Quotes, Poems, & Sayings...

[Arwen]

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. ♥ Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Arwen]

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

[Janny]

"Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops."

-Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace-

[tapu]

"Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops."

-Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace-



I'll be using that one as though it were my own. :)

[Soon]

I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.

~Erica Jong

[Amber2010]

When you look into your life always remember….
The things that is most important…
Health… happiness… love…
Without Health it is very hard to be happy….
When you are not happy in your life it is hard to feel and give love….
Love in yourself is the first most important …..
If we don’t love ourselves how can we expect others to love us?

[femmedyke]

You are unrepeatable. There is a magic about you that is all your own... ~D M Dillinger

[Hack]

There were the roses, in the rain.
Don't cut them, I pleaded.
They won't last, she said.
But they're so beautiful
where they are.
Agh, we were all beautiful once, she said,
and cut them and gave them to me
in my hand.

-- William Carlos Williams

[PinkieLee]

"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."
-Ella Fitzgerald

[Nat]

THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

[amnesia.bfp]

"Who am I?"

[DamselFly]

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower,
And Agammenon dead.

Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak let her drop?

(W.B. Yeats)

[JakeTulane]

"The first question here, then, is not "What is best for my soul?" nor is it even "What is most useful to humanity?" But--transcending both these limited aims--what function must this life fulfill in the great and secret economy of God?" --Evelyn Underhill

[JakeTulane]

"How are you going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued? Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are." --Anne Lamott

[JakeTulane]

"I am still learning--how to take joy in all the people I am, how to use all my selves in the service of what I believe, how to accept when I fail and rejoice when I succeed." --Audre Lorde

[moxie]

“You can't get unless you give. And you have to give without wanting to get.” -Theodore H. White

[little_ms_sunshyne]

“Falling in love with someone isn't always going to be easy... Anger... tears... laughter.. It's when you want to be together despite it all. That's when you truly love another. I'm sure of it.”

[Fancy]

Big mouth don't make a big man.

Wil Andersen - The Cowboys

[jelli]

Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well
as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings--
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me
the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

Charles C. Finn
September 1966

[jenny]

"The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud." ~ Coco Chanel

[justkim]

- Whatever happens around you, don't take it personally... Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. -
- Don Miguel Ruiz -

[Novelafemme]

i found this on one of my favorite blogs:

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.” - William Gibson

[jelli]

i found this on one of my favorite blogs:

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.” - William Gibson

Is this a blog that you feel like sharing? If not, completely understand. :)

[Novelafemme]

Is this a blog that you feel like sharing? If not, completely understand. :)

Oh sure...although it was from an entry she made ages ago...schmutzie.com

she is a friend of mine and fabulous!!

[socialjustice_fsu]

To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame,
to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
~ Walter Pater

[Janstevie]

My diet is going well . . . apart from the chip butties and pizza last night, and the crisps, and the alcohol, and the tube of smarties . . . maybe it's not going as well as I thought :-((

[Kätzchen]

"This is the kind of Friend You are-
Without making me realize my soul's anguished history,
You slip into my house at night,
And while I am sleeping,
You silently carry off all my suffering
and sordid past in Your beautiful Hands."

— Hafiz of Shiraz

http://stylefrizz.com/img/blue-butterfly-tree.jpg

[JakeTulane]

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." --Carl Jung

[JakeTulane]

"You need to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all that you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality." --Florida Scott Maxwell

[JakeTulane]

"You cannot take the mild approach to the weeds in your mental garden. You have got to hate weeds enough to kill them. Weeds are not something you handle; weeds are something you devastate." --Jim Rohn

[always2late]

Great souls are not those which have less passion and more virtue than common souls, but only those which have greater designs. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

[JakeTulane]

"Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it." --Hardy D. Jackson

[JakeTulane]

"By your own soul, learn to live
And if men thwart you take no heed.
If men hate you have no care.
Sing your song, dream your dream,
Hope your hope and pray your prayer." --Parkenham Beatty

[JakeTulane]

"Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do." -- Robert Bennett

[cinderella]

"I will stop looking back with regrets or looking forward with fear and give the best I have today."

