To dare greatly in these times

You'll have to bear with me during these pre-election times. The USA is so polarized at present; I have not seen anything quite like it before in my lifetime. The Vietnam War is possibly the closest we've come to something like this, but it pales in comparison, because the poles now are just so extreme. Marriages and friendships are being severely tested and even destroyed by the prospect of a divisive man being given four more years to rule by the people. There is hatred on both sides for the other side--true hatred. There are threats of civil war, of DT not leaving the White House peacefully if he should lose. There are fears that his cult (as his followers are called) will rise up and become violent. What the hell happened to the USA I know and love? I am hoping that all of it is a lot of talk, but you can never be sure nowadays. But normal law-abiding people need to dare to take their country back, out of the hands of racists, white supremacists, and gun-toting militia men. They need to do that by using the intelligence and common sense they were given. That means righting the wrongs and re-establishing a balance that is sorely needed. It means plain hard talk--put away the guns, the rhetoric, the violence, the threat of violence, the aggression, and the stupidity. It means sitting down and working together to change society, because that is what our founding fathers would have wanted and had in mind when they drew up the Constitution. They did not want to be subject to a king any longer; and in 2020, we will not be served well as a country by ushering in an autocracy to solve the problems that exist. All countries have problems, but most are not choosing willingly to go down the path that the USA is taking.

Cicero's quote about Bread and Circuses

 

Quotes about stupidity

I'm posting some quotes about stupidity today, because the stupidity I see around me has really started to get to me. I don't understand how educated people can behave so stupidly in some instances, and I don't understand how some people won't use their God-given intelligence. They would rather follow a leader slavishly than use their brains and their conscience to figure out the right path for them to follow. They refuse to follow the words of Christ, yet will unthinkingly follow the words of men who are far from Christian. They don't see the hypocrisy of their situation. They don't acknowledge the lying, the self-deception, the polarization they see around them, created by the men (often quite stupid themselves) that they worship. The first and last quotes offer hope to those who want to deal with and get past the stupidity of others, and perhaps in oneself as well. 

·        The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty. --John Steinbeck

·        Stupidity really gets me going, when it's just plain stupid, obvious stupidity. --Lewis Black

·        Scientists will eventually stop flailing around with solar power and focus their efforts on harnessing the only truly unlimited source of energy on the planet: stupidity. I predict that in the future, scientists will learn how to convert stupidity into clean fuel. --Scott Adams

·        We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain looking inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet. --Stephen Hawking

·        There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. --Frank Zappa

·        Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe. --Frank Zappa

·        My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species. --Joni Mitchell

·        The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity. --Arthur Schopenhauer

·        The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. --Milan Kundera

·        The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois. --Gustave Flaubert

·        No sooner does man discover intelligence than he tries to involve it in his own stupidity. --Jacques Yves Cousteau

·        Alcohol gives you infinite patience for stupidity. --Sammy Davis, Jr.

·        That's how I was taught. That's how I was raised, to ignore the stupidity, continue on and do what I need to do. --Bubba Wallace

The importance of gardens and gardening

• The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. --George Bernard Shaw
• The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul. --Alfred Austin
• No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. --Thomas Jefferson
• Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization. --Daniel Webster
• Help us to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers. --May Sarton
• How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening. --Alexander Smith
• Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful,' and sitting in the shade. --Rudyard Kipling
• A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them. --Liberty Hyde Bailey
• To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. --William Blake
• Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get. --H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• A good garden may have some weeds. --Thomas Fuller
• A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows. --Doug Larson
• Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. --Luther Burbank
• Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. --May Sarton
• It's true that I have a wide range of interests. I like to write and paint and make music and go walking on my own and garden. In fact, gardening is probably what I enjoy doing more than anything else. --Viggo Mortensen
• God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures. --Francis Bacon
• We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough? --Wendell Berry
• When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited. --Ramakrishna

C.S. Lewis quotes

• You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
• We are what we believe we are.
• True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.
• Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don't implement promises, but keep them.
• You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.
• Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
• God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
• No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
• Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
• Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature.
• We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
• I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
• Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
• If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

The wisdom of Thomas Merton

I'm sharing some quotes by Thomas Merton, an American Trappist monk who spent a good portion of his life exploring world religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Jainism and Sufism. His wisdom is reflected in the quotes I have chosen to post today.

