One may have

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.

~Vincent Van Gogh

My mother said

My mother said to me, "If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope." Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.

~Pablo Picasso

A painter

A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.

~Leopold Stokowski

There are always

There are always two persons in each individual. The person without is the picture the person within paints with his mind.

~Charles Filmore

Teach

You can only teach what you need to learn.

~Inyala Vanzant

Deeds of giving

Deeds of giving are the very foundation of the world.

~The Torah

After despair
many hopes flourish.
Just as after darkness,
thousands of suns
open and
start to shine.

~Rumi

Whatever shows up in your life is the answer. Your job is to figure out what the question was.

~unknown

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

~T S Eliot

Life is

Life is like getting dropped off in the middle of the woods, and then year by year, gradually walking home.

~April Foiles

Time flies

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

~Groucho Marx

A positive attitude

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.

~Herm Albright

You've got to

You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is.

~Will Rogers

Time and space

Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where it was, is night.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is one soul

There is one soul.
It is related to the world.
Art is its action thereon.
Science finds its methods.
Literature is its record.
Religion os the emotion of reverence that it inspires.
Ethics is the soul illustrated in human life.
Society is the finding of this sould by individuals in each other.
Trades are the learning of the soul in nature by labor.
Politics is the activity of the soul illustrated in power.
Manners are silent and mediate expressions of the soul.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

God be

God be between you and harm in
all the empty places you walk.

~Blessing of the 18th Egyptian Dynasty

What is life?

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

~Crowfoot - Blackfoot warior and orator

I may not be

I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent.

~Ashleigh Brilliant

There is no end

There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.

~Federico Fellini

Test everything

Test everything. Hold on to the good.

~1 Thessalonians 5:21

Self image

Self image sets the level of our expectations.

~William Tully

No one

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

~Eleanor Roosevelt

A successful person

A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.

~David Brinkley

In school

In school you get the lesson and then take the test ... In life you take the test and then get the lesson.

~unknown

Most people

Most people have come to prefer certain of life’s experiences and deny and reject others, unaware of the value of the hidden things that may come wrapped in plain and even ugly paper. In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all costs, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness.

~Rachel Naomi Remen

Love the ones

Love the ones you can. Touch the ones you can reach. Let the others go.

Real Live Preacher

Fall not

Fall not in love, therefore; it will stick to your face.

~National Lampoon

Learning to love

Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

~Michael Masser and Linda Creed

In Kyudo philosophy

In Kyudo philosophy, you don't aim--you become one with the target. Then, in fact, there's nothing to aim at. I find it works well with women, too. Give it a try.

~Martin Sage and Sybil Adelman, Northern Exposure

Where you used to be

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling into at night. I miss you like hell.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Is love supposed

Is love supposed to last throughout all time, or is it like trains changing at random stops. If I loved her, how could I leave her? If I felt that way then, how come I don't feel anything now?

~Jeff Melvoin, Northern Exposure

Marriage is

Marriage is the union of disparate elements. Male and female. Yin and yang. Proton and electron. What are we talking about here? Nothing less than the very tension that binds the universe. You see, when we look at marriage, people, we're are looking at creation itself.

"I am the sky," says the Hindu bridegroom to the bride. "You are the earth. We are sky and earth united.... You are my husband. You are my wife. My feet shall run because of you. My feet shall dance because of you. My heart shall beat because of you. My eyes see because of you. My mind thinks because of you and I shall love because of you."

~Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure

Sometimes love will pick you up by the short hairs...and jerk the heck out of you.

~Denise Dobbs, Northern Exposure

To love

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.

~David Viscott

Love

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.

~Peter Ustinov

Love isn't

Love isn't a decision. It's a feeling. If we could decide who we loved, it would be much simplier, but much less magical.

~Trey Parker & Matt Stone

Love

Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.

~Toni Morrison

Love is

Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.

~Lynda Barry

Love

Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock.

~John Barrymore

Marriage

Marriage. Why do we do it? Everybody knows the stats. One in two marriages end up in broken dishes and a trip to Tijuana. Is it loneliness? Partly. Is it teamwork? Definitely. Things just kind of go easier when there's two of you. One of you can wait in line at the movie theater while the other guy parks the car. Get better seats that way. Better room rate when it's a double. Are you ready to file jointly?...Above you is the sun and sky. Below you, the ground. Like the sun, your love should be constant, like the ground, solid.

~Jed Seidel, Northern Exposure,

Nothing is

Nothing is as easy as it looks.
Everything takes longer than you expect.
And if anything can go wrong,
It will, at the worst possible moment.