~Anonymous

[JakeTulane]

"But an accurate definition of the self is impossible. You are more than you realize, more than you can define. And the more time you spend trying to nail down the definition, the less time you spend living right now. ... Your past is not your identity... You, living now, is your identity." --George Lawrence-Ell

[JakeTulane]

"The greatest thing is, at any moment, to be willing to give up who we are in order to become all that we can be." --Max De Pree

[JakeTulane]

"How do the geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we, humans, know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us, there is a voice within, if only we would listen to it, that tells us so certainly when to go forth into the unknown." --Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

[Ms. Meander]

"The years that are gone seem like dreams--if one might go on sleeping and dreaming--but to wake up and find--oh! well! perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life."

- Kate Chopin

[JakeTulane]

"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts." --Albert Einstein

[JakeTulane]

"I am still learning--how to take joy in all the people I am, how to use all my selves in the service of what I believe, how to accept when I fail and rejoice when I succeed." --Audre Lorde

[JakeTulane]

"I do not want to die...until I have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown." --Kathe Kollwitz

[Fancy]

“I’m in the persuasion business. And frankly I’m disappointed by your presentation.”

-Peggy Olson (Mad Men Season 2)

[tapu]

All progress occurs because people dare to be different.

Harry Milner

[oblivia]

“Until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have.” -Doris Mortman

“Why compare yourself with others? No one in the entire world can do a better job of being you than you.” ~Unknown

[JakeTulane]

"I believe a unique core self is born into every human being; the result of millennia of environment and heredity combined in an unpredictable way that could never happen before or again." --Gloria Steinem

[JakeTulane]

"I don't think there ever was a lazy man in this world. Every man has some sort of gift, and he prizes that gift beyond all others. He may be a professional billiard-player, or a Paderewski, or a poet--I don't care what it is. But whatever it is, he takes a native delight in exploiting that gift, and you will find it is difficult to beguile him away from it. Well, there are thousands of other interests occupying other men, but those interests don't appeal to the special tastes of the billiard champion or Paderewski. They are set down, therefore, as too lazy to do that or do this--to do, in short what they have no taste or inclination to do. In that sense, then I am phenomenally lazy. But when it comes to writing a book--I am not lazy. My family find it difficult to dig me out of my chair." --Mark Twain

[JakeTulane]

"I have a basic philosophy that I've tried to follow during my coaching career. Whether you're winning or losing, it's important to always be yourself. You can't change because of the circumstances around you." --Cotton Fitzsimmons

[Mister Bent]

There is something about a Martini,
A tingle remarkably pleasant:
A yellow, mellow Martini:
I wish I had one at present.

- Ogden Nash

[little_ms_sunshyne]

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."
— Marilyn Monroe

[Diva]

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

~ Anonymous

[JakeTulane]

“The stages of the Noble Path are: Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Behavior, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.” - Buddha

[JakeTulane]

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” - Henry David Thoreau

[JakeTulane]

“By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain the great.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Fancy]

Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.

Gustave Flaubert

[JAGG]

Take the high road. Honesty and integrity are always rewarded.

[JAGG]

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."
— Marilyn Monroe

I want to use this, but shorten it . I'm just going to say, if you can't handle me at my worst, then you don't deserve me at my best!

[tapu]

I want to use this, but shorten it . I'm just going to say, if you can't handle me at my worst, then you don't deserve me at my best!

Yes, but keep the "hell." :)

[tapu]

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
~Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

[nycfem]

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. ~Mark Twain

If things go wrong, don't go with them. ~Roger Babson

If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today. ~E. Joseph Cossman

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. ~Swedish Proverb

That the birds of worry and care fly over you head, this you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent. ~Chinese Proverb

You can never worry your way to enlightenment. ~Terri Guillemets

Loneliness, insomnia, and change: the fear of these is even worse than the reality. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

Love looks forward, hate looks back, anxiety has eyes all over its head. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

[little_ms_sunshyne]

There is such a place You can touch a woman that will drive her crazy.
Her Heart.
~ Milk Money

When you love someone, and you love them with your heart, it never disappears when you are apart.
~ Forget Paris

[JAGG]

" I thought I could tell she loved me, by the way she looked at me. I thought I saw something in her eyes. Turns out she had cataracts".

[JakeTulane]

"Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have." - Unknown

[JakeTulane]

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." - Abraham Lincoln

[JakeTulane]

"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward." - Soren Kierkegaard

[Fancy]

Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution.