• A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.
• When ambition ends, happiness begins.
• Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul.
• Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.
• We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen.
• Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.
• We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.
• Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.
• We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness.
• The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.
• We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.
• In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for 'finding himself.' If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence.
• If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.
• To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.
• The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God's mercy to me.

Quotes about gratitude

• If the only prayer you said in your whole life was “thank you” that would suffice. --Meister Eckhart
• We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives. --John F. Kennedy
• Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals. If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more. --Roy T. Bennett
• True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. --Seneca
• The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not. --Seneca
• This a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before. --Maya Angelou
• When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed. --Maya Angelou
• A sense of blessedness comes from a change of heart, not from more blessings. --Mason Cooley
• May the work of your hands be a sign of gratitude and reverence to the human condition. --Mahatma Gandhi
• As long as this exists, this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad? --Anne Frank
• In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. --Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude. --G.K. Chesterton
• I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. --Gilbert K. Chesterton
• We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses. --Alphonse Karr
• I was complaining that I had no shoes till I met a man who had no feet. --Confucius 
• Ingratitude is the daughter of pride. --Miguel de Cervantes

Quotes about disappointment

A part of life--disappointment. How we handle it affects our relationships, successes, failures and future expectations. I have gotten better at handling disappointment. I have also learned to deal with people and situations that continually disappoint me. If I can never count on another person to be there for me, if I am continually disappointed by them, my heart and soul adjust and move on. It's not a question of forgiveness; forgiveness is always there. But I know that I cannot depend on certain people for stability, constancy, generosity of spirit, or help. Sometimes it is not their fault; other times it's simply that they do not know themselves well enough to know what the rest of us know--that they promise more than they can ever deliver. They have false views of themselves. I know that, and I lower my expectations with those people. Eventually however, those people end up consigned to the outer reaches of my heart. Perhaps that is not so surprising. But they remain in my heart because I hold onto the hope that one day they will 'see' the light. 

“Don’t let today’s disappointments cast a shadow on tomorrow’s dreams.”

― Unknown

“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”

― Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

― Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it.”

– Eliza Tabor

“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.”

― Robert Kiyosaki

“If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.”

– Henry David Thoreau

“Anytime you suffer a setback or disappointment, put your head down and plow ahead.”

― Les Brown

“Disenchantment, whether it is a minor disappointment or a major shock, is the signal that things are moving into transition in our lives.”

― William Throsby Bridges

“If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off.”

― Thomas Jefferson

 “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.”

― Jim Rohn

 “The principles of living greatly include the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and trial with humility.”

― Thomas S. Monson

“Enthusiasm is followed by disappointment and even depression, and then by renewed enthusiasm.”

― Murray Gell-Mann

Believing in something bigger than ourselves

This is Forbes magazine's quote for the day today:

"If you only think about your own advancement, your own success, you run out of fuel pretty quickly. But if we believe in something bigger than ourselves, that kind of motivation is self-sustaining".

Elaine Chao,
U.S. Secretary of Transportation


If we believe in something bigger than ourselves.....Our grandparents and great-grandparents and many in their generation looked at life in this way. In the present time, I am sure there are those who would proclaim loudly that they believe in something bigger than themselves--God, country and family. That's fine. It's just that for a good number of them, their belief is not generous, not expansive, not inclusive. For them, it's about excluding what they don't want in their lives and in their country. It's about xenophobia and hatred of the unknown. And they use God to back them up. Those are not the people who rebuilt Europe after WWII, and certainly not the people who built the USA into the great nation it is. But our country's image is tarnished. I'm not going into a discussion of why; I'll leave that to another blog post. Suffice it to say that it is generosity of spirit that made America a great country, not xenophobia and hatred. The latter have always existed, but great presidents like FDR made sure that a lid was kept on them. 'We have lost our way', as an elderly woman visiting FDR's home (Springwood) said to me and my friend Jean when we were visiting there. She would know; she experienced WWII and the horrors it brought.

