Category: Quotes

Quotes & Memes

August 11, 2016

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
Vincent Van Gogh

“Your emotions are meant to fluctuate, just like your blood pressure is meant to fluctuate. It’s a system that’s supposed to move back and forth, between happy and unhappy. That’s how the system guides you through the world.”
Daniel Gilbert

“Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.”
Eckhart Tolle

Perception August 10, 2016

Books have the power to have us feel empathy and have us experience the thrill of a journey of someone else.
Laura Moulton

“My mind works in idleness. To do nothing is often my most profitable way.”
Virginia Woolf

There is no education like adversity.
Benjamin Disraeli,
political leader and writer

All cruelty springs from weakness.
Seneca,
philosopher

August 9, 2016

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Helen Keller,
writer and political activist

“Yet occasionally we discover in the folds of an old handkerchief a shell or insignificant stone that had once embodied our happiest of afternoons.”
Patti Smith, Just Kids

“Feelings come and go like clouds in the sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above it.
Washington Irving,
writer, historian and diplomat

Perception August 8, 2016

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
Francis Bacon, 1561-1626

“All know that the drop merges into the ocean but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.”
Kabir, 1440-1518

“He lives long that lives well; and time misspent is not lived but lost.”
Thomas Fuller, 1608-1661

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain — and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
Dale Carnegie,
writer, lecturer and leadership consultant

“Even if it seems like it’s taking too long for what we want to arrive, it’s better to stay with the ache than abandon the desire.”
Danielle Laporte

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Samuel Johnson,
writer

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”
Proverbs 17:22

In all these years I’ve learned, I hope, “not to take what is not given.”
Brother David Steindl-Rast

Perception August 7, 2016

When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.
Malala Yousafzai

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.
Emile Zola

August 6, 2016

“I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness—it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.”
Brené Brown

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
Nelson Mandela

“Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.”
William James, The Principles of Psychology

“Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”
Pema Chödrön

“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict.”
Dorothy Thompson

If there was an abundance of misery in the world, there was also sufficient joy, yes — as long as one knew where to look for it.
Rohinton Mistry

“Nothing is more becoming to the mind than its own natural manner; from this proceeds its ease, its grace, and all its powers, whether real or apparent. All constraint injures it to force its springs, destroys it. We all carry about us indices of our destiny; these must not be effaced, but watched, if our career is not to be a miserable failure.”
Joubert, Pensees

August 5, 2016

He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer.

Elie Wiesel

Courtesy of John Connolly’s A Time of Torment:

Oh! how many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding-ring!
Colley Cibber (1671–1757), The Double Gallant

It was the kind of bar where everybody knew your name, as long as your name was “Motherf’r.”

The four ages of man, as far as Williamson was concerned, were confusion, anger, complacency, and grumpiness, but it was important to embrace them in the right order.

August 4, 2016

We can’t stop fear or judgment. Ego’s thoughts arrive before we have time to think about them. But we can consciously choose how to respond. Stepping into the present is a gift we can give ourselves anytime, anywhere, any moment. Presence, our inner compass, navigates our choices toward inner peace and freedom.
Carolyn Hobbs

“When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.”
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
Henry Adams,
historian

Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.
Coco Chanel,
fashion designer

“It is difficult to bring people to goodness with lessons, but it is easy to do so by example.”
Seneca

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result.
James Allen,
writer

“The disturbers of happiness are our desires, our griefs, and our fears.”
Samuel Johnson

And we will continue together until the road vanishes.
Che Guevara

Perceptions

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result.
James Allen,
writer

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.
Warren Bennis,
organizational consultant

“Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.”
Epictetus, 55 AD- 135 AD

“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
Mark Twain, 1835-1910

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”
Patrick Henry, 1736-1799

There is a hard law. When an injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.
Alan Paton

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Theodore Roosevelt,
26th US president

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”
Francis Bacon

“Energy creates energy. It is by spending myself that I become rich.”
Sarah Bernhardt

“Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.”
Bill Nye

“Worry about loving yourself instead of loving the idea of other people loving you.”
Unknown

I know what I have given you… I do not know what you have received.
Antonio Porchia –

“It’s not your job to like me. It’s mine.”
Byron Katie

“Be gentle first with yourself if you wish to be gentle with others.”
Lama Yeshe

Pain physical or mental?
“If a person’s basic state of mind is serene and calm, then it is possible for this inner peace to overwhelm a painful physical experience.”
The Dalai Lama

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
John Quincy Adams,
6th US president

Law of Mechanical Repair
After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you’ll have to pee.

Law of Gravity
Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible place in the universe.

Law of Probability
The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

Law of Random Numbers
If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal; someone always answers.

Variation Law
If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now.

Law of the Bath
When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone will ring.

Law of Close Encounters
The probability of meeting someone you know INCREASES dramatically when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.

Law of the Result
When you try to prove to someone that a machine won’t work, IT WILL!!!

Law of Biomechanics
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

Law of the Theaters & Sports Arenas – At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle, always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, beer, or the toilet and who leave early before the end of the performance or the game is over. The folks in the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies and stay to the bitter end of the performance. The aisle people also are very surly folk.

The Coffee Law
As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

Murphy’s Law of Lockers
If there are only 2 people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

Law of Physical Surfaces
The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.

Law of Logical Argument
Anything is possible IF you don’t know what you are talking about.

Law of Physical Appearance
If the clothes fit, they’re ugly.

Law of Public Speaking
A CLOSED MOUTH GATHERS NO FEET!

Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy –
As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it OR the store will stop selling it!

Doctors’ Law
If you don’t feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there, you’ll feel better. But don’t make an appointment and you’ll stay sick.

Perception

Action is eloquence. 

William Shakespeare,

playwright and poet

“Good friends help you to find important things when you have lost them…your smile, your hope and your courage.”
Doe Zantamata

“Happiness is a place between too much and too little.”

Finnish proverb

“The harder you hold on to specific assumptions, the more likely there’s gold in letting them go.”
John Seely Brown

It is only by holding, not forcing, that we can find our feet again and secure solid ground when everything else is shaking. In a world where productivity rules, this in itself is true resistance.

Janey Stephenson

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.

Wendell Berry