Gustave Flaubert

[JakeTulane]

"Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they're alive and human." - Albert Ellis

[JakeTulane]

"Acceptance of one's life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices." - Paul Tournier

[JakeTulane]

"Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune." - William James

[I'mOneToo]

"I hate labels and I wear no labels. When a man has to put something around his neck that says I AM, he isn't." - Pearl Bailey

[UofMfan]

"Five minutes are enough to dream a whole life, that is how relative time is." ~ Mario Benedetti

[Diva]

If only there were a longer time between epiphany and epitaph.

~David Glaser

[Diva]

You know how You fit into someone's life by how they respond to You..........or how they don't.

~Me

[StillettoDoll]

"I'm not religious at all. I think faith is something that gives you strength. I believe in fate and I believe that things happen for a reason but I don't think that there's a high power, necessarily. I believe in karma very much though. There are so many rude people around and they're the people that don't have any real friends. And relationships with people - with your mum, your nan, your dog - are what you get the most happiness in life from. Apart from shoes and bags. "

-Amy Winehouse

[Jeep]

In honor of my new job

If people were meant to pop out of bed, we'd all sleep in toasters. ~Author unknown, attributed to Jim Davis

No human being believes that any other human being has a right to be in bed when he himself is up. ~Robert Lynd

Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious. ~William Feather

There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast. ~Author Unknown

[JakeTulane]

“Every breath is an opportunity to receive and let go. I receive love and I let go of pain.” – Brenda MacIntyre

[JakeTulane]

“The Tao Te Ching says, When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need. Have you ever struggled to find work or love, only to find them after you have given up? This is the paradox of letting go. Let go, in order to achieve. Letting go is God’s law.” – Mary Manin Morrissey

[JakeTulane]

“Change is never easy, you fight to hold on, and you fight to let go.” – The Wonder Years

[nycfem]

In honor of my new job

If people were meant to pop out of bed, we'd all sleep in toasters. ~Author unknown, attributed to Jim Davis

No human being believes that any other human being has a right to be in bed when he himself is up. ~Robert Lynd

Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious. ~William Feather

There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast. ~Author Unknown

Just adding:

"Not a morning person" doesn't even begin to cover it! (a button I have)

"I hate mornings. They start so early." — Janet Evanovich

"Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life." — Steven Wright

I'll rise, but I won't shine. -Garfield

[JAGG]

" I'm not saying stupid should be illegal. All I'm saying is, maybe we should remove all the safety tags, and crazy warnings, and just let the problem take care of itself."

[Fancy]

The thing that you're faulted on today is not that you are too tough, or not that you aren't careful. It's that you might have been too soft. People want that red meat now because you have to keep up with the mood and the mood today is harsh. It really is.

Mark Russell

[Hack]

Woman is sacred; the woman one loves is holy.-- Alexandre Dumas

[Arwen]

Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are your own fears. ~Rudyard Kipling

[Diva]

Laughter is an instant vacation.

~Milton Berle

[Diva]

Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.

~Henri Bergson

[Diva]

A good time to laugh is any time You can!

~Linda Ellerbee

[gotoseagrl]

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Friedrich Nietzsche

[gotoseagrl]

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

Friedrich Nietzsche

[dixie]

An old Cherokee told his grandson, "My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies & ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy & truth." The boy thought about it, and asked, "Grandfather, which wolf wins?" The old man quietly replied, "The one you feed".

[always2late]

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination. ~ Voltaire

[Fancy]

I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing.


Mary Oliver

[VintageFemme]

i like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. this is the night, what it does to you. i had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion -jack kerouac

[JustLovelyJenn]

Always remember that the future comes one day at a time.
-- Dean Acheson

[JustLovelyJenn]

Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.
-- Arnold Bennett

[JustLovelyJenn]

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
-- Buddha

[oblivia]

“You change for two reasons: Either you learn enough that you want to, or you’ve been hurt enough that you have to.” ~Unknown

[iambrsf]

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us the 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 us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty" ~ Albert Einstein

[Duchess]

"Your time is limited, don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
http://www.great-quotes.com/static/images/authors/182968-small.jpg (http://www.great-quotes.com/quote/2213319)
Steve Jobs (http://www.great-quotes.com/quote/2213319)

[gotoseagrl]

I haven't failed. I've identified 10,000 ways this doesn’t work.

