peter Benenson
- Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness. ― Anne Frank
- When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow. ― Ursula K. Le Guin
- How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world. ― William Shakespeare
- It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. ― Arthur Conan Doyle
- Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. ― Martin Luther King Jr.
- We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are. ― J.K. Rowling
- Fear can only grow in darkness. Once you face fear with light, you win. ― Steve Maraboli
- Love is not consolation. It is light. ― Simone Weil
- Light, Light, The visible reminder of Invisible Light. ― T.S. Eliot
- You have to find what sparks a light in you so that you in your own way can illuminate the world. ― Oprah Winfrey
- Most of us are imprisoned by something. We're living in darkness until something flips on the switch. ― Wynonna Judd
- But hope is no less realistic than despair. It is still our choice whether to live in light or lie down in darkness. ― Rick Yancey
- Love is a weapon of Light, and it has the power to eradicate all forms of darkness. That is the key. When we offer love even to our enemies, we destroy their darkness and hatred... ― Yehuda Berg
- Anxiously you ask, 'Is there a way to safety? Can someone guide me? Is there an escape from threatened destruction?' The answer is a resounding yes! I counsel you: Look to the lighthouse of the Lord. There is no fog so dense, no night so dark, no gale so strong, no mariner so lost but what its beacon light can rescue. It beckons through the storms of life. It calls, 'This way to safety; this way to home. ― Thomas S. Monson
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Quotes about friendship
One of
the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be
understood.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Let us
be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who
make our souls blossom.
--Marcel Proust
The
friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can
stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not
knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares.
--Henri
Nouwen
In
everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into
flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for
those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
--Albert
Schweitzer
I cannot
even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who
have given me a heart full of joy. Let's face it, friends make life a lot more
fun.
--Charles
R. Swindoll
So long
as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that
life is good.
--Helen
Keller
A true
friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else.
--Len
Wein
Each
friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is
only by this meeting that a new world is born.
--Anais
Nin
There is
nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
--Thomas
Aquinas
Sometimes
being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence.
A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny.
And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.
--Octavia
Butler
Friends...
they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.
--Henry
David Thoreau
A real
friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.
--Walter
Winchell
You can
always tell a real friend: when you've made a fool of yourself he doesn't feel
you've done a permanent job.
--Laurence
J. Peter
Nothing
but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend.
--Plautus
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Letting go and finding peace
Ego says,
"Once everything falls into place, I'll feel peace." Spirit says,
"Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place."
(Marianne Williamson)
I came
across this quote the other day, and it resonated with me, especially now after
many years of struggling to make work-related issues fall into place. Sometimes
they did, other times I hit the wall or fumbled the ball and had to come up
with new strategies. I kept thinking that once work issues were solved, I’d be
in a better place psychologically and then I could find peace of mind. I discovered that it didn’t work that way for me. Things didn't 'fall into place' (work out as I wanted) no matter how hard I tried to make them do so, and I had to learn a new way of being. Additionally, the idea that we can make things fall into place by exerting control over situations or people is an illusion
that is sold to us as sound advice over and over, in advice columns, self-help
books, via well-meaning colleagues and friends. We're often told that 'we choose our lives or the situations that happen to us'. That may be true at times, but it is not an absolute. People want the best for us--I
do believe that, at least the people who care about us. They mean well. But their
words cannot guarantee a desired outcome any more than can our attempts to control
that desired outcome. Things in life don’t
always fall into place; we can't mold life to suit our desires. We don’t always get what we want, when we want
it or how we want it, but we have to live
our lives anyway, dealing with the jumble of stressful feelings that the struggle
for control and order create in us.
Although we can hope that things will fall into
place, we cannot make them fall
into place. I think another way of saying this is ‘let go and let God’. In all
instances, the realization that we can have peace of mind without striving for full
control and order, is freeing and peaceful in and of itself. During the past
few years, I have rediscovered the joys of just being—something I was more in
tune with when I was a teenager--not always having something to do or
somewhere to be. When I am out walking in nature, I am with nature, looking and listening to the birds, watching the
clouds go by, enjoying the warm sunshine in the midst of winter. I don’t want
to be connected to social media; I don’t even need conversation sometimes. I
just want to be. I think that is
peace of soul and mind. When I find myself wondering or worrying about how situations are going to
turn out and what my role in them might be, I tell myself to let go and to take
a step back, so that I can view the situation from afar. It helps me maintain
perspective. Perspective helps me maintain objectivity, something that gets
lost when I get too involved in worrying about or trying to force the outcome
of a situation. Perspective gives me peace, and the odd thing is that when I feel
peaceful, I am much less concerned with the outcome of a particular situation,
perhaps because I realize that I do not have complete control over anything. There
is too much to obsess over in modern society, too much to chase, too many
goals, too many material things to distract us and
destroy peace, and too many interruptions. There is too little time for reflection, stillness and solitude. I want peace more now than I want any of the other things. At
this point in my life, peace is worth gold.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Giving someone your word
Always do what you say you are going to do. It is the glue
and fiber that binds successful relationships. - Jeffrey Timmons
This is something that I’ve lived by for a good part of my
life. It’s one of the major reasons that I make very few promises to people I
care about, because I care immensely about honoring the few promises I do make.
I rarely say to those I love—‘I promise you this or that……..’ without
delivering on it. I won’t promise anything if I know I cannot deliver from the
get-go (barring of course sickness or natural disasters that might prevent me
from doing so). The few times in my life when I’ve had to break a promise to
someone has left me feeling upset, disloyal and generally bad. It doesn’t take
much to make me feel like a schmuck, especially where relationships and hearts
are concerned.
Our word is all we have. When we say to someone, ‘I give you
my word’, it implies a promise. Promises are
not relative statements. I don’t care very much about what the world thinks
in that regard. The world has become a supremely relative place to live in.
What is relevant today may not be relevant next week, let alone next year. I
bring this up today because so much of life, including work life, has become so
relative. How many times at work have I been told that ‘the past is no longer
relevant’, or ‘that was THE PAST’, as
though the past has no bearing whatsoever
on the present environment or discussion. But it most certainly does, it’s just
that the current constellation of leaders chooses to ignore that fact. Bitter
workplace rivalries from twenty years ago help to shape the current ‘stellar’
constellations and political atmospheres in many workplaces, so of course the
past is relevant for the present. It’s idiocy to think otherwise.
How far back must we go before a certain period of time can
be considered the past? Whose definition of the past is relevant?
In my workplace, the past can be two years ago or even one year ago. Imagine
living in a marriage/relationship that was governed by the same principles;
that what was said to a spouse or loved one two years ago is no longer relevant
in the present, it no longer matters. If we gave our loved ones our word in the
past that such and such will occur, we are bound by our word to honor that
promise. I don’t have a problem with the promise evolving or taking on new
aspects, but the promise itself is to
be honored. That for me is the essence of a caring and respectful relationship--a
successful relationship--be it marriage or friendship.
The problem with the idea that everything is relative and that you can go back on
your word is that loyalty, commitment and stability become less important over
time. The image that comes to mind is that of a boat in roiling waters, always
having to deal with instability and uncertainty. If we cannot trust the people
in our personal lives to honor their promises, then we can most certainly not
trust the people in our work lives to do so. If you never get to peaceful
waters on those fronts, if you can never relax in a relationship, if you can
never achieve a level of trust, be it personal or work-related, you are the
boat that is continually buffeted by the waves. The waves will upset the boat
and down it after a while, or the engine will give out. That is the result of an
‘everything is relative’ way of thinking.
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