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Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be,
since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. --Thomas à Kempis,
Imitation of Christ, c.1420
You've got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore
and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice. --Steven D.
Woodhull
What saves a man is to take a step. Then
another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it. --Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, translated
from French by Lewis Galantière
Don't wait for the
Last Judgment. It happens every day. --Albert Camus, The Fall,
1956
Good for the body is the work of the body, and
good for the soul is the work of the soul, and good for either is the work of
the other. --Henry David Thoreau
Remember, if you’re headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns! --Allison Gappa Bottke
Anyone can carry his burden, however hard,
until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.
Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down.
And this is all life really means. --Robert Louis Stevenson
If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree. --Jim
Rohn
In what you say of another, apply the test of kindness, necessity
and truth, and let nothing pass your lips without a 2/3 majority. --Liz Armbruster,
on www.robertbrault.com
See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little. --Pope
John XXIII
Give thanks for what you are now, and keep
fighting for what you want to be tomorrow. --Fernanda Miramontes-Landeros
Though the circular round-and-round of routine be the bulk of life's
affairs, make an occasional jutting diversion - of fun, love, or something that
will outlast you - so the shape and motion of your life shall resemble the round
lifegiving sun with bright rays shining forth from all directions. --Terri
Guillemets
Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must. --Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe
You will turn over many a futile new
leaf till you learn we must all write on scratched-out pages. --Mignon McLaughlin,
The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Now that it's all
over, what did you really do yesterday that's worth mentioning? --Coleman
Cox
Laziness will cause you pain. --Slogan on T-shirt
worn at the Vee Arnis Jitsu School of Self-Defense
If you surrender
to the wind, you can ride it. --Toni Morrison
Do not
confuse your vested interests with ethics. Do not identify the enemies of
your privilege with the enemies of humanity. --Max Lerner, Actions and
Passions, 1949
Never miss an opportunity to make
others happy, even if you have to leave them alone in order to do it. --Author
Unknown
Sometimes it's more important to be human, than to have
good taste. --Brecht
[O]wning your burdens
is half the battle. --From the television show Scrubs
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and
when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. --Victor Hugo
We have to live today by what truth we can get today
and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood. --William James
You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by
what others say about him. --Leo Aikman
Seek freedom and become
captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. --Frank
Herbert, Dune Chronicles
The first and greatest victory is
to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful
and vile. --Plato
Pick battles big enough to matter, small
enough to win. --Jonathan Kozel
Tough and funny and a little
bit kind: that is as near to perfection as a human being can be. --Mignon
McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum. --Frances Willard
Always when judging
Who people are,
Remember
to footnote
The words "So far."
--Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the
courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me. --Author
unknown, variation of an excerpt from "The Serenity Prayer" by Reinhold
Neibuhr
A day is Eternity's seed, and we are its Gardeners. --Erika Harris, lifeblazing.com
People cannot go wrong, if you don't let them. They cannot go
right, unless you let them. --Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare,
Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
Excess on occasion
is exhilirating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect
of a habit. --W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up, 1938
The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself. --Alfred Lord Tennyson,
"The Last Tournament," Idylls of the King
I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes. --Sara Teasdale, "The Philosopher"
Every one should keep a mental wastepaper basket and the older he grows
the more things he will consign to it - torn up to irrecoverable tatters. --Samuel Butler
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. --Theodore Roosevelt
Whatever we worship, short of God, is sure to
be our undoing. --Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Toss your dashed hopes not into a trash bin but into a drawer where
you are likely to rummage some bright morning. --Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field
somewhere and don't notice it.... People think pleasing God is all God care about.
