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A child on a farm sees a plane fly
overhead and dreams of a faraway place.
A traveler on the
plane sees the farmhouse and dreams of home.
-Carl Burns
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One is
never as fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.
-Francois
la Rochefoucauld
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Our
environment, the world in which we live and work, is a
mirror of our attitude
and expectations. If we feel that
our environment could stand some improvement,
we can
bring about that change for the better by improving our
attitude. The world plays no favorites. It's impersonal. It doesn't care who succeeds
and who fails. Nor does it
care if we change. Our attitude toward life
doesn't
affect the world and the people in it nearly as much as
it affects us. -Earl
Nightingale
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Leonardo
da Vinci, one of the greatest creative thinkers of all
time,
strongly recommended the habit of meditation in the
dark. He wrote:
"For I have found in my own
experience that it is of no small benefit,
when you lie
in bed in the dark, to recall in imagination, one after
another,
the outlines of the form you have been studying." He often awoke to find
his problems solved. Da Vinci
would often stand silent and motionless
before a painting
for hours, without using his brush,
as though waiting for
spiritual guidance. -Wilferd
A. Peterson
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| 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 |
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| Before
we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine
how happy
they are who already possess it.
-
Francois de la Rochefoucauld |
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| The
wealth of the soul is
the only true wealth. -Lucian |
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| 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 |
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The world
is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
William Wordsworth |
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| We
believe we can change things according to our wishes
because
that's the only happy solution we can see. We don't
think
of what usually happens and what is also a happy
solution;
things don't change, but by and by our wishes
change. -Marcel
Proust |
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| Familiar as the voice of
the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to
Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught
books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what
they thought. People should learn to detect and watch that
gleam of light which flashes across their minds from within,
more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet they dismiss without notice their thought, because it
is theirs. -Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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| The
world is round and the place
which may seem like the end,
may also be
only the beginning. -Ivy
Baker Priest |
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| The unhappiness we
experience is not so much a result of the difficulties
encountered along our journey as it is of our
misperception of how life instructs us. We may see a
failed relationship as an indictment of our self-worth
when it is really a lesson in using better judgment, in
valuing ourselves more, in expressing greater
appreciation for our partner--lessons to prepare us for a
more loving and fulfilling union. If we are passed over
for a much-anticipated promotion, it may be just the push
we need to get more training or to venture out on our own
as an entrepreneur. As we rise to meet the challenges
that are a natural part of living, we awaken to our many
undiscovered gifts, to our inner power and our purpose.
-Susan
L. Taylor |
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| When they tell you to grow up,
they mean stop
growing. -Tom Robbins |
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It is
only with the heart
that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
-Antoine
de Saint-Exupery |
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| The
brighter you are the more you have to learn.
-Don Herold |
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| We think too small, like the frog at
the bottom of the well.
It thinks the sky is only
as big as the top of the well.
If it surfaced, it would have an entirely different view.
-Mao
Tse-Tung |
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Whether
it's a pebble in a riverbed or a soaring mountain peak,
I
see everything in the world as the handiwork of the Lord.
When I paint, I try to represent the beauty of God's
creation in my art.
Many modern painters see the world as
a jumble of random lines
and shapes with no divine beauty
or order, and their works reflect their viewpoint.
Because I see God's peacefulness, serenity, and
contentment,
I work to capture those feelings on the
canvas.
My vision of God defines my vision of the world.
-Thomas
Kinkade
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What makes us discontented with our
condition is the absurdly exaggerated idea
we have of the
happiness of others. -Anon |
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Every person takes the limits of his
or her own
field of vision for the limits of the world.
-Arthur Schopenhauer |
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A
flower unblown; a book unread;
A tree with fruit unharvested;
A path untrod; a house whose rooms
Lack yet the heart's divine perfumes;
A landscape whose wide border lies
In silent shade beneath the skies;
A wondrous fountain yet unsealed;
A casket with its gifts concealed--
This is the Year that for you waits
Beyond tomorrow's mystic gates.
Horatio Nelson Powers |
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It amazes me, and I know the wind will
surely someday blow it all away
It amazes me, and I'm so very grateful that You made the
world this way
John Denver |
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To
see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower:
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake |
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Here
I am, fifty-eight, and I still
don't know
what I'm going
to be
when I grow up. -Peter Drucker |
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Sometimes
during the day, I consciously focus on some ordinary object and
allow myself a momentary "paying-attention." This
paying-attention gives meaning
to my life. I don't know who it was, but someone said that
careful attention
paid to anything is a window into the universe. Pausing to think
this way,
even for a brief moment, is very important. It gives quality to
my day. -Robert Fulghum |
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As
you take a few minutes each day to quiet your mind, you
will
discover a
nice benefit: your everyday, "ordinary"
life will begin
to seem far more
extraordinary. Little
things that previously went
unnoticed will begin to
please you. You'll be more easily satisfied,
and happier
all around. Rather
than focusing on what's wrong with
your life, you'll find yourself thinking
about and more
fully enjoying
what's right with your life. The world won't
change, but your
perception of it will. You'll start to
notice the little acts
of
kindness and caring from other
people rather than
the negativity and anger. -Jack Canfield |
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Nothing ever
is,
everything is becoming. -Plato |
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An excellent way to practice love is to set
your attention on seeing beyond
someone's behavior or
personality. Try to realize that beneath the
surface insecurity,
negative thinking, and poor behavior,
everyone is connected to God. Just as you wouldn't
get angry at someone simply because he or she is in a
wheelchair, you need not
be angry because a person hasn't
yet opened his heart to the nourishment of his Soul.
