Courtesy: Flower Essence Society
--John Muir--
"Money is not the most important thing in the world, but it's still way ahead of whatever's in second place."
--an old wise saying--
“My mind will not dwell in the problems of the past—it will live in the solutions of the future. My past can never be changed, but I can change the future by changing my actions today.”
--Andy Andrews--
If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a month, get married.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help others.
--Chinese proverb--
"Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire."
--Samuel Johnson--
TEN ACTIONS YOU CAN DO TODAY TO START TAKING BACK YOUR LIFE
Action 1: Take a
walk, notice something, and decide how you would describe it.
Time: 10+ minutes.
Expected Result: Calming, increase in energy
Action 2:
Concentrate all your attention on a single object for a period of two minutes.
Time: 2+ minutes.
Expected Result: More focused, relaxed
Action
3:
Choose an automatic gesture you make
and repeat it deliberately until it comes off automatic.
Time: 5+ minutes.
Expected Result: Insight, self-control
Action
4:
Pick a frequent worry and outline the
sequence of thoughts that lead up to that worry. Deliberately think the thoughts
in sequence until the worry fades.
Time: 5+ minutes.
Expected Result: Recovered Energy.
Action
5:
Deliberately smile until you feel
happy.
Time: 2+ minutes.
Expected Result: Sense of well being.
Action
6:
Make a list of all the incomplete
projects you have. Prioritize the list.
Time: 30+ minutes.
Expected Result: Recovery of attention.
Action
7:
Take a walk and count forms until
colors appear brighter.
Time: 30+ minutes.
Expected Result: Extroversion, sense of being alive.
Action
8:
Climb one or more flights of stairs
and before each step whisper something you are grateful for.
Time: 30+ minutes.
Expected Result: Sense of Grace.
Action
9:
Deliberately do a good deed for
someone without being found out.
Time: 30+ minutes.
Expected Result: Increased sense of self-respect.
Action
10:
Breathing in, notice something far
away. Breathing out, notice something close. Repeat at least ten times.
Time: 5+ minutes.
Expected Result: Recovery of perspective.
Source: "The Avatar Journal," Star's Edge International, www.AvatarEPC.com
"Basically, they're children. University is just high school with ash trays, for the most part."
--Jerry Carson (part of his excellent advice to me upon starting my collegiate teaching career)--
"If we don’t change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed."
--Chinese Proverb--
"A midlife crisis is when you’ve reached the top rung of your ladder only to realize that you’ve leaned it against the wrong wall."
--Unknown--
"It is what you choose NOT to see in your life that controls your life."
--Lynn Andrews--
"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear."
--H. Agar, "A Time for Greatness"--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him…the unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself...all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw--
"The most basic choice we have in life is whether to bring our creative and expressive energies out into the world in positive or negative ways. No matter what our circumstances, we have the power to choose our directions. In each of us are heroes, speak to them and they will come forth. We have to live and we have to die; the rest we make up."
--Unknown--
"The tragedy of life is not death, but what dies inside us while we live."
--Norman Cousins--
"There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others. Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself. Be true to the highest within your soul and then allow yourself to be governed by no customs or conventionalities or arbitrary man-made rules that are not founded on principle."
--Ralph Waldo Trine--
"The important thing is this: To be able to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."
--Charles Debois--
"Amidst the glut of insignificance that engulfs us all, the temptation is understandable to stop thinking. The trouble is that unthinking persons cannot choose but must let others choose for them. But to fail to make one’s own choices is to betray the freedom which is our society’s greatest gift to all of us."
--Stephen Muller, President, John Hopkins University--
THE CLIMB
The small boy heard the mountain
speak
There are secrets on my highest peak
But beware, my boy, the passing of time
Wait not too long to start the climb.
So quickly come and go the years
And young man stands below with fears
Come on, come on, the mountain cussed
Time presses on, oh climb you must.
Now he is busied in middle-age
prime
And maybe tomorrow he’ll take the climb
Now is too soon, it’s raining today
Gone, all gone years are eaten away.
An old man looks up, still
feeling the lure
Yet he’ll suffer the pain, not climb for the cure
The hair is white, the step is slow
And when it’s safer and warmer to stay here below.
So all to seen the secrets are
buried
Along with him and regrets he carried
And it’s not for loss of secrets he’d cried
But rather because he’d never tried.