The quote above is mostly applied to modern workplaces. But it can be applied to our daily lives as well. We need to get over ourselves; we are not an invincible nation, and we won't be at all if we continue down the path we are going. We need a leader who inspires us to greater things; one who takes the focus off himself, his family, his wealth, and his character weaknesses. We don't really need to constantly see and hear what's rotten under the surface; we know. We need a leader who rather espouses values that appeal to our minds and souls and hearts. If the talk is only about hatred and revenge, then our lives will only be about that. If the talk is about generosity of spirit, a will to communicate, and a will to consider others' life circumstances, then our lives will be about that. It is a simple equation that I learned early on (in a work setting): "Garbage in, garbage out". The natural extension is "Decency in, decency out". We need to believe in something outside ourselves, because at present, we're being filled up with garbage, and we need to find a way to empty ourselves of it before it is too late. The media too need to find a way to motivate and inspire themselves and us to be better people. We need to stop taking the hatred bait and to rather espouse, and continue to espouse, the importance of decency and respect. It's slow-going, but it will go a long way toward overcoming the current situation that has most decent people up in arms.

Quotes about silence

Silence is a source of great strength. --Lao Tzu

Silence is a true friend who never betrays. --Confucius

Silence is better than unmeaning words. --Pythagoras

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

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words. --Elbert Hubbard

Silence is true wisdom's best reply. --Euripides

Silence is argument carried out by other means. --Che Guevara

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. --Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly. --Epictetus

One of the greatest attacks of the enemy is to make you busy, to make you hurried, to make you noisy, to make you distracted, to fill the people of God and the Church of God with so much noise and activity that there is no room for prayer. There is no room for being alone with God. There is no room for silence. There is no room for meditation. --Paul Washer

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom. --Francis Bacon

Everything that's created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness. --Wayne Dyer

Liars hate silence, so they often try to fill it up by talking more than they need to. They provide far more information than was needed or asked for. --Travis Bradberry

I am rather inclined to silence. --Abraham Lincoln

Reflections on Sun Tzu's insightful quote about knowing yourself and your enemy

A fan of my book Blindsided--Recognizing and Dealing with Passive-Aggressive Leadership in the Workplace sent me this Sun Tzu quote that he thought I would appreciate, and I do.

"Know yourself and know your enemy.
You will be safe in every battle.
You may know yourself but not know the enemy.
You will then lose one battle for every one you win.
You may not know yourself or the enemy.
You will then lose every battle".

It is one of those little nuggets of wisdom that resonate and stay with you (I am reminded of Randall Terry's quote "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"). We are required to learn from our mistakes in this life and to protect ourselves by knowing ourselves. But we must also know our enemies if we are to protect ourselves in battle. In this context I am reminded of the quote "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer", often attributed to Sun Tzu, Niccolò Machiavelli or Petrarch. It sounds like something Sun Tzu would say, especially in connection with the above-mentioned quote.

I am learning to keep calm in the face of danger, in the face of those who would wish to knock me down and to prevent me from achieving my goals. I am learning to strategize and to maneuver my way around them at work. They will not stop me any longer. They did earlier, at a time when I respected their viewpoints or took advice from them. But I was not treated well by some of these people, a few of whom sat in leadership positions. I now understand the tactics others use to prevent you from making headway, to defeat you, to disorient you, to demotivate you, and to destroy you. They no longer work on me. Firstly, I am no longer fooled into thinking that all people wish me well. They don't. They may smile and appear friendly, but I have learned to identify the snakes. Secondly, I know myself so much better now; I know my limitations, but I also know that I have a steely resolve that manifests itself as a protective wall. You will meet that wall at some point if you try to stop me from achieving a well thought-out goal. I will look right at you and right through you while you are talking, and it may appear as though I am listening intently to you, but my mind is miles away from what you are saying. Those are the tactics that work for me now. Once you have learned to know the snakes and how they behave, you appreciate your true friends so much more. They are the ones who have your back, who are there for you, who care about you, and who love you. Never confuse work life with personal life; never assume that colleagues are like close friends. Some of them may become good friends, and that is a good thing, but some may not and one should not expect that. One must watch out for those colleagues who are overtly negative or demotivating when they converse with you. One must curtail the egotists who only want to talk about themselves, or who only come into your office to complain; they are the ones who have no time for you when you need advice or help from them. One must also watch out for the gossipers and the time-wasters, as well as the procrastinators (I could write an entire post about procrastinators, and I will very shortly). Their motivations are questionable. They may be leaders or peers; it doesn't matter. They must not be allowed to lead you astray, to push you off course, to demotivate you, to destroy you. Your task in this life is to know yourself and to know them well enough to prevent them from doing that.  