But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back. --Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982
Be pleasant until ten
o'clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself. --Elbert Hubbard
On the bathing-tub of King T'ang the following words
were engraved: "If you would one day renovate yourself, do so from day
to day. Yea, let there be daily renovation." --Confucian Analects
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra. --Jimmy Johnson
What a strange narrowness of mind now is that, to
think the things we have not known are better than the things we have known. --Samuel Johnson
To sensible men, every day is a day of
reckoning. --John W. Gardner
There is a time for
departure even when there's no certain place to go. --Tennessee Williams
(Thomas Lanier)
Face what you think you believe and you
will be surprised. --William Hale White
Grown-ups
love figures. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never
ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What
does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect
butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many
brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father
make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything
about him. --Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943,
translated from French
Just remember, there's a right way
and a wrong way to do everything and the wrong way is to keep trying to make everybody
else do it the right way. --M*A*S*H,
Colonel Potter
Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped. --African Proverb
One can enjoy a wood fire worthily only when he
warms his thoughts by it as well as his hands and feet. --Odell Shepherd
Practical life teaches us that
people may differ and that both may be wrong: it also teaches us that people may
differ and both be right. Anchor yourself fast in the latter faith,
or the former will sweep your heart away. --Augustus William Hare and Julius
Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
The
important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice that which
we are for what we could become. --Charles DuBois
Look at everything
as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. --Betty Smith,
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Time you enjoy wasting, was not
wasted. --John Lennon
It is every man's obligation to put back
into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it. --Albert
Einstein
Decorate yourself from the inside out. --Terri Guillemets
Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch
that never hurts. --Charles Dickens
We have a choice every
day - to act on yesterday's good intentions or get an early start on tomorrow's
regrets. --Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
When you start treating people like people, they become people. --Paul Vitale
Be kind to your shadow. --Rebecca Lawless
I thought growing up was something that happened automatically as you
got older. But it turns out it's something you have to choose to do. --From the television show Scrubs
If you have to do it every
day, for God's sake learn to do it well. --Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's
Notebook, 1960
Most of the shadows of this life are
caused by our standing in our own sunshine. --Ralph Waldo Emerson
You do not have the right to quit trying. (The universe wobbles when you
do.) You have the right to quit Toxic People. (They're contagious.)--Dr. SunWolf
Dare to be imperfect and one day there will tug at your sleeve a soulmate. --Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you
plant. --Robert Louis Stevenson
In this age, which believes
that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is
that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest. --Henry Miller,
The Books in My Life
Never explain. Your friends do
not need it and your enemies will not believe it anyway. --Elbert Hubbard,
A Thousand and One Epigrams, 1911
Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your
own. You may both be wrong. --Dandemis
Whatever you are
be a good one. --Abraham Lincoln
It's better to fight for something
than against something. --Author Unknown
The day will happen
whether or not you get up. --John Ciardi
Nature gave
men two ends - one to sit on and one to think with. Ever since then man's
success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most. --George R.
Kirkpatrick
One should always play fair when one has the winning
cards. --Oscar Wilde
Think of your faults the first part of
the night when you are awake, and the faults of others the latter part of the
night when you are asleep. --Chinese Proverb
When
you live in reaction, you give your power away. Then you get to experience
what you gave your power to. --N. Smith
When "Why
not do it?" barely outweights "Why do it?" - don't do it. --Mignon
McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
If you
hate your lot but wouldn't trade it, it's not your lot you hate. --Mignon
McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
Half the failures in life arise from pulling in the horse as he is leaping. --Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers,
1827
When you invite trouble, it's usually quick to accept. --Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak. Sometimes it means that
you are strong enough to let go. --Author Unknown
Promise only
what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise. --Author
Unknown
All philosophy in two words, - sustain and abstain. --Epictetus
Always watch where you
are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left
out by mistake. --Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A.
Milne
Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got. --Janis Joplin
Life is like riding a bicycle - in order to keep your
balance, you must keep moving. --Albert Einstein
The biggest
problem in the world
Could have been solved when it was small.
--Witter
Bynner, The Way of Life According to Laotzu
In
the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their
feet. --Albert Schweitzer
Don't ever take a fence down until
you know why it was put up. --Robert Frost
What you can't get
out of, get into wholeheartedly. --Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook,
1960
Surely a man needs a closed place wherein he may
strike root and, like the seed, become. But also he needs the great
Milky Way above him and the vast sea spaces, though neither stars nor ocean serve
his daily needs. --Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands,
translated from French by Stuart Gilbert
Never believe
in mirrors or newspapers. --Tom Stoppard
I may be justifying my pockets of chaos, but I will always choose people
over perfection and the heart over task and tidy. --Betsy Cañas Garmon,
www.wildthymecreative.com
Never confuse thoughtlessness with malice. --Robert Charles Whitehead
Yet some things you miss and some things you lose by keeping your arm
outstretched. --Author Unknown
The most valuable lesson
man has learned from his dog is to kick a few blades of grass over it and move
on. --Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
You want to run out in front, prepare to be tripped from behind. --S.A. Sachs
Now and then it is a joy to have one's table red
with wine and roses. --Oscar Wilde
It wasn't raining when Noah
built the ark. --Howard Ruff, How to Prosper in the Coming Bad Years,
1979
Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your
food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you're tired, go and lie down.
The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand. --Bruce Lee
Every day is conquerable by its hours, and every hour by its minutes. --Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
While seeking revenge, dig two graves - one for yourself. --Doug
Horton
To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. --Hippocrates
Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others. --Buddha
Make somebody happy today. Mind your own business. --Ann
Landers
Things sweet the taste prove in digestion sour. --William
Shakespeare, King Richard the Second, 1595
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? --Abraham
Lincoln
Lend, by your imperfections, self-esteem to others,
and you will be invited everywhere. --Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,"
he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your
feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." --J.R.R.
