This is my collection of quotes that mean something to me, organized alphabetically by author.
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I have come up with a new simile to describe myself lately. It can be yours. Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together. Now, it's your turn. Jump! - Ray Bradbury
If you really want
something you can figure out how to make it happen. - Cher
Success is stumbling from
failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. - Winston Churchill
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall. - Confucius
I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning.... Every day I find something creative to do with my life. - Miles Davis
Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others. - Ellen DeGeneres
What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. - Emily Dickinson
There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven... a time to weep and a time to laugh... a time to search and a time to give up as lost... a time to keep and a time to throw away... a time to tear apart and a time to sew together... a time to be silent and a time to speak... Ecclesiastes 3:1-7
The Earth laughs in flowers. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. - Epictetus, Greek philosopher
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. - Henry Ford
Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. - Benjamin Franklin
Aging is not "lost youth" but a new stage of opportunity and strength. - Betty Friedan
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. - Mahatma Gandhi
What is creative
living? Any life that is driven more
strongly by curiosity than by fear. - Elizabeth Gilbert
Let everything run
through us and grab as much as we can of it with a pen and paper. Let
yourself live in something that is already rightfully yours - your own wild
mind. - Natalie Goldberg, Wild Mind
The most important thing is to enjoy your life - to be happy - it's all that matters. - Audrey Hepburn
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. - Edmund Hillary
Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. - James 1:2-3
Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment. - Jean de La Bruyere
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - Lao Tzu
Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things. - Flora Lewis
Let your light shine. - Matthew 5:16
The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. - Henry Miller
My belief is that we all crave to be in touch with the whispers of our spirit....and that this requires more than reading books and scrolling the internet. It requires a deep listening, a willingness to feel deep and it requires a conscious practice of uniting over and over again - with love. Adriene Mishler, Yoga with Adriene
When you have confidence, you
can have a lot of fun. And when you have
fun, you can do amazing things. - Joe Namath
If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one. - Dolly Parton
I'm always doing things I can't do. That's how I get to do them. - Pablo Picasso
Every human mind is a great slumbering power until awakened by a keen desire and by definite resolution to do. - Edgar F. Roberts
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe. - Marilyn vos Savant
We know what we are but not what we might be. - William Shakespeare
Joy is enough of a reason to do things. - Sparrow Sprite, professional lace tatter
The beauty of a new day is that no matter what happened yesterday, you can start over today. - Jeanne Swartz
The real journey we all face in life is to get to know ourselves so we can begin to help others. - Jeanne Swartz
There is no security in life, only opportunity. - Mark Twain
Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul....and you answer. - Unknown
The life you save could be your own. - Unknown
If you hear a voice within
you say 'you cannot paint' then by all means paint, and that voice will be
silenced. - Vincent Van Gogh
Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. - Oprah Winfrey
The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude. - Oprah Winfrey
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The Daffodil Principle
Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. "I will come next Tuesday, " I promised, a little reluctantly, on her third call.
Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house and hugged and greeted my grandchildren, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in the clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see bad enough to drive another inch!"
My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother."
"Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her.
"I was hoping you'd take me over to the garage to pick up my car."
"How far will we have to drive?"
"Just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this."
After several minutes, I had to ask, "Where are we going? This isn't the way to the garage!"
"We're going to my garage the long way," Carolyn smiled, "by way of the daffodils."
"Carolyn," I said sternly, "please turn around."
"It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."
After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand-lettered sign that read, "Daffodil Garden."
We got out of the car and each took a
child's hand, and I followed Carolyn
down the path. Then, we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and
gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had
taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain peak and slopes.
The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns -- great ribbons and
swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter
yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted as a group so that it
swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue.
There were five acres of flowers.
"But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn.
"It's just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline.
The first answer was a simple one."50,000 bulbs," it read.
The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and very little brain."
The third answer was, "Began in 1958."
There it was. The Daffodil Principle. For me, that moment was a life-changing experience.
I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun -- one bulb at a time -- to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top.
Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world. This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived.
She had created something of ineffable (indescribable) magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.
The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time -- often just one baby-step at a time - and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.
"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years. Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"
My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said.
It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, "How can I put this to use today?" -Author Unknown
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BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
Laugh, and the world laughs with you,
Weep, and you weep alone,
For the brave old earth must borrow its mirth ;
It has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer,
Sigh, it is lost on the air ;
The echoes redound to a joyful sound
And shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you,
Grieve, and they turn and go ;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not want your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many,
Be sad, and you lose them all ;
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded,
Fast, and the world goes by,
Forget and forgive—it helps you live,
But no man can help you die !
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But, one by one, we must all march on,
Through the narrow aisle of pain.
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