--Phyllis Trussler--
If I feel depressed, I will
sing.
If I feel sad, I will laugh.
If I feel ill, I will double my labor.
If I feel fear, I plunge ahead.
If I feel poverty, I will think of wealth to come.
If I feel incompetent, I will remember past success.
If I feel insignificant, I will remember my goals.
Today I will be the master of my emotions.
--Og Mandino, "The Greatest Salesman in the World"--
THE RULES FOR BEING HUMAN
You will receive a body:
You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time
around.
You will learn lessons:
You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called Life. Each day in this
school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons
or think them irrelevant and stupid.
There are no mistakes, only
lessons:
Growth is a process of trial and error; experimentation. The "failed"
experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately
"works."
A lesson is repeated until
learned:
A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it.
When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.
Learning lessons does not end:
There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive,
there are lessons to be learned.
"There" is no better than
"Here":
When your "there" has become a "here," you will simply obtain another "there"
that will again look better than "here."
Others are merely mirrors of
you:
You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects
something you love or hate about yourself. What you make of your life is up to
you: You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up
to you. The choice is yours.
Your answers lie inside you:
The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need do is look, listen
and trust.
You will forget all this.
You can remember it whenever you want.
--from "Mach II With Your Hair On Fire," by Richard Brooke--
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest
fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness
that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about
shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant
to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is
within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own
light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we
are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
--from A Return to Love, by Marianne
Williamson--
“Consult not your fears but your
hopes and your dreams.
Think not about
your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential.
Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in,
but with what it is still possible for you to do.”
--Pope John XXIII (1881-1963)--
"Luke, there is no try...there is either do or not do."
--Master Yoda--
"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
--Winston Churchill--
"The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life."
--Anne Morriss, Manager, OTF Group--
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the
world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
--Margaret Mead, US anthropologist (1901-1978)--
"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left
undone."
--Pablo Picasso--
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
Proverbs 23:7
"Make your light shine, so that others will see
the good that you do......."
Matthew 5:16
--Mike Dooley, TUT's Adventurers Club--
Ecclesiastes 11:1
--Tom "Big Al" Schreiter--
Oath of the TUT's Adventurers Club, home of Mike Dooley's "Notes from the Universe."
Hebrews 13:2
|
"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same." --Oscar Wilde-- |
Without action, everything is theory.
"People who go
to your funeral will be sad....
But then someone will raise their hand and
say, 'I'm hungry. Let's go to Denny's.' "
--Jerry Boden, Landmark Forum Leader--
"There is no passion to be found in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living."
--Nelson Mandela--
"Out of
abundance, he took abundance and
still abundance remained."
--The Upanishads--
"Take the first
step in faith. You don't have to see the
whole staircase, just take the first step."
--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Minister, Civil Rights Leader--
"Preach the gospel everyday; if necessary, use words."
-- Francis of Assisi--
“The secret
to success is not to
try to
avoid, get rid of, or shrink
from
your problems. The secret is to
grow
yourself so that you're bigger
than any problem.”
--T.
Harv Eker
"Failure is an event, never a person."
--William D. Brown--
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
--Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of US (1858-1919)--
"All you need is the plan, the road map and the courage to press on to your destination."
--Earl Nightingale--
"A person cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances."
"As A Man Thinketh"
"Success is something you attract, by the person you become."
--John Earl Shoaff--
"The difference between great people and everyone else is that
great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is
created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes
them next."
--Michael E. Gerber--
"A happy heart is like good medicine."
Proverbs 17:22
"He who cannot forgive, destroys the bridge over which he himself must pass."
--George Herbert--
"Isn't it a sign of a gentleman that he does not take
offense when others
fail to recognize his ability?"
"Analects of Confucius"
"History says 'poo poo' to the pessimist. Every one of
them is buried in an
unmarked grave."
--Paul Harvey--
Located inside Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, gracing the
third pillar to the right, framed and bolted permanently in place, hangs a
living testimony to the awesome power of personal development and, perhaps, one
of the greatest stories ever told. This original letter with the word
"Secret" printed top and bottom in red ink, is now displayed for all
the world to see...