When people act in unloving ways, it only
means that they are out of touch
with their Souls and
aren't feeling spiritually nourished. When that
happens,
there is no need to panic. The best we can
do for ourselves is nourish
our own Soul by looking
beyond the behavior we don't care for,
thus practicing
the art of love. -Richard Carlson |
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We
are all so bent
and determined to get what we want, we miss the lessons
that could be learned from life's experiences. Many
of my AIDS patients
discovered that the last year of
their lives was by far their best. Many have said
they wouldn't have traded the rich quality of that last
year of life for a healthier body. Sadly, it is
only when tragedy strikes that most of us begin attending
to the deeper aspects of life. It is only then that
we attempt to go beyond surface concerns--what we look
like,
how much money we make, and so forth--to discover
what's really important. -Elisabeth
Kuebler-Ross |
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I
have told you of those who
always
put on their spectacles
when about
to eat cherries,
in order that the
fruit might
look larger and more
tempting. In like
manner I always
make
the most of any enjoyments,
and,
though I do not cast
my eyes
away from troubles,
I pack
them into
as small a
compass as I can for myself,
and
never let them annoy others. -Robert
Southey |
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Here is the secret of
inspiration.
Tell yourself that thousands and tens of people,
not very
intelligent and certainly no more intelligent than the
rest of us,
have mastered problems as difficult as those
that now baffle you. -William Feather |
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We are all at different stages of growth,
so we each need different things
to trigger that
connection to the soul. What works for me on any
given day
might not work for someone else, or for me on
another day.
Often, it is the basic things. I
live ten feet from the ocean, in a small cottage.
I
need to be by the water; I've spent a lot of my journey
getting closer and closer
to this water. I need to
remember, to get up in the morning and watch the sunrise
and take a moment at night to see and feel the sunset.
I need to see the colors
of the sky; I need to feel
the colors. I need to surround myself with music,
because my soul resonates to music. I've decorated
my home with
the colors of the universe--bright colors.
Color is light.
Colors help me feel alive,
help me feel passionate, help me remember
that I'm here
to be an alive, passionate human being.
-Melody Beattie |
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Clay is fashioned
into vessels; it is on their empty hollowness that their
use depends.
Doors and windows are cut out to make
a dwelling, and on the empty space within,
its use
depends. Thus, while the existence of things may be
good,
it is the non-existence in them that makes them
serviceable. -Lao
Tzu |
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The
tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of
others
only a green thing which stands in the way. To
the eyes of people
of imagination Nature is Imagination
itself. As we are, so we see.
-William
Blake |
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There are
two worlds: the world that
we can measure with line and rule,
and the world that we can feel
with our hearts and imagination. -Leigh Hunt |
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All
things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved
for the imperfections that have been divinely appointed,
that the law of human life may be Effort,
and the law of
human judgment, Mercy. -John
Ruskin |
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They
are wise people who do not grieve
for the things
which they have not,
but rejoice for those which they have.
-Epictetus |
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It is better for
you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet,
than to have
a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.
-Epicurus |
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I am entirely on the side of mystery.
I mean, any attempt to explain away the mystery is
ridiculous.
I believe in the profound and
unfathomable mystery of life
which has a sort of divine
quality about it. -Aldous Huxley |
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The most
beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is
the fundamental emotion which stands at the
cradle of true art and true science.
-Albert Einstein |
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Compared to what we
ought to be, we are only half awake. We are
making
use of only a small part of our physical and mental
resources. -William James |
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Through the eyes of our
minds you and I look out at reality (ourselves, other people,
life,
the world, and God). However, we see these things
differently.
Your vision of reality is not mine and, conversely,
mine is not yours.
Both of our visions are limited and
inadequate, but not to the same extent.
We have both
misinterpreted and distorted reality, but in different ways.
We
have each seen something of the available truth and beauty to which
the other has been blind. The main point is that it is the
dimensions and clarity
of this vision that determine the dimensions of
our worlds and the quality of our lives.
To the extent that we
are blind or have distorted reality, our lives and our happiness
have
been diminished. Consequently, if we are to change--to
grow--there must first
be a change in this basic vision, or perception
of reality. -John
Powell |
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In the family it is said Gabe
"doesn't notice much--his head is in the clouds."
He
accepts this criticism as complimentary: "In the
clouds? Oh, thank you. I try."
-Laura Cunningham |
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When people
look only at the surface and that satisfies them
and they think from
that surface they see, that is to be truly blind.
-Beah Richards |
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There are long periods when
life seems a small, dull round,
a petty business
with no point, and then
suddenly we are caught up
in some great event which
gives us a glimpse
of the solid and durable foundations of our existence.
-Elizabeth II |
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Faced
with the choice between changing one's mind
and proving there
is no need
to do so,
almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
-John
Kenneth Galbraith |
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It
is the close observation of little things which is the secret of
success
in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of
life. -Samuel Smiles |
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You see things;
and say "Why?"
But I dream things that never were; and
say, "Why not?" -George Bernard
Shaw |
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The
surest way to corrupt young people is to teach them to
esteem more
highly those who think alike than those who
think differently. -Friedrich Nietzsche |
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