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Past Thoughts of the Day from Interlude: An Internet Retreat

12/1/11 to the present



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?
Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.

Eckhart Tolle

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.

Leo Rosten

If you understand, things are as they are.
If you do not understand, things are as they are.

Gensha

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.

Peter F. Drucker

If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Every time you do a good deed you shine the light a little farther into the dark. And the thing is, when you're gone that light is going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back.

Charles de Lint

The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.

Bertrand Russell

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.

Calvin Coolidge

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

Lao Tzu

We go here, there, to this place, to that one, always looking for happiness that is there inside.

Satchidananda

Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.

Jose Marti

Once we recognize what it is we are feeling, once we recognize we can feel deeply, love deeply, can feel joy, then we will demand that all parts of our lives produce that kind of joy.

Audre Lorde

You will find, as you look back on your life, that the moments that stand out are the moments when you have done things for others.

Henry Drummond

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.

George MacDonald

Ultimately, human intentionality is the most powerful evolutionary force on this planet.

George Leonard

It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.

Hugo Black

When the idea of any pleasure strikes your imagination, make a just computation between the duration of the pleasure and that of the repentance that is likely to follow it.

Epictetus

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Mohandas Gandhi

Choose to live from the heart. When fear thoughts come, treat them as you would an unwelcome guest: Refuse to entertain them and eventually they go away. Lavish attention instead on thoughts of love.

Mary Manin Morrissey

Master, will you please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom? Ikkyu immediately took his brush and wrote the word "Attention."

Zen story

Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy.

Albert Clarke

Ultimately, human intentionality is the most powerful evolutionary force on this planet.

George Leonard

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.

Richard P. Feynman

Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude.

Alfred North Whitehead, in Time/Infinity


God is love, but God is also infinite intelligence, and unless these two qualities are balanced in our lives, we do not get wisdom; for wisdom is the perfect blending of intelligence and love.

Emmet Fox

Life is like a giant game of poker. The key to winning is to make the most of your good cards and get rid of your bad cards.

Steven Beresford

The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect.

Robert Louis Stevenson

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