My Definite Chief Aim
I, Bruce lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental Super Star in the United
States. In return I will give the most exciting performances and render the best
of quality in the capacity of an actor. Starting in 1970 I will achieve world
fame and from then onward till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession
$10,000,000. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and
happiness. —Bruce Lee, January 1969
© 2003 by Michael S. Clouse. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.nexera.com
Energy from the human mind—your mind—can be converted into material substance with ease, if you unlock, understand, and use "The Greatest Secret."
Your mind has all the power in the world at its command to create in reality, whatever image it is given! Everything around us, every device invented began as a thought in the mind of someone. Consider just a few:
| Invention | Date | Inventor |
| Movable Type | 1450 | Gutenberg |
| Microscope | 1590 | Janssen |
| Adding Machine | 1642 | Pascal |
| Telescope | 1609 | Galileo |
| Clock | 1657 | Huygens |
| Thermometer | 1714 | Fahrenheit |
| Lightning Rod | 1752 | Franklin |
| Parachute | 1785 | Blanchardson |
| Electric Battery | 1800 | Volta |
| Sewing Machine | 1846 | Howe |
| Safety Pin | 1849 | Hunt |
| Ice Box | 1851 | Gorrie |
| Elevator | 1861 | Otis |
| Lawn Mower | 1868 | Hills |
| Vacuum Cleaner | 1869 | McGaffey |
| Telephone | 1879 | Bell |
|
Light bulb |
1876 | Edison |
| Bicycle | 1884 | Stanley |
| Automobile | 1887 | Daimler |
| Camera | 1888 | Eastman |
| Ballpoint Pen | 1888 | Loud |
| Submarine | 1891 | Holland |
| Zipper | 1891 | Judson |
| Radio | 1895 | Macron |
| Tape Recorder | 1899 | Paleness |
| Airplane | 1903 | Wright Bros. |
| Air Conditioning | 1911 | Carrier |
| Geiger Counter | 1913 | Geiger |
| Theory of Relativity | 1916 | Einstein |
| Stainless Steel | 1916 | Barely |
|
Radar |
1922 | Taylor |
| Television | 1923 | Zworykin |
| Talking Movie | 1927 | Warner Bros. |
| Soap | 1928 | Bertsch |
| Iron lung | 1928 | Drinker |
| Electric Razor | 1928 | Schick |
| Helicopter | 1939 | Sikorsky |
| Transistor | 1948 | Shochley |
| Panoramic Movie | 1952 | Waller |
| Laser | 1957 | Gould |
| Pacemaker | 1960 | Greatbatch |
| Xerox Copier | 1960 | Gundlach |
| Plastic Soda Bottle | 1967 | Wyeth |
| Microprocessor | 1969 | Hoff |
| Apple Computer | 1977 | Wozniak |
| Compact Disc | 1982 | Sony |
| Acura Cars | 1986 | Honda |
| Lexus Cars | 1990 | Toyota |
| Planetary Travel | ? | ? |
| Your Unique Idea | ? | ? |
The Greatest Secret © 1990 by Michael S. Clouse. Grow your business
faster!
Read Nexera e-News™ at www.nexera.com.
"You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who cannot pay you back."
--John Bunyan, author of "The Pilgrim's Progress"--
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO, what a ride!"
"I don't want problems solved for me. I want the fishing rod, not the fish."
"God does not die on the day we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason."
--Dag Hammarskjold, ex-Secretary General of the UN--
"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."
--Mahatma Gandhi--
"Your wealth is where your friends are.
All the wealth in the world cannot buy you a friend,
nor can it pay for the loss of one."
--Latin proverb--
"Good leaders take us where we want to go; great leaders take us where we ought to be."
--Abe Lincoln--
"A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."
--Thomas Jefferson--
"On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not
too good and not
quite all the time."
--George Orwell--
"When we have hope,
we discover powers within ourselves
we may have never known —
The power to make sacrifices, to endure,
to heal, and to love.
Once we choose hope, everything is possible."
"This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a big house, a great "world house" in which we have to live together - black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other in peace."
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1964 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, in a lecture delivered Dec. 11, 1964 in the Auditorium at the University of Oslo--
"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is."
--Albert Camus (French novelist, essayist and playwright,
1957 Nobel Prize for Literature, 1913-1960)--
"If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."
--Ronald Reagan--
YOUR FRIENDSHIP IS A GIFT
Each of us has a hidden place
Somewhere deep within ourselves,
A place where we go to get away,
To think things through,
To be alone, to be ourselves.
