Quotes


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

"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

"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

"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
 
"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
 
"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

"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

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
-- 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

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

“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”
—  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

“Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.”
— 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  

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"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

“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

"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

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