Thomas Edison

[VintageFemme]

i once had a thousand desires, but in my one desire to know you all else melted away -rumi

[Arwen]

I'd like to widen people's awareness of the tremendous timespan lying ahead -- for our planet, and for life itself. Most educated people are aware that we're the outcome of nearly 4bn years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. Six billion years from now, it will not be humans who watch the sun's demise. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae. -Martin Rees, cosmologist and astrophysicist (b. 1942)

[iambrsf]

" I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have- life itself." ~Walter Anderson~

[Queerasfck]

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein, (attributed)
US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

[Tcountry]

"If you love until it hurts...there can be no more hurt, only love." -Mother Teresa

[Fancy]

Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.

Gustave Flaubert

[Hollylane]

Dirty Dancing:

I'm scared of walking out of this room
and never feeling the rest of my whole life,
the way I feel when I'm with you.

[Diva]

The Blooming of the Lotus
By Thich Nhat Hanh

Smiling to my body I breathe in
Releasing the tensions in my body I breathe out.
Breathing in I go back
...To the island within myself
There are beautiful trees
Within the island
There are clear streams of water
There are birds
Sunshine, and fresh air
Breathing out I feel safe
I enjoy going back to my island.

[mustangjeano]

" your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it" Rumi

[Tommi]

"Smuggle your sweetness out from under your cynicism."
ST

[always2late]

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness
has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

[Mr.Nobody]

An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life...

"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.
"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

"One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego.

"The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

"This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,
"Which wolf will win?"

The old chief simply replied,
"The one you feed."

[Duchess]

“Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood is ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence … What are the fruits of silence? They are self-control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity and reverence. Silence is the cornerstone of character.” (f)

~Ohiyesa, Santee Sioux

[JakeTulane]

“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” – Albert Schweitzer

[JakeTulane]

"Sometimes you have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding on to.” – Anonymous

[JakeTulane]

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." - Khalil Gibran

[Daywalker]

"The weather surrounds all who exist...yes, even those who never notice it.
And those who don't appreciate it. And those who want to change it.
And yet it's slow and relentless itinerary goes on, so that it may selflessly
nurture those who bask in it's unconditional love and light. What a
world it could be if Human behavior learned by this example "

~ DW ~

7-27-2011

:daywalker:

[FeminineAllure]

Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for." -Bob Marley

[Ms. Meander]

To live lightheartedly but not recklessly; to be gay without being boisterous; to be courageous without being bold; to show trust and cheerful resignation without fatalism - this is the art of living.

Jean de La Fontaine

[JakeTulane]

"The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed."
Maya Angelou

[JakeTulane]

"Trust yourself, then you will know how to live." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[JakeTulane]

"For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end." - H. L. Mencken

[jelli]

Breathe

I pick up the phone and your voice catches me off guard My heart skips a beat and it takes me a moment to respond I hear your breath And it moves through my entire body A feeling of complete warmth overtakes me As you speak, my mind imagines you standing in front of me I can see you looking at me Standing there looking into my eyes I feel your breath on my face We move closer to one another Every breath you breathe is mine And I yours Our bodies touch I can feel your heartbeat against my chest We stand motionless Simply breathing Holding one another close The only movement is the rhythmic rise and fall of our chests As we breathe I feel you inside me Inside every part of me Your love caresses my soul My heart is so full of emotions Yet I can’t move All I can do is breathe The beating of your heart fills my ears And my breath quickens You respond by taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly I melt in the comfort of your arms As I hold you even closer Your breath becomes my own And in that instant the world disappears In this moment all that exists Is just you and me Standing closer than any two people have ever been Utter contentment fills my entire being As we share every feeling, every emotion, every breath All I can do is hold you and look into your eyes And simply, breathe -- © Rachel Pietrocola

[JustLovelyJenn]

A picture is a poem without words.
-- Horace

[Mr.Nobody]

When the world says, "Give up,"
Hope whispers, "Try it one more time."
~Author Unknown

[Mr.Nobody]

Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. ~Henri Louis Bergson

[Mr.Nobody]

If you're a gifted flirt, talking about the price of eggs will do as well as any other subject. ~Mignon McLaughlin

[jelli]

If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place. -Lao Tzu

[JakeTulane]

"To be honest with you, I don't have the words to make you feel better, but I do have the arms to give you a hug, ears to listen to whatever you want to talk about, and I have a heart; a heart that's aching to see you smile again." - Anonymous

[JakeTulane]

"Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it." ~Fyodor Dostoevsky

[JakeTulane]

"People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost." ~H. Jackson Browne

[Tommi]

"When I begin painting I am in a state of unconsciousness; I suddenly forget that I am holding a brush in my hand."