Some inspiring Easter quotes

Easter is meant to be a symbol of hope, renewal, and new life. --Janine di Giovanni

Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. --Pope John Paul II

A rebirth out of spiritual adversity causes us to become new creatures. --James E. Faust

Easter is very important to me, it's a second chance. --Reba McEntire

The symbolic language of the crucifixion is the death of the old paradigm; resurrection is a leap into a whole new way of thinking. --Deepak Chopra

I think we need to do some deep soul searching about what's important in our lives and renew our spirit and our spiritual thinking, whether it's through faith-based religion or just through loving nature or helping your fellow man. --Louie Schwartzberg

Let every man and woman count himself immortal. Let him catch the revelation of Jesus in his resurrection. Let him say not merely, 'Christ is risen,' but 'I shall rise.' --Phillips Brooks

God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything. --Bede Griffiths

Remember Jesus of Nazareth, staggering on broken feet out of the tomb toward the Resurrection, bearing on his body the proud insignia of the defeat which is victory, the magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God. --Frederick Buechner

If anyone or anything tries to curse or kill the Goodness at the Center of all things, it will just keep coming back to life. Forever Easter.” --David Housholder

It would behoove us to remember that the life we live involves the death of something so that it can become the birth of something. --Craig D Lounsbrough

Some good quotes from Phyllis Theroux

I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation.

Mistakes are the usual bridge between inexperience and wisdom.

An enlightened person raises the level of the consciousness of the entire community.

Children are born with imaginations in mint condition, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Then life corrects for grandiosity.

Falling silent should be cultivated, the way the woods fall silent in the snow. Messages you can’t send any other way can be heard.

Every house has its own private cup of sorrow. 

Writing is a deeply spiritual act that can have a profound effect upon the practitioner.

Writing is not only a reflection of what one thinks and feels but a rope one weaves with words that can lower you below or hoist you above the surface of your life, enabling you to go deeper or higher than you would otherwise go. What excites me about his metaphor is that is makes writing much more than a lifesaving venture.

There were times, in the beginning, when I used my journal as a wailing wall, but I learned not to immortalize the darkness. Rereading it was counterproductive. What I needed was a place in which to collect the light.

Everything we are given or learn or possess in any real sense - - the ability to play Beethoven sonata, write books, understand the principles of physics – is intended for one thing: to draw us closer to our selves.

To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart.

The wisdom of Ray Bradbury

I saw this on Twitter today and wanted to share it with you. It is so often true. Our minds, with all the worries, anxieties and compulsions, gets in the way of writing. We get in our own way; we block ourselves from being effective and productive. I am no exception. The happiest times I know as a writer are when I am writing unreservedly, letting the words flow out of me. I can go back and edit them later. The point is to get what I want to express, written down, so that the thoughts are not lost forever.

Overwhelming the world

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” ― Desmond Tutu

As 2017 draws to a close, I am glad that I saw this little quote today--a reminder that whatever good we do, no matter how small, really does count. As I get older, I understand this more and more. It's not about the big gestures, but rather about the little ones. A small donation to a charity organization, or giving money (or food) to the beggars on the street, volunteering where your help might be needed, sending a card or letter to someone who is sick and/or immobile, a phone call to someone who might be lonely or depressed--the list is endless. I know that the small good things matter, because when I have done them, the reaction from the recipients is incredible. You would think that you had given them a million dollars. And that reaction is their gift to us. I have looked into the eyes of two homeless men on the street this month, after I had given them money. I saw gratitude, yes, but I saw their souls too; I saw that they were not so different from me. They just have less material things in this world. But they have the same desires and dreams as I do--to love and be loved, to be happy, to be remembered, to be acknowledged.

And that is my wish in this Christmas season--that if we have joy, love, and blessings in abundance, that we share those things with those who are less fortunate. I have talked to so many friends and colleagues during the past month, and we all say the same thing. We are fortunate, we have more than enough to live, to make us happy. We are blessed. And those blessings impart a certain power that we can tap into. We have the power to change lives, to make others feel loved and happy. We can start with the small things, because in the end, it is the small gestures that most people really do remember--the gift of your presence, your attention, your caring--taking the time to really 'see' others for who they are. It's about acknowledging and respecting others.

