The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.
-- Samuel Johnson
This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24
You can't control an independent heart, can't tear the one you love apart... if you love somebody, if you love someone, set them free.
-- Sting
True liberation comes through grace and not through free will.
-- Nicolas Berdyaev
You must speak straight so that your words may go as sunlight into our hearts.
-- Cochise
For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but instead of power and of love and of self-control.
2 Timothy 1:7
Let people feel the full weight of who your are and let them deal with it.
-- John Eldredge
The ancestor to every action is a thought.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different actions or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.
-- Norman Vincent Peale
Be careful how you interpret the world: It is like that.
-- Eric Heller
What we think about, talk about, and do something about is what comes about.
-- Larry Winget
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as either a blessing or a curse.
-- Carlos Castaneda
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
-- Aldous Huxley
What is actually happening is often less important than what appears to be happening.
-- William V. Shannon
Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.
-- Martin Fischer
The secret, I don't know...I guess you've just gotta find something you love to do and then... do it for the rest of your life. For me, it's going to Rushmore.
- Max Fischer from Rushmore by Wes Anderson
I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure which is: Try to please everybody.
-- Herbert Bayard Swope
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
-- Carl Jung
To control attention means to control experience, and therefore the quality of life.
-- Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
It is not reasonable to deny the power of an infinite being because we cannot comprehend its operations.
-- John Locke
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
-- Albert Eintein
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by human frailty and imperfection.
-- Harold Kushner
Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for it to kill your enemy.
-- Anonymous
We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them.
-- Elie Wiesel
"Stephen, I like what you are preaching about relationships. But every situation is different. Look at my marriage. I am really worried. My wife and I just don't have the same feeling for each other that we used to have. I guess I just don't love her anymore, and she doesn't love me." "The feeling is not there anymore?" Stephen enquired. "That is right," the man affirmed. "And we have three children and are really concerned about it. What do you suggest?" "Love her," Stephen advised him. "I told you the feeling just isn't there anymore." "Then love her. If the feeling is not there, that is all the more reason to love her." "But how do you love when you don't love?" "My friend," Stephen told him, "Love is a verb. Love -- the feeling -- is the fruit of love the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice for her. Listen to her. Empathize with her. Appreciate her. Affirm her." In the great literature of all progressive societies, love is a verb. Reactive people make it a feeling. They're driven by feelings. Hollywood has generally scripted us to believe that we are not responsible -- that we are a product of our feelings. But that does not describe reality. If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibilty and empowered them to do so. Proactive people make love a verb. If you want to study love, study those who sacrifice for others, even for people who offend or do not love in return. Love is a value that is actualized. Love -- the feeling -- can be recaptured.
-- Stephen Covey
Things are not what they seem; or, to be more accurate, they are not only what they seem, but very much else besides.
-- Aldous Huxley
Nothing is so contagious as an example. We never do great good or great evil without bringing about more of the same on the part of others.
-- François de la Rochefoucauld
Better one's house be too little one day than too big all the year after.
-- Thomas Fuller
No sense being pessimistic. Wouldn't work anyway.
-- Anonymous
Optimism is a force multiplier.
-- Colin Powell
Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts.
-- Norman Vincent Peale
Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to anybody else, for each one should carry his own load.
Galatians 6:2-5
I am not doing it for him. I am doing it for me.
-- Mr. Eko, from Lost, carrying a wounded Sawyer at the risk of his own life
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Romans 12:2
Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
-- Howard Thurman
Grace happens.
-- Anonymous
AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
...
From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
...
All seems beautiful to me;
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you.
I will recruit for myself and you as I go;
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go;
I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them;
Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.
-- Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road"