Wu Chen (1280-1354)

[JustLovelyJenn]

And now, this is the sweetest and most glorious day that ever my eyes did see.
--Donald Cargill

[JustLovelyJenn]

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.
--Jim Rohn

[JustLovelyJenn]

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.
--Buddha

[Maria]

My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth in the darkest past, nothing of her subsists within the hollows and dells of memory, over which, if you can still stand my style (I am writing under observation), the sun of my infancy had set: surely, you all know those redolent remnants of day suspended, with the midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenly entered and traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the summer dusk; a furry warmth, golden midges.

[MysticOceansFL]

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge

[Fancy]

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.

Agatha Christie

[Duchess]

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.”

Ernest Benn

[Mr.Nobody]

To find someone who will love you for no reason, and to shower that person with reasons, that is the ultimate happiness. ~Robert Brault

[Mr.Nobody]

My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants. ~J. Brotherton

[always2late]

If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world. - Thomas Merton

[Mr.Nobody]

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk. ~Doug Larson

[Fancy]

"Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead."
— Lucille Ball

[JakeTulane]

"Courage doesn't always roar.
Sometimes courage is the quiet voice
at the end of the day saying,
"I will try again tomorrow.""
- Mary Anne Radmacher

[JakeTulane]

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." - Nelson Mandela

[JakeTulane]

"Much as we may wish to make a new beginning, some part of us resists doing so as though we were making the first step toward disaster." - William Throsby Bridges

[iambrsf]

"Time doesn't always heal; it just breathes and swallows memories like the seasons change - sending showers; beating flowers into the mud. And nothing is forever in this place. Nothing but the way my heart fits in your hands; the held breath of hope." ~ Unknown Author

[iambrsf]

" Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is. " ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

[iambrsf]

"It is the mind which creates the world around us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched." ~ George Gissing



and one of my personal favorites to start off this month of August....



" If I were to die and I could come back as anything, I would want to come back as one of your tears. What girl wouldn't want to be conceived in your heart, born in your eyes, live on your cheek, and die on your lips." ~ unknown author

[JustLovelyJenn]

Group conformity scares the pants off me because it's so often a prelude to cruelty towards anyone who doesn't want to - or can't - join the Big Parade.
--Bette Midler

[JustLovelyJenn]

For some reason, all artists have self-esteem issues.
--Whoopi Goldberg

[iambrsf]

"I've learned that good-byes will always hurt, pictures will never replace having been there, memories good and bad will bring tears, and words can never replace feelings." ~ unknown author

[always2late]

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. - Rabindranath Tagore

[Duchess]

We must become the change we want to see. (f)

Mahatma Gandhi (http://www.great-quotes.com/quotes/author/Mahatma/Gandhi)

[Janstevie]

It is so hard to say goodbye to someone who you will never say hello to again.

[Diva]

So what? Who cares?

~"Joy Behar"

[Dreams]

Love is the answer, but while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty interesting questions. ~ Woody Allen ~

[jelli]

WHATEVER you give a WOMAN, she will MAKE it GREATER. Give her SPERM, she will give you a BABY. Give her a HOUSE, she will give you a HOME. Give her GROCERIES, she will give you a MEAL. Give her LOVE, and she will give you her HEART! She MULTIPLIES and ENLARGES what she is GIVEN. So, if you GIVE her CRAP, be PREPARED to RECEIVE a ton of Sh@#!!!

[jelli]

"Balance" doesn't mean "equal".
You don't have to spend equal amounts of time in each area of your life to be in balance.
But you do have to spend *enough* time."

[JakeTulane]

"To pay out millions upon millions of dollars in bonuses for incomplete work, poor performance, and unacceptable products is the height of government waste and mismanagement." - Jim Gibbons

[JakeTulane]

"Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common sense." - Helen Rowland

[JakeTulane]

"Those that go searching for love, only manifest their own loveless ness. And the loveless never find love, only the loving find love. And they never have to seek for it." - D.H. Lawrence

[Butterbean]

Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day.


