Interlude: An Internet Retreat "Thought of the Day"

Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.
Henry Emerson Fosdick

All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.
Lord Byron

Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.
Will Rogers

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.
John Lubbock

There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.
Celia Thaxter

First keep peace with yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.
Thomas à Kempis

The price of freedom is responsibility, but it is a bargain, because freedom is priceless.
Hugh Downs

If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
John Adams

Such happiness as life is capable of comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situation of experience its own full and unique meaning.
John Dewey

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.
James Barrie

Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.
Mia Hamm

Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life.
Jackie Robinson

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Bruce Lee

There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.
Celia Thaxter

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.
Thomas Merton

The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor.
Marcus Aurelius

No memory is ever alone; it's at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.
Louis L'Amour

When one's thoughts are at peace and have become transparent
One sees the true form of the mind.
Hung Ying-Ming

Now today, moment by moment, realize that each person and event that happens is life for you. Life is not somewhere else. See how fully you can accept the life that presents itself to you now.
Brenda Shoshanna

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.
Voltaire

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.
Leonardo da Vinci

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
Christopher Morley

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
Dalai Lama

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
Epictetus

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it…Skepticism is the first step toward truth.
Denis Diderot

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many–not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Charles Dickens

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.
Thich Nhat Hanh

The two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty.
Stevie Wonder

Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'
Erich Fromm

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.
Albert Ellis

Only when you awaken do you realize you were dreaming.
John Wareham

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
Nelson Mandela

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.
Benjamin Disraeli

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
Thomas Paine

All is beautiful, all is more beautiful, and life is thankfulness.
Iguilik Eskimo song

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
Muhammad Ali

Don't wait. The time will never be just right.
Napoleon Hill

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.
Lin Yutang

Joy seems to arise from a sense of being where one belongs…All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be something they are not, to do something they cannot do.
David Grayson

The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end–you don't come to an achievement, you don't come to a conclusion. It is an endless river.
J. Krishnamurti

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.
Henry David Thoreau

Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.
Helen Keller

By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasureable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.
Matthieu Ricard

All right, every day ain't going to be the best day of your life, don't worry about that. If you stick to it you hold the possibility open that you will have better days.
Wendell Berry

"I have done my best." That is about all the philosophy of living that one needs.
Lin Yutang

Having failed to distinguish thoughts from things, we then fail to distinguish words from thoughts. We think that if we can label a thing we have understood it.
Maha Sthavira Sangharakshita

I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

All great work is preparing yourself for the accident to happen.
Sidney Lumet

Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much.
Erastus Wiman

The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist.
J. Harold Wilkins

Time is not a line, but a series of now-points.
Taisen Deshimaru

It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck even while waiting for it.
Baltasar Gracian

Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.
William James

The battle to keep up appearance unnecessarily, the mask–whatever name you give creeping perfectionism–robs us of our energies.
Robin Worthington

You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.
Ruth E. Renkl

It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.
Maurice Maeterlinck

A false sense of security is the only kind there is.
Michael Meade

When I dare to be powerful–to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
Audre Lorde

Reality is a staircase going neither up nor down. We don't move, today is today, always is today.
Octavio Paz

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.
William Stafford

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.
Arthur Schopenhauer

The meaning of life is not to be discovered only after death in some hidden, mysterious realm; on the contrary, it can be found by eating the succulent fruit of the Tree of Life and by living in the here and now as fully and creatively as we can.
Paul Kurtz

I believe the ability to think is blessed. If you can think about a situation, you can deal with it. The big struggle is to keep your head clear enough to think.
Richard Pryor

Past Thoughts of the Day from Interlude: An Internet Retreat

Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.

All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.

Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.

There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.

First keep peace with yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.

The price of freedom is responsibility, but it is a bargain, because freedom is priceless.

If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?

Such happiness as life is capable of comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situation of experience its own full and unique meaning.

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.

Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.

Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life.

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.

The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor.

No memory is ever alone; it's at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.

When one's thoughts are at peace and have become transparent One sees the true form of the mind.

Now today, moment by moment, realize that each person and event that happens is life for you. Life is not somewhere else. See how fully you can accept the life that presents itself to you now.

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it…Skepticism is the first step toward truth.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many–not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.

The two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty.

Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.

Only when you awaken do you realize you were dreaming.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

All is beautiful, all is more beautiful, and life is thankfulness.

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

Don't wait. The time will never be just right.

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.

Joy seems to arise from a sense of being where one belongs…All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be something they are not, to do something they cannot do.

The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end–you don't come to an achievement, you don't come to a conclusion. It is an endless river.

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.

Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.

All right, every day ain't going to be the best day of your life, don't worry about that. If you stick to it you hold the possibility open that you will have better days.

"I have done my best." That is about all the philosophy of living that one needs.

Having failed to distinguish thoughts from things, we then fail to distinguish words from thoughts. We think that if we can label a thing we have understood it.

I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.

All great work is preparing yourself for the accident to happen.

Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much.

The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist.

Time is not a line, but a series of now-points.

It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck even while waiting for it.

Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.

The battle to keep up appearance unnecessarily, the mask–whatever name you give creeping perfectionism–robs us of our energies.

You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.

It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.

A false sense of security is the only kind there is.

When I dare to be powerful–to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

Reality is a staircase going neither up nor down. We don't move, today is today, always is today.

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.

Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.

The meaning of life is not to be discovered only after death in some hidden, mysterious realm; on the contrary, it can be found by eating the succulent fruit of the Tree of Life and by living in the here and now as fully and creatively as we can.

I believe the ability to think is blessed. If you can think about a situation, you can deal with it. The big struggle is to keep your head clear enough to think.

When one's thoughts are at peace and have become transparent
One sees the true form of the mind.