Wishing you all a blessed Christmas season and a healthy and happy new year. May God grant you peace and many blessings.

Some wonderful quotes about gardens

I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation.

--Phyllis Theroux

The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives.

--Gertrude Jekyll

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

--Marcus Tullius Cicero

To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.

--William Blake

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.

--Alfred Austin

A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.

--Liberty Hyde Bailey

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.

--A. A. Milne

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

A weed is but an unloved flower.

--Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.

--Georges Bernanos

A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.

--Gertrude Jekyll

Use plants to bring life.

--Douglas Wilson

Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.

--Alfred Austin

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

--George Bernard Shaw

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

--Thomas Jefferson

A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy.

--Luis Barragan

When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited.

--Ramakrishna

There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.

--Alfred Austin

Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.

--William Cowper

Weather means more when you have a garden. There's nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.

--Marcelene Cox

Zig Ziglar--quotes from a smart man

• What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
• The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.
• With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. With integrity, you will do the right thing, so you will have no guilt.
• If people like you, they'll listen to you, but if they trust you, they'll do business with you.
• Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
• When you catch a glimpse of your potential, that's when passion is born.
• Positive thinking will let you use the ability which you have, and that is awesome.
• When you encourage others, you in the process are encouraged because you're making a commitment and difference in that person's life. Encouragement really does make a difference.
• He climbs highest who helps another up.
• The person who dumps garbage into your mind will do you considerably more harm than the person who dumps garbage on your floor, because each load of mind garbage negatively impacts your possibilities and lowers your expectations.
• Try to look at your weakness and convert it into your strength. That's success.
• If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost.
• Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful.
• You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.
• If you want to reach a goal, you must 'see the reaching' in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.
• Be grateful for what you have and stop complaining - it bores everybody else, does you no good, and doesn't solve any problems.
• Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.
• People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.
• You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.
• Outstanding people have one thing in common: An absolute sense of mission.

What May Sarton said

So many of her reflections resonate with me..............


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“Without darkness, nothing comes to birth, As without light, nothing flowers.”

"Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way.....To go with, not against the elements, an inexhaustible vitality summoned back each day to do the same tasks, to feed the animals, clean out barns and pens, keep that complex world alive."

“The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.”

“I can tell you that solitude
Is not all exaltation, inner space
Where the soul breathes and work can be done.
Solitude exposes the nerve,
Raises up ghosts.
The past, never at rest, flows through it.”

“There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.”

“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.”

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”

“A house that does not have one worn, comfy chair in it is soulless.”

“The moral dilemma is to make peace with the unacceptable.”

“It is harder for women, perhaps to be 'one-pointed,' much harder for them to clear space around whatever it is they want to do beyond household chores and family life. Their lives are fragmented... the cry not so much for a 'a room of one's own' as time of one's own. Conflict become acute, whatever it may be about, when there is no margin left on any day in which to try at least to resolve it.”

“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.”

“Most people have to talk so they won't hear.”

Quotes about friendship

These are for my friends whom I hold close to my heart......I am blessed to know you. You light up my life and I could not imagine my life without you in it.

• Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.   --Marcel Proust
• A friend is what the heart needs all the time.   --Henry Van Dyke
• A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.   --Walter Winchell
• The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.   --Hubert H. Humphrey
• 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
• There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.   --Thomas Aquinas
• A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.   --Leo Buscaglia
• True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.   --Charles Caleb Colton
• True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island... to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.   --Baltasar Gracian
• There are no strangers here; only friends you haven't yet met.   --William Butler Yeats
• A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.   --Jim Morrison
• Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.  –Helen Keller

Give the world the best you have--Mother Teresa

I saw this wonderful advice today and wanted to share it. I've seen it before and you probably have as well. But somehow it struck me today that we need this advice more than ever, especially when it seems as though society is spiraling out of control. When things seem bleak, when it seems as though there is no meaning in what we do, this will help us to remember what it really is all about. Today is all we have, and the only thing we can offer the world is ourselves and our good deeds. It is not about being remembered for them, only about doing them and perhaps knowing that we helped to make another person's day.

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

–Mother Teresa