~Albert Camus, The Fall, 1956

[UofMfan]

"You are the woman that poems have yet to be written about." ~ Me

[Mr.Nobody]

The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Mr.Nobody]

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. ~John Quincy Adams

[Mr.Nobody]

When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fullfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips~Kahlil Gibran

[I'mOneToo]

I willed myself to stay awake, but the rain was so soft and the room was so warm and his voice was so deep and his knee was so snug that I slept.

Seconds later, it seemed, his shoe was gently nudging my ribs. He lifted me to my feet and walked me to my room. "Heard every word you said," I muttered. "...wasn't sleep at all, 's about a ship an' Three-Fingered Fred 'n' Stoner's Boy..."

He unhooked my overalls, leaned me against him, and pulled them off. He held me up with one hand and reached for my pajamas with the other.

"Yeah, an' they all thought it was Stoner's Boy messin' up their clubhouse an' throwin' ink all over it an' ..."

He guided me to the bed and sat me down. He lifted my legs and put me under the cover.

"An' they chased him 'n' never could catch him 'cause they didn't know what he looked like, an' Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he han't done any of those things ... Atticus, he was real nice..."

His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me.

"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."

He turned out the light and went into Jem's Room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

---Last page from "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

[JakeTulane]

“Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work.” - William Arthur Ward

[JakeTulane]

“When your cat rubs the side of its face along your leg, it's affectionately marking you with its scent, identifying you as its private property, saying, in effect, 'You belong to me'” - Susan McDonough

[JakeTulane]

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” - C.S. Lewis quote

[Fancy]

Very few of us are what we seem.

~Agatha Christie

[Ms. Meander]

This life is not for complaint, but for satisfaction.
Henry David Thoreau

[Butterbean]

Reverie is not a mind vacuum. It is rather the gift of an hour which knows the plenitude of the soul.

~Gaston Bachelard

[gotoseagrl]

Every man has three characters: that which he shows, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.

Alphonse Karr

[gotoseagrl]

Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings — that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.

Buddha

[Miss July]

"I have woven a parachute out of everything broken"
William Stafford

[NJFemmie]

I promise myself to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble. I promise myself to be true to the best that is in me.

[always2late]

"You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down." - Ray Bradbury

[Fancy]

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.


Robert Frost

[JakeTulane]

"We seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone seems to think yesterday was better than today. I don't think it was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years before admitting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is yesterday and just go out and have one hell of a time." ~Art Buchwald

[JakeTulane]

"Living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causing you to bump into people not going your way." ~Edna Ferber

[JakeTulane]

"Opportunities fly by while we sit regretting the chances we have lost, and the happiness that comes to us we heed not, because of the happiness that is gone." ~Jerome K. Jerome

[Fancy]

I just like ladies who have class. Period. And if it’s “T and A” you’re sellin’, that’s fine, as long as that’s what you’re selling. But you don’t have to show everything, you know? You can hold some back and just be yourself and let your personality shine and let your individuality show. To me, that’s sexier. A confident woman is a sexy woman, in my opinion.

~Queen Latifah

[jelli]

Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well
as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings--
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me
the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

Charles C. Finn
September 1966

[Amber2010]

When I wake in the morning a new day begins...
Full of life ... full of promise....
I walk out of the house and what do I see....
The sunshine that awaits me ......
I have to stop, stand and feel it still ....
Just for a moment it gives me such a thrill....
To feel the warmth a new day brings....
A new day that brings me everything....
I smile and raise my face to the sky....
The day begins with sunshine .....
Full of promise full of hope .......
I know in my heart on this new day I can cope...
All that was bad is now anew.....
Sunshine and hope the other things I will get through.....

me

[NJFemmie]

When you focus on the things you don't want, you make no room for what you want to manifest. Clear the space and focus on the positive.

[gotoseagrl]

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived, and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and realistic.

John F. Kennedy

[gotoseagrl]

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[JakeTulane]

“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things” - Theodore Roosevelt

[jelli]

"Today You are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive that is Youer than You!" ~ Dr. Seuss

[JakeTulane]

“Art-speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar, but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day. And that is all that matters. Away with eternal truth.” - D.H. Lawrence

[JakeTulane]

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln

[jelli]

When I retire I am sleeping more and wearing a bra less." ~ ALS

[I'mOneToo]

"I got thinkin’ how we was holy when we was one thing, an’ mankin’ was holy when it was one thing. An’ it on’y got unholy when one mis’able little fella got the bit in his teeth an’ run off his own way, kickin’ an’ draggin’ an’ fightin’. Fella like that bust the holi-ness. But when they’re all workin’ together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang—that’s right, that’s holy."