This unique place, where we confront our deepest feelings,
Becomes a storehouse of all our hopes,
All our needs, all our dreams,
And even our unspoken fears.
It encompasses the essence of who we are and what we want to be.
But now and then, whether by chance or design,
Someone discovers a way into that place we thought was ours alone.
And we allow that person to see, to feel and to share
All the reason, all the uncertainty
And all the emotion we've stored up there.
That person adds new perspective to our hidden realm,
Then quietly settles down in his own corner of our special place,
Where a bit of himself will stay forever.
And we call that person a friend.
Brushing my teeth and rinsing my mouth,
I vow to speak purely and lovingly.
When my mouth is fragrant with right speech,
A flower blooms in the garden of my heart.
--Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk, poet, peace activist, and
author--
No one owes you anything. No one owes you moral conduct, respect, friendship, love, courtesy, or intelligence. You owe it to yourself to be the best person possible. Because if you are, others will want to be with you, and will want to provide you with the things you want in exchange for what you're giving to them.
Life
is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take
our breath away . . .
--Earl Nightingale--
--Will Rogers--
--Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker and author--
--Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British statesman, prime minister,
author--
--Michael Korda--
"Children will not remember you for the material things you provided, but for the feeling that you cherished them."
--Richard L. Evans--
"Cancer is a funny illness that comes in
all shapes and sizes, sometimes better or worse. Sometimes a short fight,
sometimes a long fight. The key word is fight. I must encourage you to always
keep the faith. The faith in your doctors, the faith in the medicine, the faith
in your family, and most importantly the faith in yourself. This, my friend, is
absolutely the best thing you can do for yourself. Your strength gives so many
others hope and inspiration, including myself. I returned to professional
cycling because of people like you, cancer patients who want to live forever and
fight like crazy. Thank you and hang in there."
--Lance Armstrong--
(Record 6-time champion of the Tour de France cycling race, testicular cancer
survivor, and founder of the
Lance Armstrong
Foundation in Austin, Texas)
DON'T QUIT
When the funds are low and the
debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a
bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Success is failure turned inside
out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close
you are,
It may be near when it seems so far.
So stick to the fight when
you're hardest hit,
It's when things go wrong that you mustn't quit.
--Caron Wheeler (1990)--
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
--Edmund Burke--
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
--Aristotle--
"Now that I showed you
--John Lennon--
(lyrics to his song "I Found It")
DON'T WASTE TIME AND ENERGY WORRYING ABOUT NEEDLESS THINGS
because...
40% of them will never happen,
30% have already happened and can’t be changed,
12% are needless worries about our health,
10% are petty, miscellaneous worries,
and only 8% are genuine.
Try to separate the real from the unnecessary and solve those which are within your ability to solve.
--Earl Nightingale, “Lead the Field”--
"If you let the world cast you into a role, you never will go beyond that role. Create your own definition of who you are and what you can accomplish."
--Guy Kawasaki--
If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was.
"25 years from now, you won't remember what you did; you'll remember what you didn't do."
--Mark Twain--
"We shall never cease from striving, and the end of all of our striving will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time."
--T.S. Eliot--
"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost....that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them."
--Henry David Thoreau--
"Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be."
–Abraham Lincoln--
"The first requisite of success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem without growing weary."
--Thomas Edison--
"If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal – not to people or things."
–Albert Einstein--
"What you can do, or dream you can, begin it:
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
--Goethe--
"Life is like a game of cards...God deals us each a hand at birth. How we play the cards is up to us."
--Jeff & Bil Keane (Family Circus cartoonists)--
"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
--Muriel Strode--
“A goal is a planned conflict with the status quo.”
--Hyrum W. Smith--
"The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor."
–Vince Lombardi--
"The secret to productive goal setting is in establishing clearly defined goals, writing them down and then focusing on them several times a day with words, pictures and emotions as if we've already achieved them."
--Denis Waitley--
"Sometimes you need to stay in touch, but be out of reach."
--Jim Rohn--
"Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls-family, health, friends, integrity- are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered. And once you truly understand the lesson of the five balls, you will have the beginnings of balance in your life!"
--James Patterson's Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas--
"Be like a postage stamp – stick to one thing until you get there."