Tolkien, "Three Is Company," The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship
of the Ring, 1954
There are two kinds of light - the glow that
illuminates, and the glare that obscures. --James Thurber
The
essential question is not, "How busy are you?" but "What are you busy
at?" --Oprah Winfrey
Don't get your knickers in a knot.
Nothing is solved and it just makes you walk funny. --Kathryn Carpenter
Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to
ask the blessings of heaven. --G.C. Lichtenberg
Being loved
by all is little fun
Unless you're also loved by one.
--Robert Brault,
www.robertbrault.com
We must have passed through life unobservantly, if we have never perceived
that a man is very much himself what he thinks of others. --Frederick W.
Faber
Never saw off the branch you are on, unless you
are being hanged from it. --Stanislaw Lec
Watch the little
things; a small leak will sink a great ship. --Benjamin Franklin
Don't despise empiric truth. Lots of things work in practice for
which the laboratory has never found proof. --Martin H. Fischer
Is bread the better for kneading? so is the heart. Knead it then
by spiritual exercises; or God must knead it by afflictions. --Augustus William
Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
The best way to predict your future is to create it. --Peter Drucker
You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather
was. --Irish Proverb
Beware of a man of one book. --English Proverb
Never
make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head.
You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love
of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever
you journey. --Tad Williams
It is better to sleep on things
beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards. --Baltasar Gracian
Go with your heart, buddy. Our brains only screw things up. --Chris
Fedak and Allison Adler, Chuck, "Chuck Versus the Ring"
It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed. --Horace
Leaves are light, and useless, and idle, and wavering, and
changeable; they even dance; and yet God in his wisdom has made them a part of
oaks. And in so doing he has given us a lesson, not to deny the stout-heartedness
within because we see the lightsomeness without. --Augustus William Hare
and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let
alone. --Henry David Thoreau
Fear less, hope more;
eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less,
love more; and all good things are yours. --Swedish Proverb
The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are, first, hard work;
second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense. --Thomas Edison
Aspire to a lower level of harm. --Anonymous
I try not to kid myself. You know, I don't mind romancing someone
else, but to fool yourself is pretty devastating and dangerous. --Bill Veeck
You can't truthfully explain your smallest action without fully revealing
your character. --Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook,
1966
It's all right letting yourself go as long as you
can let yourself back. --Mick Jagger
When you lose, don't lose
the lesson. --Author Unknown
There is often less danger in
the things we fear than in the things we desire. --John C. Collins
Your future depends on many things, but mostly on you. --Frank Tyger
Dig the well before you are thirsty. --Chinese Proverb
Friends and neighbors complain that taxes are indeed very heavy, and if those
laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might the more
easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some
of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by
our pride, and four times as much by our folly. --Benjamin Franklin
Be nice to people on your way up because you'll need them on your way down. --W. Migner
When you throw dirt, you lose ground. --Texan Proverb
The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never
gets used up. --Albert Schweitzer
Everyone should
learn to do one thing supremely well because he likes it, and one thing supremely
well because he detests it. --Brigham Young
Sometimes the only
way you can take a really good look at yourself is through somebody else's eyes. --From the television show Scrubs
Sometimes the best way to
hold onto something is to let it go. --Author Unknown
It isn't
what you know that counts, it's what you think of in time. --Author Unknown
The future lies before you, like paths of pure white snow. Be
careful how you tread it, for every step will show. --Author Unknown
For visions come not to polluted eyes. --Mary Howitt
Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon-balls and to-tomorrow speak
what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you
said to-day. --Ralph Waldo Emerson
Remedy it, or welcome it:
a wise man's only two choices. --Terri Guillemets
To know the
road ahead, ask those coming back. --Chinese Proverb
The first
principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you're the easiest person to
fool. --Richard Feynman
Don't let it be all in your head, nor all in your body. --Terri
Guillemets
Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself
incurs no risk. --Joaquin de Setanti
God is good, but never
dance in a small boat. --Irish Saying
It is better to stir
up a question without deciding it, than to decide it without stirring it up. --Joseph Joubert
Sandwich every bit of criticism between
two thick layers of praise. --Mary Kay Ash
Where you find quality,
you will find a craftsman, not a quality-control expert. --Robert Brault,
www.robertbrault.com
Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they
are. --Malcolm S. Forbes
I used to believe that anything was
better than nothing. Now I know that sometimes nothing is better. --Glenda Jackson