Leo Rosten
Everything in this world is transitory and fleeting...No man was ever born who could stop his body from changing constantly. Body is the name of a series of changes.
Paramanananda
What we have to learn, in both meditation and in life, is to be free of attachment to the good experiences, and free of aversion to the negative ones.
Sogyal Rinpoche
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John Wooden
Love, compassion, and tolerance are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive. If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it if you have love, compassion, and tolerance.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, For the Love of God
Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.
Wayne Dyer
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt
I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
Edward Everett Hale
Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven and hell a fable.
Charles Caleb Colton
Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
Sun Tzu
If you want congenial companionship, if you want to be loved, you must first think thoughts of love and good-will.
Emmet Fox
You can see that a magnificent leap of awareness is required for the fish to extend its vision beyond the water in which it is immersed to the source of the ripples. A similar leap of awareness will be required of you. When you understand the source clearly, you'll see that the ripples of your mind have nothing to do with you; you'll just watch them, without attachment, no longer compelled to overreact every time a pebble drops.
Dan Millman
In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.
Richard Bach
Life just is. You have to flow with it. Give yourself to the moment. Let it happen.
Jerry Brown
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Upton Sinclair
Always remember that the only thought that you need to concern yourself with is the present one. The thoughts of yesterday or of last year do not matter now, because if you can get the present thought right it will make everything else right here and now.
Emmet Fox
When you give a lesson in meanness to a critter or a person don't be surprised if they learn their lesson.
Will Rogers
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
Bertrand Russell
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.
Edgar Allan Poe
Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things.
Phillippians 4:8
Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance toward the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point. Climb slowly, steadily, enjoying each passing moment; and the view from the summit will serve as a fitting climax for the journey.
Harold B. Melchart
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.
Buddha
Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road.
Dag Hammarskjold
All great changes are preceded by chaos.
Deepak Chopra
There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.
Carl Jung
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
Mae West
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan
Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace?
Eckhart Tolle
Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein
Peace starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share peace with neighboring communities, and so on. When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.
Dalai Lama
We go here, there, to this place, to that one, always looking for happiness that is there inside.
Satchidananda
You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.
Henry Drummond
One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.
John Burroughs
I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy.
I think the purpose of life is
to be useful
to be responsible
to be compassionate.
It is, above all
to matter
to count
to stand for something
to have made some difference that you lived at all.
©2011 Tom Barrett