--Margaret Carty--
"Patience is the ability to let your light shine after your fuse has blown."
--Ben Holden--
"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."
--William James--
"Mama always said: 'Life is like a box of chocolates....you never know what you're gonna get.'"
--Forrest Gump--
"There's no such thing as a bad decision......just good decisions and better decisions. Hopefully you'll make a better one."
--Randy B. Machemehl, P.E., Ph.D.--
Civil Engineering Professor, University of Texas at Austin
(his advice to me on which job offer to accept upon graduation from college)
"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots....the other is wings."
--Hodding Carter--
“First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.”
–Aristotle--
"Eighty percent of success in life is just showing up."
--Woodie Allen--
"Resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head."
--Ann Landers--
"Life's a dance. Put on your dancing shoes."
--Steve Winwood--
"It is never too late to be what you might have been."
--George Eliot--
"Time invested in improving ourselves cuts down on time wasted in disapproving of others."
--Anonymous--
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.--
"Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but carve the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble."
--Arabic Proverb--
".....From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."
--Luke 12:48--
"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about."
--Charles Kingsley--
“You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world’s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”
--Dale Carnegie--
“Finish each day and be done with it. . . You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely.”
--Ralph Waldo Emerson--
Keep a clear eye toward life's end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God's creature. What you are in His sight is what you are and nothing more. Remember, that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing that you have received -- fading symbols of honor, trappings of power -- but only what you have given: a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.
--St. Francis of Assisi--
When God made the oyster, he guaranteed his absolute economic and social security. He built the oyster a house, his shell, to shelter and protect him from his enemies......
But when God made the Eagle, he declared, "The blue sky is the limit -- build your own house!"......
The Eagle, not the oyster, is the emblem of America.
"For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day."
--Audrey Hepburn, "Beauty Tips"--
"Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money and power and influence."
--Henry Chester--
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
--Matthew 6:34--
"Hitch your wagon to a star."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson--
"No love, no friendship can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever."
--Francois Muriac--
"Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye."
--H. Jackson Brown, Jr.--
AN ANGEL TO WATCH OVER YOU
Some people
come into our lives
and quickly go...
Some people
become friends
and stay while...
leaving beautiful
footprints on our hearts...
and we are never quite the same
because we have made a good friend!!
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That's why it's called the present!
Live and savor every moment.....
this is not a dress rehearsal!
"We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then our world will know the blessings of peace."
--William Gladstone--
"If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake."
--F. Wilezek--
"You will succeed only if you know what you are doing is right and and you know how to bring out the best in people."
--Margaret Thatcher--
"Whether you think you can, or can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford--
"Each one of us here today will inevitably one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question, 'We are willing to help, Lord, but what if anything is needed?' It is true we can seldom help those closest to us -- either we don't know what part of ourselves to give, or more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with, and should know, who elude us, but we can still LOVE them. We can LOVE them completely, without complete understanding."
--Rev. Maclean (played by Tom Skerritt) in his last sermon in the movie, "A River Runs Through It," in obvious reference to his son Paul (played by Brad Pitt)--
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
--Theodore Roosevelt--
"Kites fly highest against the wind."
--Winston Churchill--
"Distance does not matter. Being close is an affair of the heart."
If I could work miracles,
I'd wash away all that troubles your heart.
I'd take away the fear, the pain, and hurt,
and replace them with happiness.
You are so special to me,
and it hurts me to see you going through these rough times.
So remember --
no matter how scared you may be,
you'll never be alone.
I'll always be here for you.
--Amy Evans--
"There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth. To realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation. All things are one. And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."
--Melchizedek, King of Salem
(from the book, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho)--
"When I was a Beatle, I thought we were the best frigging group in the goddamn world. And believin' in that was what made us what we were. And it was just a matter of time before everyone else caught on."
--John Lennon, in his reflection on the growing popularity of the Fab Four when they first started taking the world by storm--
If there is light in the soul,
there will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person,
there will be harmony in the house.
If there is harmony in the house,
there will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
there will be peace in the world.
--Chinese proverb--
"Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house.
Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next-door neighbor....Let
no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living
expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes,
kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting. "
--Mother Teresa--
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
--Aristotle--
This life is yours
Take the power
to choose what you want to do
and do it well
Take the power
to love what you want in life
and love it honestly
Take the power
to walk in the forest
and be a part of nature
Take the power
to control your own life
No one else can do it for you
Nothing is too good for you
You deserve the best
Take the power
to make your life
healthy
exciting
worthwhile
and very happy
while you
reach for
your dreams
by Susan Polis Schutz
ABRAHAM LINCOLN DIDN'T QUIT
1816 His family was forced out of their home. He had to work to support
them.
1818 His mother died.
1831 Failed in business.
1832 Ran for state legislature - lost.
1832 Also lost his job - wanted to go to law school, but couldn't get in.
1833 Borrowed some money from a friend to begin a business and by the end
of the year he was bankrupt. He spent the next 17 years of his life paying
off this debt.
1834 Ran for state legislature again - won.
1835 Was engaged to be married, sweetheart died, and his heart was broken.
1836 Had a total nervous breakdown and was in bed for 6 months.
1838 Sought to become speaker of the state legislature - defeated.
1840 Sought to become elector - defeated.
1843 Ran for Congress - lost.
1846 Ran for Congress again - this time he won - went to Washington and
did a good job.
1848 Ran for re-election to Congress - lost.
1849 Sought the job of land officer in his home state - rejected.
1854 Ran for Senate of the United States - lost.
1856 Sought the Vice-Presidential nomination at his party's national convention
- got less than 100 votes.
1858 Ran for the U.S. Senate again - again he lost.
1860 Elected President of the United States.
"The path was worn and slippery. My foot slipped from under me, knocking the other out of the way, but I recovered and said to myself, "It's a slip and not a fall."
--Abraham Lincoln, after losing a Senate race--
"The tragedy of life is what dies inside a person while he lives."
--Albert Schweitzer--
FOOTPRINTS
One night a young man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the LORD. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand; one belonging to him, and the other to the LORD.
When the last scenes of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very saddest times of his life.
This really bothered him and he questioned the LORD about it. "LORD, you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times of my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most, you would leave me."
The LORD replied, "My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."
"Our true acquisitions lie only in our charities -- we get only as we give."
SLOW DANCE
Have you ever watched kids
on a merry-go-round
Or listened to the rain
slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down
Don't dance so fast
Time is short
The music won't last
Do you run through each day on the fly
When you ask "How are you?" do you hear the reply?
When the day is done, do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores running through your head?
You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast
Time is short
The music won't last
Ever told your child,
We'll do it tomorrow
And in your haste,
not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
'Cause you never had time to call and say "Hi"?
You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast
Time is short
The music won't last
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift.... Thrown away...
Life is not a race. Do take it slower
Hear the music before the song is over.
"Opportunity comes many times in every person's life, but is only recognizable to the person who prepares himself to accept them."
--Winston Churchill--
"Cowardice asks the question -- is it safe? Expediency asks the question -- is it politic? Vanity asks the question -- is it popular? But conscience asks the question -- is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it BECAUSE it is right."
--Dr. Martin Luther King--
"Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened unto you. For everyone who asks, receives; he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
--Matthew 7:7-8--
Just for today.....
I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle my whole
life's problems at once.
Just for today.....
I will try to strengthen my mind. I will study. I will learn something
useful. I will not be a mental loafer. I will reach something that requires
effort, thought, and concentration.
Just for today.....
I will exercise my soul in 3 ways: I will do something to help someone,
and not get found out; if anybody knows of it, it will not count. I will
do at least 2 things I don't want to do -- just for exercise. I will
not show anyone that my feelings are hurt; they may be hurt, but today
I will not show it.
Just for today.....
I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I can, dress becomingly,
talk low, act courteously, criticize not one bit, not find falut with anything,
and not try to improve or regulate anybody but myself.
Just for today.....
I will have a plan. I may not follow it exactly, but I will
have it and it will save me from 2 pests: hurry and indecision.
Just for today.....
I will have a quiet half-hour all by myself and relax. During this time,
I will try to get a better prospective of my life.
Just for today.....
I will compliment everyone I talk to, even if he or she is my enemy. I
will whistle or hum a tune constantly and try to dispel talk of gloom wherever
I may hear it.
Just for today.....
I will be unafraid. Especially I will not be afraid to enjoy what
is beautiful and to believe that as I give to the world, so the world
will give to me.
