Kahlil Gibran

"And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."

75th Verse

"When taxes are too high,

people go hungry.

When the government is too intrusive,

people lose their spirit.

Act for the people's benefit;

trust them, by leaving them alone."

Tao Te Ching

Mary Oliver

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
     love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you about mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

Success

"Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life—think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success."
~Swami Vivekananda~

Neal Donald Walsch

"Which snowflake is the most magnificent? Is it possible that they are all magnificent - and that, celebrating their magnificence together they create an awesome display? Then they melt into each other, and into the Oneness.  Yet they never go away.  They never disappear.  They never cease to be. Simply, they change form.  And not just once, but several times: from solid to liquid, from liquid to vapor, from the seen to the unseen, to rise again, and then again to return in new displays of breathtaking beauty and wonder.  This is Life, nourishing Life."

anton chekhov

"should his heart break and the grief pour out, it would flow over the whole earth, it seems, and yet, no one sees it."

Amish

"We have no enemies; we are all God's children, and forgiveness is at the very core of our christian faith.  If we can't forgive those who are lost and would do harm to us, then our faith in meaningless."

Anne Frank

"in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart... I can feel the suffering of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that all will all come right."

Peace

"Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!"
- Swami Vivekananda

they are coming...

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

MARTIN NIEMÖLLER

Mary Jane Moffat

"Feeling better... I also felt a sense of betrayal for my loved one, even though I rationally knew that sustained grief could be morbid.  Because grief may become a substitute for the dead one, giving up our grief can be the greatest challenge of mourning."

Hindu Proverb

"Help thy brother's boat across, and lo! thine own has reached the shore as well."

Simone de Beauvoir

"In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid."

MLK

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”

Wayne Dyer

"Let go of all the beliefs that convince you of your inadequacies and shortcomings.  Clean out that closet of worn-out loyalties to what you can and cannot do.  Just open yourself up right in this moment.  Be like a clear, blank slate.  Nothing is imprinted or projected on this slate."

Albert Schweitzer

"Every man has to seek in his own way to make his own self more noble and to realize his own true worth.  You must give some time to your fellow man.  Even if it's a little thing, do something for those who have need of help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.  For remember, you don't live in a world all your own.  Your brothers are here too."

R.W.E.

"Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions.  All life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make the better.  What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice?  Up again; you shall never be so afraid of a tumble."

susan griffith

"The earth is my sister.  I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am.  How we admire the strength of each other, all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know.  We are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget, what she is to me, what I am to her."

dhammapada

"all that we are is the result of what we have thought.  it is founded on our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts."

Hafiz

"I am in love with every church

And mosque

And temple

And any kind of shrine

Because I know it is there

That people say the different names

Of the One God."

Schaef

"When we need these healing times, there is nothing better than a good long walk. It is amazing how the rhythmic movements of the feet and legs are so intimately attached to cobweb cleaners in the brain."

Rabindranath Tagore

“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.”

Roy T. Bennett

“Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals.  If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.”

Louisa May Alcott

“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.”

Blum

"Don't worry about what you ought to do or what other people will think.  You cannot predict the eventual outcome of your choice.  All you can do is listen to that little voice deep inside you that knows what you want to do."

Tennyson

"Again at Christmas did we weave 

         The holly round the Christmas hearth; 

         The silent snow possess'd the earth, 

And calmly fell our Christmas-eve: 

The yule-log sparkled keen with frost, 

         No wing of wind the region swept, 

         But over all things brooding slept 

The quiet sense of something lost. "

Alan Watts

"Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone."

Tao

“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.”

you'll be a Woman, my daughter!

"If you can keep your head when all about you  
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,  
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;  
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;  
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;  
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;  
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,  
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,  
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,  
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,  
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!"
~Rudyard Kipling~

Maya Angelou

“I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self.”