-- From "Grapes Of Wrath" by John Steinbeck

[Tcountry]

"Having someone help you doesn't mean u failed...it just means you're not in it alone."

[Semantics]

...I couldn't let go of the thought that it had, in fact, been he, restless and moody Heathcliff. Day after day, he floated through all the Wal-Marts in America, searching for me in a million lonely aisles.

Marisha Pessl
Special Topics in Calamity Physics

[JakeTulane]

"If you want your life to be a magnificent story, then begin by realizing that you are the author and everyday you have the opportunity to write a new page" - Mark Houlahan

[JakeTulane]

"Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so." - Robert G. Ingersoll

[JakeTulane]

"There is only one way to happiness, and that is cease worrying about the things which are beyond the power of our will." - Epictetus

[Fancy]

Go further than you planned. Ask for the moon: you will be surprised how often you get it.

Paulo Coelho

[wolfbittenpoet]

so you want to be a writer?
by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

[JakeTulane]

"We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it." - Abraham Lincoln

We've all found ourselves traveling down the low road at one time or another. You know the road. It's the one filled with nitpicking and faultfinding. The road packed with sniping and backbiting. The road fraught with sadness and despair, crammed to the hilt with negative comments and spiteful remarks.

It's a road where trashing your friends is an everyday occurrence. It's a road where besmirching your enemies is common practice. It's a road where regularly defaming people we hardly know is widely accepted.

It's a pathetic, pitiful, pothole riddled road.

[JakeTulane]

"The high road is always respected and rewarded." Scott Hamilton

How many times have you found yourself wandering that low road? You're out there passing judgment on people you know - and don't know. You're running down colleagues and co-workers. You're even denigrating friends and family; belittling, maligning and smearing virtually everyone in sight, dishing out criticism like it's going out of style.

You don't want to be there, but you're there. You don't like what you're doing, but you're doing it nonetheless. And you're totally, completely, 100% miserable.

Let's face it, trashing and tearing others down is no way to build a life. Or make yourself happy. Or bring one sliver of value to anyone on earth. Be honest, how do you feel when you're being critical of others? Does it make you feel better? Does it make your life happier or more fulfilling? Does it make you look better in the eyes of those around you?

No it doesn't; not even close.

[JakeTulane]

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share our riches but to reveal to him his own." Benjamin Disraeli

Hey, it's easy to find fault. It's easy to point out flaws. It's easy to criticize and critique the shortcomings of others. But easy or not, it's just plain wrong. And it will never get you anywhere close to realizing your dreams. You've got to get off - and stay off - of the low road. And don't go back.

Instead of tearing others down, why not take the high road and look for ways to build people up? Instead of raising a ruckus with people you know, why don't you look for ways to make them feel better about themselves? Instead of fussing and fuming and getting all riled up arguing with others, why don't you look for the best in the people all around you?

Take the high road. Tell them how much you admire them, how much you appreciate them. How much they mean to you.

Even when others pass judgment on you, you've got to rise about it. Don't stoop to their level; don't join their club. Don't say two can play this game. Rather than join them on the low road and start hurling insults back and forth, I want you to take the high ground and look for a ways to lift them up. That's right; I want you to look for the best in your detractors, even when they're ripping you to shreds. Why? Because chances are pretty good they hate the low road as much as you do. They desperately want to feel better, do better and be better. They just need to discover the best within themselves.

And you can help.

[JustLovelyJenn]

Love is often gentle, desire always a rage. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

[JustLovelyJenn]

Even if you fall on your face, you're still moving forward.
~Victor Kiam

[purepisces]

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. ~ Ellen Parr

[Fancy]

"everything is a pullover if you don't unbutton it."

-Littleman

[always2late]

"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion" - William Inge

[Ms. Meander]

Truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
Herman Melville

[Fancy]

I got treated very badly in Texas. They don't treat beatniks too good in Texas. Port Arthur people thought I was a beatnik, though they'd never seen one and neither had I.