"If you worry about the people that don't like you, just think of the millions of people that never heard of you."
--Willie Nelson--
"We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do."
--Mother Teresa--
"Be like a duck on water -- calm and unruffled on the surface, but paddling like Hell underneath."
Courtesy: Flower Essence
Society
Imagine for a moment the 3000-year-old California Redwood tree --over 25 stories high, taking 17 people hand-in-hand to reach around it. Enough lumber to build 40 five-room houses. And then imagine that this all once came from a tiny seed, weighing only 1/16 thousandth of an ounce (0.0018 grams), and so small you could lose it in the palm of your hand. Then ask yourself, "Would God have given more potential to a tree than he would to you and me?"
ANYWAY
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
Honest and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the
smallest people with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs.
Fight for some underdogs anyway.
What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
--Reader's Digest, Dec. '82--
"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about these things."
--Philippians 4:8--
"I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
--Mahatma Gandhi--
"Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without strategy."
--General H. Norman Schwarzkopf--
"Luck is not chance, it's toil. Fortune's expensive smile is earned."
--Emily Dickinson--
"If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun."
--Katherine Hepburn--
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."
--Albert Einstein--
"Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong -- only in failing to correct our mistakes."
--George Soros--
"Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."
--George Washington Carver--
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
--Walt Disney--
"Experience is a hard teacher. She gives the test first and the lesson afterwards."
A BAR OF IRON IS WORTH $5.00 !!
Robert Ripley, in his article, Believe it or Not, once said, "A plain bar of iron is worth $5. This same bar of iron when made into horseshoes, is worth $10.50. If made into needles, it is worth $355. If made into pen knife blades, it is worth $3285, and if turned into balance springs for watches, that identical bar becomes worth $250,000."
Without exerting much effort, each of us can obtain the value of the bar of iron. The potential is there in each human being, just as it is in the bar of iron, to become much more. We, too, can refine and develop our abilities and increase our worth as individuals.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
--John Lennon
Lyrics to the song "Beautiful Boy"--
"Write it down -- a long pencil is better than a short memory."
"Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
And dance like nobody is watching."
--Karol Lee McLeod--
QUALITY
.....is like buying oats.
If you want nice, clean, fresh oats,
you must pay a fair price;
However, if you can be satisfied with oats
that have already been through the horse,
.....that comes a little cheaper.
"We cannot do great things on this earth. We can only do small things with great love."
--Mother Teresa--
MIRACLE WITH MINUTES
Someone has said that the great dividing line between success and failure can be expressed in five words: I did not have the time. And yet time is the one thing we are never short-changed on. Our supply of time is exactly the same as that received by Edison, Ford, Burbank, Lincoln, and all the other people who have worked miracles with minutes. When we say we haven't got the time, what we really mean is that we haven't got the push, drive, ambition, and stick-to-it-tiveness to get things done. Time doesn't fail us -- it is we who fail time.
"There is very little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative."
--W. Clement Stone--
A lot of people are like wheelbarrows -- not good unless pushed.
Some are like canoes -- they need to be paddled.
Some are like kites -- if you don't keep a string on them, they fly away.
Some are like footballs -- you can't tell which way they will bounce next.
Some are like balloons -- full of wind and ready to blow up.
Some are like trailers -- they have to be pulled.
Some are like neon lights -- they keep going on and off.
Some are like a good watch -- open face, pure gold, quietly busy, and full
of good works.
REALIZE
Lord, make me an
instrument of your peace!
Where there is hatred,
let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not
so much seek to be consoled
as to console;
to be understood
as to understand;
to be loved
as to love;
for it is in giving
that we receive;
it is in pardoning
that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying
that we are born to Eternal Life.
--Francis of Assisi--
"Everybody can be great.....because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.--
ALL I EVER REALLY NEEDED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN
Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.
These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the cup -- they all die. So do we.
And remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living.
Think of what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is better to hold hands and stick together.
--Robert Fulghum--
"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."
--Henry Ford--
When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country.
But it, too, seemed immovable.
As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.
And now, as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family.
From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country and, who knows, I may have even changed the world.
--on the tomb of an Anglican Bishop in the Crypts of Westminster Abbey--
"Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you."
--Aldous Huxley--
"Happiness is not a location; it is a state of mind."
CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE
If children live with criticism,
they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility,
they learn to fight.
