I've always enjoyed quotes and decided this was as good a place as any to collect and share them. The page will be changed from time to time, so check back often. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
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Updated August 5, 2012
“I have
found that if you love life, life will love you back.”
—Arthur Rubenstein
"Optimism is true moral courage."
— Ernest Shakelton
"In Zen they say: If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try it for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually one discovers that it's not boring at all but very interesting."
— John Cage
“Look for the ridiculous in everything and you will find it.”
—
Jules
Renard
"That is how authentic power is created—intention by intention,
and choice by choice. You cannot wish it, pray it or meditate it."
— Gary Zukav
"They always say that time changes things, but you actually have
to change them yourself."
— Andy Warhol
— Andy Warhol
"Let us decide on the route that we wish to take to pass our life, and attempt to sow that route with flowers."
— Madame du Chatele
"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you
live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all."
— J.K. Rowling
"The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the dominance of outward conditions."
— Robert Louis Stevenson
"If you make it a habit not to blame others, you will feel the growth of the ability to love in your soul, and you will see the growth of goodness in your life."
— Leo Tolstoy
"Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the
handle of anxiety or the handle of faith."
— Henry Ward Beecher
“Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
"When you're always trying to conform to the norm, you lose your
uniqueness, which can be the foundation for your greatness."
— Dale Archer
"Nothing can be delicious when you are holding your breath."
— Anne Lamott
“Whenever we give up, leave behind, and forget too much, there is
always the danger that the things we have neglected will return with added
force.”
— Carl Jung
— Carl Jung
"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again more
intelligently."
— Henry Ford
"I am part of all that I have met."
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Let your adornment be the inner self with the lasting beauty of a
gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in God's sight.
--1 Peter 3:4
"Look deeper into the actions you take and the truths you take for
granted. Ask why and then ask why again."
— Walter Mosley
"To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be
able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a
position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted."
— Bill Bryson
“Your mother is a scrapbook for all
your enthusiasms. She is the one who validates and the one who shames, and when
she’s gone, you are alone in a terrible way.”
— Timothy Egan
“A comfortable home is a great source
of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.”
— Sydney Smith
— Sydney Smith
"To reach a port, we must sail --
sail, not tie at anchor -- sail, not drift."
— Franklin
Roosevelt
"If you’re going to fail, you
might as well fail at the big ones."
— Dean
Kamen, inventor
"Second chances come along all
the time. It's up to us to recognize them."
—
Katherine Russell Rich
“My mind tells me that if I have this
thing, I'll be more efficient; if I have that thing, I'll be more charming. But
what I really need is to master my mind, and then I'll have everything.”
— The
Conscious Mind (website)
“He is wise who treats an acquaintance
as a friend, and he is foolish who treats a friend as an acquaintance, and he
is impossible who treats friends and acquaintances as strangers; you cannot
help him.”
— Bowl of Saki
“We must be willing to let go of the
life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
— E.M. Forster
“Good communication is as stimulating
as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.”
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“One of the secrets of a happy life is
continuous small treats.”
— Iris Murdoch
— Iris Murdoch
"When you can't mend what is broken at the center of a friend's
life...you learn a deeper truth, how to accept the unacceptable and, however
slowly, move along together."
— Catherine Calver
“Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of
your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.”
— Marcus Aurelius
— Marcus Aurelius
"Take it one moment at a time...sometimes
a day is too much."
— Azure
Antoinette
"Remember that at any given moment /
There are a thousand things / You can love."
—
David Levithan
"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90%
how you react to it"
-- Charles Swindoll
-- Charles Swindoll
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no
one thinks of changing himself.”
-- Leo Tolstoy
-- Leo Tolstoy
“Tis better to pass boldly into the other
world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with
age.”
— James Joyce
"If you
walk out into the world in anger or self-centeredness, even the sparrows will
scatter."
— Mary Oliver
"Everything
is just as it needs to be. And if we would forgive, our minds and hearts would
open and we could see another possibility."
— Iyanla Vanzant
“To be without
some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”
— Bertrand Russell
— Bertrand Russell
Forgiveness is
the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
— Mark
Twain
"You are
imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful."
— Amy Bloom
"The
longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes."
— Frank Lloyd Wright
“As I know more
of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man,
upon easier terms than I was formerly.”
— Samuel Johnson
— Samuel Johnson
“To be what we
are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson
— Robert Louis Stevenson
"Taking
responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change
them."
— Byron Katie
“The cure of
anything is salt water – sweat, tears or the sea.”
— Isak Dinesen
“Holding on is
believing there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.”
— Daphne Rose Kingma
“We must be
willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is
waiting for us.”
— Joseph Campbell
“Without
freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all.”
— Krishnamurti
“When we go
back into the past and rake up all the troubles we’ve had, we end up reeling
and staggering through life. Stability
and peace of mind come by living in the moment.
— Pam Vredevelt
“You’ve got to
make a conscious choice every day to shed the old – whatever “the old” means to
you.”
— Sarah Ban Breathnach
“When I let go
of what I am, I become what I might be.
When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.”
— Tao Te Ching
“We are what we
pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.”
— Kurt Vonnegut
“What lies in
our power to do, lies in our power not to do.”
— Aristotle
— Aristotle
“Don't let
perfect be the enemy of the good.”
— Voltaire
— Voltaire
"Without
leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.
Dreaming, after all is a form of planning."
— Gloria
Steinem
"Letting
go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness."
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“People have a
hard time letting go of their suffering.
Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“One does not
need money, power, or status to find peace…..Heaven is right where you are
standing.”
— Morihei Ueshiba, Japanese sensei
"Problems
are the gifts that make us dig out and figure out who we are, what we're made
for, and what we're responsible to give back to life."
— Tony Robbins
"When we
are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change
ourselves."
— Viktor E. Frankl
"Life is
joy and sorrow, hand in hand. And that, my friend, is about all I know."
—
Lisa Kogan
"How I
feel about myself is more important than how I look. Feeling confident, being
comfortable in your skin—that's what really makes you beautiful."
— Bobbi Brown
"The more
we examine ourselves and learn from our mistakes, the clearer our future
becomes."
-
Shinjo Ito
“A merry heart
doeth good [like] a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”
-Proverbs 17:22
-Proverbs 17:22
“Holding on to
anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone
else; you are the one who gets burned.”
-Buddha
-Buddha
"The way we pay attention to the
world can make a huge difference in the way we experience it."
—
Gabrielle Leblanc
“There are
always flowers for those who want to see them.”
—
Henri Matisse
“Any pleasure
that does no harm to other people is to be valued.”
-Bertrand Russell
-Bertrand Russell
“Happiness is a
place between too much and too little.”
-Finnish proverb
-Finnish proverb