Janis Joplin

[jelli]

"You closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them too-even when you are in the dark. Even when you're falling."

[I'mOneToo]

"How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood" -- somebody a long time ago

(in my head since hearing a 10 year old repeating it, now it's stuck and hope leaving it here will help it go away)

[Fancy]

I may talk slow, but I think fast.

(a coworker)

[ruffryder]

Being imperfect is my best trait. Kuan Yin

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. - Buddha

Confusion is when you argue with what is - Byron Katie

Welcome to the present moment. Here. Now. The only moment there ever is. Eckhart Tolle

Your soul - that inner quiet space - is yours to consult. It will always guide you in the right direction. Wayne Dyer

In every challenging situation life provides, there is an opportunity for learning and growth. -Brian Piergrossi

[Kätzchen]

When I die if you need to weep
Cry for your brother or sister
Walking the street beside you:
And when you need me put your arms around anyone
And give them what you need to give me.

I want to leave you something -
Something better than words or sounds.

Look for me in the people I've known or loved
And if you cannot give me away
At least let me live in your eyes and not on your mind.

You can love me most by letting hands touch hands;
By letting bodies touch bodies;
And by letting go of children that need to be free.

Love doesn't die; people do.
So when all that's left of me is love,
Give me away.

-Merritt Malloy

http://bethtrissel.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/full-moon-with-clouds.jpg

[Butterbean]

I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips.

~Violette Leduc, Mad in Pursuit

[Daywalker]

"...as an aside, when in English class I remembered being taught Pronouns
n stuff. I do not remember being taught to use them as a way
to segregate folks from one another. I must
have missed class that day."

~ DW ~

:daywalker:

[Butterbean]

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

~Friedrich Nietzsche

[JustLovelyJenn]

Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects.
~~Richard M. Nixon

[Janstevie]

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe that ex-
loves are really dying for you to telephone them at two in the morning

[oblivia]

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” ~George Bernard Shaw

[Reader]

"No one likes a watch dog, except the person he's guarding."

[Arwen]

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)

[Fancy]

I hate the word wholesome.

Julie Andrews

[Semantics]

‎Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.

William Gibson

[gotoseagrl]

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Abraham Lincoln

[gotoseagrl]

"let it go -- the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise -- let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go -- the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers -- you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go -- the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things -- let all go
dear
so comes love"

E.E. Cummings

[JustLovelyJenn]

Happiness is a by-product. You cannot pursue it by itself.
Sam Levenson

[gotoseagrl]

If you love somebody, let them go. If they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.

[Janstevie]

Whether the love lasts a week, a year, or beyond, love is the one thing all our hearts desire.

[Fancy]

‎"The informality of family life is a blessed condition that allows us to become our best while looking our worst."


-Marge Kennedy

[NoahMacchione]

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer." ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

[Hack]

"There are no good girls gone wrong - just bad girls found out." -- Mae West

[tapu]

All right, then, I'll go to hell.
Mark Twain

[Duchess]

"You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect - you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break - her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there." (f)
— Bob Marley (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/25241.Bob_Marley)

[puddin']

"i don't see you as a man, though i do perceive a masculine energy. but i don't see you as a woman either, though you have a female body. if i think about it, it's confusing." ~angel t

[Arwen]

"Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it's better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together." ~Author Unknown

[always2late]

"When someone loves you the way they say your name is different. You just know your name is safe in their mouth" - Billy, Age 4

[Semantics]

The revolution begins at home. If you overthrow yourself again and
again, you might earn the right to help overthrow the rest of us.

Rob Brezsny

[NoahMacchione]

"What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it." ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

[jelli]

"I do know that life is a gift. I know that it is not something we earn, create, control, or sustain. I know that one truth about us is that we forget that we are going to die.

The other truth is that we forget we are alive." ~John Ortburg

[UofMfan]

“Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide.”~ Tom Robbins

[JustLovelyJenn]

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Anton Chekhov

[JustLovelyJenn]

I love life because what more is there.
Anthony Hopkins

[Holly.88]

"It is difficult to lay aside a confirmed passion."

- Catullus

[Holly.88]

"There is no remedy for love but to love more"

- David Henry Thoreau

[always2late]

"The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations." ~Thomas Jefferson

[Janstevie]

The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others."