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

Être fort pour être utile.

-- Georges Hébert

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

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

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

To begin, begin.

-- William Wordsworth

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it

-- W.H. Murray

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

Obstacles are found everywhere, and in overcoming them we nourish ourselves.

-- David Belle

Learning is not compulsory, but neither is survival.

-- W. Edwards Demming

I have never been forced to accept compromises, but I have willingly accepted constraints.

-- Charles Eames

We attempt to think our way into right actions rather than act our way into right thinking.

-- Julia Cameron

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.

-- William James

Power is the ability to fulfill purpose; action which defeats purpose is weakness.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

-- William Wordsworth

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

Be content; rejoice in the present state. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

-- Lao Tzu

If you don't bring Paris with you, you won't find it there.

-- John M. Shanahan

Give the act to me.
Purged of hope and ego,
Fix your attention on the soul.
Act and do for Me.

-- Bhagavad Gita

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.

-- Steven Pressfield

Grace happens.

-- Anonymous

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

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"