If children live with fear,
they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity,
they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule,
they learn to be shy.
If children live with jealousy,
they learn what envy is.
If children live with shame,
they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with tolerance,
they learn to be patient.
If children live with encouragement,
they learn to be confident.
If children live with praise,
they learn to appreciate.
If children live with approval,
they learn to like themselves.
If children live with acceptance,
they learn to find love in the world.
If children live with recognition,
they learn to have a goal.
If children live with sharing,
they learn to be generous.
If children live with honesty and fairness,
they learn what truth and justice are.
If children live with security,
they learn to have faith in themselves and
those around them.
If children live with friendliness,
they learn the world is a nice place in which
to live.
If children live with serenity,
they learn to have peace of mind.
With what are your children living?
--Dorothy L. Nolte--
Learning is finding out
what you already know.
Doing is demonstrating
that you know it.
Teaching is reminding
others that they know it
just as well as others.
You are all learners,
doers, teachers.
--Richard Bach--
"It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one, than to have an opportunity and not be prepared."
--Whitney Young, Jr.--
LOVE IS......
listening to each other with the heart,
hearing what is often unspoken.
Love is putting another's happiness and well-being ahead of our own,
and doing so cheerfully.
Love is giving your best to someone else.....
Love is a gift that never ends.
"We need 4 hugs a day for survival.
We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance.
We need 12 hugs a day for growth."
--Virginia Satir--
A CREED FOR THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.......
I asked for health, that I might do great things.
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.......
I asked for riches, that I might be happy.
I was given poverty, that I might be wise......
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God......
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things......
I got nothing I asked for -- but everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among men, most richly blessed!
--Roy Campanella--
"Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other -- it doesn't matter who it is -- and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other."
--Mother Teresa--
"When you learn to let go of problems instead of resisting with all your might, your life will begin to flow. Change the things that can be changed, accept those that cannot, and have the wisdom to know the difference."
--a tenet of Zen philosophy--
"Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe in, and enthusiastically act upon.....MUST.....inevitably come to pass."
--Paul J. Meyer--
"One of the great discoveries man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do. Most of the barriers we run up against are in ourselves -- we put them there and we can take them down."
--Henry Ford--
HOW TO STAY YOUNG
Youth is not a time of life -- it is a state of mind; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkles the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair -- these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.
Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life.
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt, as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man, and from the Infinite, so long as you are young.
When the wires are all down and all the central place of your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then you are grown old indeed and may God have mercy on your soul.
--in a frame above Gen. Douglas MacArthur's desk--
(original poem by Samuel Ullman)
THINK POSITIVE
If you want to get somewhere, you have to know where you want to
go
and how to get there,
Then never, never, never give up.
The secret of life isn't in what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.
Help other people to cope with their problems and your own will be easier to cope with.
Never use the word "impossible" seriously again,
Toss it into the verbal waste bucket.
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
So believe in and trust yourself.
Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them.
You will find that they haven't half the strength you think they have.
Joy increases as you give it, and diminishes as you try to keep it
for yourself.
In giving it, you will accumulate a deposit of joy greater than you ever
believed possible.
How you think about a problem is more important than the problem
itself -
so always think positively.
Go at life with abandon; give it all you've got.
And life will give all it has to you.
--Norman Vincent Peale--
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
--Helen Keller--
"Everything in life is a question of how you look at it in your mind."
--Indira Gandhi--
"Yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery, live for today."
--Alcoholics Anonymous--
"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got."
"No matter what you say or do to me, I'm still a worthwhile person."
"What other people think of me is NONE of my business."
"Follow your dreams, for they hold endless possibilities."
"Success is a journey, not a destination."
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
--Eleanor Roosevelt--
"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do."
--Dr. Benjamin Spock--
"What I am is good enough, if I would only be it openly."
--Dr. Carl Rogers--
"I believe in the sun even when it isn't shining
I believe in love even when I am alone
I believe in God even when he is silent."
"One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who only have interest."
Please note: This page is periodically updated. If you have any inspirational stories, poems, quotes, etc. you would care to contribute, please feel free to send them my way. You would not BELIEVE all the positive feedback I have received from people all over the world in depression or down on their luck who have stumbled across this page and felt uplifted. Thank you very much.......
Gary
July 5, 2008
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