~Murphy's Law

Our prayers

Our prayers are answered not when we are given what we ask, but when we are challenged to be what we can be.

~Morris Adler

Don't find fault

Don’t find fault, find a remedy;
anybody can complain.

~Henry Ford

Be wicked

Be wicked, be brave, be drunk, be reckless, be dissolute, be despotic, be an anarchist, be a religious fanatic, be a suffragette, be anything you like, but for pity's sake be it to the top of your bent. Live -- live fully, live passionately, live disastrously au besoin.

~Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville-West

We have the need

We have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but we cannot accept and love ourselves. The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal. Our image of perfection is the reason we reject ourselves the way we are, and why we don't accept others the way they are.

~Don Miguel Ruiz

When doing becomes

When DOING becomes infused with the timeless quality of BEING that is Success.
Unless Being flows into doing, unless you are present, you lose yourself in whatever you do. You also lose yourself in thinking, as well as in your reactions to what happens externally.

~Eckhart Tolle

What lies behind

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is magic

There is magic in this world if you want the world to be magical. If you want life to be special, it will be. No one wants to be bored or consumed by ordinary drudgery. But what happens, all too often, is that when magic is presented to us, we don’t believe it because we don’t trust ourselves. We don’t realize what can really be accomplished. We don’t realize that if we wish to, we can take other forms. We can sit in the presence of the great masters, angels, or ancient seers of wisdom and find peace and wisdom, but it takes many small deaths, the giving away of old limitations, to get there.

~Lynn Andrews

The sun

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it,
can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

~Galileo

Milk

Milk is for babies. When you grow up you have to drink beer.

~Arnold Schwarzenegger

There is a criterion

There is a criterion by which you can judge whether the thoughts you are thinking and the things you are doing are right for you. The criterion is: Have they brought you inner peace? If they have not, there is something wrong with them, so keep seeking! If what you do has brought you inner peace, stay with what you believe is right.

~Peace Pilgrim

Moving toward

Moving toward an inwardly simple life is not about deprivation or denying ourselves the things we want. It’s about getting rid of the things that no longer contribute to the fullness of our lives. It’s about creating balance between our inner and outer lives.

~Elaine St. James

Freedom

Freedom in the mere sense of independence is meaningless. Perfect freedom lies in the harmony of relationship which we realize not through knowing but in being.

~Rabindranath Tagore

When you have two engines

When you have two engines, you have two engines that can fall to bits. When you have four engines, you have four that can fall to bits. The less engines you have, the safer you are.

~Frank Fickeisen, chief engineer for Boeing

That is true

That is true - but not absolutely true.

~Jean Drapeau

Money

Money is not everything,
but it does make poverty tolerable.

~Moss Evans

Just halfway through

Just halfway through life's journey
I reawoke to find myself in a dark wood
Far off course, the right way lost.
How hard it is to tell what this
Wild, harsh, forbidding wood was like
Whose merest memory brings back my fear;
For only death exceeds its bitterness.
But I found goodness there; I'll deal with that
As I describe the various things I saw.

~Opening lines from Dante's Inferno

When you hear

When you hear the thunder, lightning has already struck somewhere else.

~Sandra Hymel

Man would sooner

Man would sooner have the void for his purpose than be void of purpose.

~Nietzche

Genius is

Genius is an immense capacity for making trouble.

~Carlyle

The moment

The moment anyone bows to an authority outside himself, he blindfolds his inner eye and ceases to create. He becomes a mere assembler.

~Gardner Hunting

Finish each day

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

As I lay

As I lay in my Jacuzzi, watching my thousand dollar dog poop on my carpet, I finally got it? Life is about clearing up the crap, and while you're doing it, being OK with the fact that you have to do it.

~Inyanla VanZant

Remember this

Remember this: every decision you make stems from what you think you are, and represents the value that you put on yourself.

~A Course in Miracles

We can see

We can see our reflection in water only when we bend down close to it; and the heart of one, too, must lean down to the heart of others; then it will se itself within those hearts.

~Hasidic Proverb

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.

~Spanish proverb

Compassion

Compassion is the chief law of human existence.

~Fyodor Dostoevsky

Discipline

Discipline comes from doing the very thing you keep praying for the discipline to do.

~Inyala VanZant

Your children

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life searching for their own. They come through you but they are not from you. Although they are with you, they do not belong to you.

~Kahlil Gibran

If it is love

If it is love you are looking for, take a knife and cut off the head of fear.

~Rumi