Resolution

"Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise and thou art happy."
Akhenaton

The Silver Lining

"Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold."

Maurice Setter

The Light of Unity

"So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth."

Bahá'u'lláh

Reach for the Stars

"Reach for the stars, even if you have to stand on a cactus."

Susan Longacre

Unhappiness

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations. 

Edward de Bono, Observer, 12 June 1977

Sing a Song

Those who wish to sing, always find a song. 

Swedish Proverb

Christmas Greeting from Mark Twain

"It is my heart-warmed and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage (every man and brother of us all throughout the whole earth), may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss, except the inventor of the telephone."
Mark Twain, Christmas greeting, 1890

An Injured Friend

"An injured friend is the bitterest of foes."Thomas Jefferson

As we celebrate the holiday season, now is the time to seek out and forgive family, friends and co-workers who may have wronged us. It is also the time to ask for forgiveness from those who we may have hurt or wronged through the year.

On the eve of Christmas, it is time to remember that forgiveness is the embodiment of the entire holiday. For those of us who follow Christ, who are already forgiven of our sins, we must embrace forgiveness if we are to follow a Christ-like life.

As I saw on a local church billboard:

"All saints have a past

And all sinners have a future"

Allowing an injury to fester for another day, week, month, year is abhorrent to the Christian life. Seek out and reestablish your relationships with your loved ones.

Your Family

"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them."
Desmond Tutu

All Is Well With You

"Say you are well, or all is well with you,

And God shall hear your words and make them true."

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Happiness Is an Attitude

"Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong.  The amount of work is the same." 

Francesca Reigler

Bring Your Own Sunshine

"Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine." 

Anthony J. D'Angelo, "The College Blue Book"

Honesty

"Honesty is never seen sitting astride the fence." 

Lemuel K. Washburn, "Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays", 1911

A Candle

"Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life."
Buddha

Make a Difference

"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."

William James

Wisdom

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."

William Shakespeare

God Writes the Gospel

"God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars."

Martin Luther

The Humble Work

"Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work."

Mother Teresa

To See Through the Eyes of Another

"The only true voyage of discovery … would be not to visit new landscapes, but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees."
Marcel Proust

Who Is Going to Heaven?

"We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners."

Desmond Tutu

Abraham Lincoln and Democracy

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy."

Abraham Lincoln

About Labor

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Be Happy

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
Dalai Lama

How to Learn Wisdom

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."
Confucius

Deeds

"When deeds speak, words are nothing."
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

A Wise Man

"A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation."

Moliere

Every Moment

"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul."
Thomas Merton

Change Your World

"Change your thoughts and you change your world."
Norman Vincent Peale

Act

"However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?"
Buddha

Giving

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
Maya Angelou

Family

"God did not intend the human family to be wafted to heaven on flowery beds of ease."
Frank Knox



Impossible?

"Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!"

Audrey Hepburn

Be Nice

"Be nice to those you meet on the way up.  They're the same folks you'll meet on the way down." 

Walter Winchell, 1932

The Future

"The future lies before you, like paths of pure white snow.  Be careful how you tread it, for every step will show."

Author Unknown

Visions

"For visions come not to polluted eyes."

Mary Howitt

Seeds

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."

Robert Louis Stevenson

Corrections

"The only way you may correct the bad things in your past is to add better things to your future."

Shiloh Morrison

Our Deepest Fear

“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.”

Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural speech

Busy Signal

"I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance.  Then, whenever doubt, anxiety or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal - and soon they'll forget my number."

Edith Armstrong

Death

"Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see."
Helen Keller

Veterans Day

"In war, there are no unwounded soldiers."

Jose Narosky

Full Moon

"The growing and dying of the moon reminds us of our ignorance which comes and goes- but when the moon is full it is as if the Great Spirit were upon the whole world."

Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

Understanding

"Between our birth and death we may touch understanding,

As a moth brushes a window with its wing."
Christopher Fry

Joy and Pain

"Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain."
Joseph Campbell

Anger

"Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured."
Mark Twain

The True Story

"...there were no boundaries or borders.  It was as if my mind had once long ago made up a story about separate objects with boundaries but the story wasn't true.  The true story is that there is a luminous, spacious energy that flows through everything all the time.  It's within matter, within things as well as within space, and you can tune in to it at any time, just like changing the frequency on the radio.  There is no distance between this essence and ourselves.  It is not otherworldly.  it is right here, closer than our own flesh." 

Vijali Hamilton

The Power of the World

"You have noticed that everything as Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round... The Sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours... Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves."

Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

Lead

"You have to lead people gently toward what they already know is right."
Phil Crosby

Walk with Nature

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks."
John Muir

A Loving Heart

"A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge."
Thomas Carlyle

Dawn

"All of this Creation is Sacred and so do not forget.

Every dawn as it comes is a holy event and everyday is holy, for the light comes from "WAKAN-TANKA" And also you must remember that the two-leggeds and all other peoples who stand upon this Earth are sacred and should be treated as such."

"White Buffalo Woman" Sioux Sacred Woman,

quoted by Black Elk , (Oglala Sioux) 1947

Halloween

"There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world."
Jean Baudrillard

Open Your Eyes

"Open your eyes and the whole world is full of God."

Jakob Böhme

Our Original Nature

"Our original nature is...void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy - and that is all.  Enter deeply into it by awakening yourself." 

Huang Po

A Garden of Solitude

"To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude."

Henri Nouwen

Eternal Life

"Using an inspirational passage...helps to slow down the furious, fragmented activity of the mind so that we can gain control over it...Whatever we drive deep into consciousness, that we become...I usually recommend the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. 
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life." 

Eknath Easwaran

Peace

"Each one has to find his peace from within.

And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances." 

Mahatma Gandhi

Castles in the Air

"If you have built castles in the air, 

your work need not be lost;

 that is where they should be. 

Now put the foundations under them."

Henry David Thoreau

The Power of Thought

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, either way you are right."

Henry Ford

The Heart

"The heart is like a garden.  It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. 
What seeds will you plant there?" 

Buddha

God

"That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God." 

Albert Einstein

Pledge to Veterans

"On the battlefield, the military pledges to leave no soldier behind. As a nation, let it be our pledge that when they return home, we leave no veteran behind."
Dan Lipinski

Everyday Life

"When your life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens: ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul!" 

Rabbi Harold Kushner

Simplicity

“There is nothing quite so complicated as simplicity.” 

Charles Poore

Justice

"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends."

Gandalf - The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

The Gateway to All Mysteries

"The subtlest of subtleties, this is the gateway to all mysteries."

Lao Tzu

Two Ways to Live

"There are 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

Energy

"We're fields of energy in an infinite energy field."

e.e. cummings

Spiritual Beings

"We are not humans trying to be spiritual.

We are spiritual beings trying to be human."

Jacquelyn Small

The Silver Rule

"Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you."

Hillel the Elder

The Golden Rule

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

The Bible - Luke 6:31