Hiking

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step."  -- Lao Tzu

"I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."  -- Robert Frost

"Adventure is worthwhile." -- Amelia Earhart

"I have a theory that streets are straight and offices are square but our bodies are round, and we really don’t fit in there. We should be outside more.” -- Warren Miller

"Everywhere is within walking distance, provided you have enough time." Anonymous

"After making a mistake or suffering a misfortune, the man of genius always gets back on his feet." Napolean Bonaparte

"One thing about going the extra mile, there’s never a lot of traffic."  Anonymous

"Each step I take has a purpose and at the end of those steps is my goal." Jon Drummond, World Class Sprinter

"Visualize yourself standing before a gateway on a hilltop. Your entire life lies out before you and below. Before you step through, pause and review the past; the learning and the joys, the victories and the sorrows- everything it took to bring you here." The Book of Runes

"As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can."  -- John Muir

“Whether we have to cover one mile or a thousand, the first step always remains the first, for the second step cannot be taken until the first has been taken.” 5-3-1946 Gandhi

"I've been in the infantry since before you were born. It's them first few thousand miles that does the great harm. After that, a man gets limber to his feet." "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara Pulitzer prize winning novel about the battle of Gettysburg

"The driver knows how much the ox can carry, and keeps the ox from being overloaded. You know your way and your state of mind. Do not carry too much." Zen saying

“Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down." Toni Morrison

“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”  Robert Frost

"Last few miles to Rod Hollow Shelter Are nothing from nowhere, a maze That would drive a compass crazy" Earl Shaffer, Crazy 1 '99 thru-hike

"Choose your rut carefully; you'll be in it for the next ten miles." Road sign in Upstate New York

"The closer one gets to the top, the more one finds there is no ‘top’." Nancy Barcus

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and still they're beautiful." Jeffrey Zaslow

“Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that ensures the successful outcome of our venture." William James

"A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs, jolted by every pebble in the road." Henry Ward Beecher

"There are three wants which can never be satisfied: that of the rich, who want something more; that of the sick, who want something different; and that of the traveler, who says, "Anywhere but here." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The real secret of success is enthusiasm. Yes, more than enthusiasm, I would say excitement. I like to see men get excited. When they get excited they make a success of their lives." Walter Chrysler

"Enthusiasm for one's goal lessens the disagreeableness of working toward it." Thomas Eakins

"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end, but a unique event in itself." Robert M. Pirsig

"It's the plugging away that will win you the day
So don't be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit, it's so easy to quit-
It's the keeping your chin up that's hard." Robert W. Service

"A knowledge of the path cannot be substituted for putting one foot in front of the other." M.C. Richards

"Remote for detachment, narrow for chosen company, winding for leisure, lonely for contemplation, the TRAIL leads not merely north and south but upward to the body, mind and soul of man." Harold Allen, PATC 1877-1939

“Sometimes you have to put a foot down to get a leg up.” Dave Weinbaum

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” Backpacker mag. May '97 Timex Ad

“The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for.” Louis L'Amour

“The straight path is as difficult as it is simple. Were it not so, all would follow the straight path.” Gandhi

“He who always treads only the path of Truth never stumbles.” Gandhi

“For a person to want to hike the AT more than once, they would have to have a worm in their head.” "Jungle Jim A.T. 95"

"The absolute simplicity, that is what I love. When you are climbing, your mind is clear, free of all confusions, you have focus and suddenly the light becomes sharper, the sounds are richer and you are filled with the deep powerful presence of life." Heinrich Harrer from "Seven Years in Tibet"

"Integrity is one of several paths, it distinguishes itself from the others because it is the right path, and the only one upon which you will never get lost." M. H. Mckee

"All the truly great thoughts are conceived while walking." Friedrich Nietzsche

"Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill" comments submitted by backpackers to the U.S. Forest Service (Readers Digest)

"Too many bugs and spiders. Please spray the area to get rid of these pests." comments submitted by backpackers to the U.S. Forest Service (Readers Digest)

"Chairlifts are needed so we can get to the wonderful views without having to hike to them. " comments submitted by backpackers to the U.S. Forest Service (Readers Digest)

"A McDonald's would be nice at trail head." comments submitted by backpackers to the U.S. Forest Service (Readers Digest)

"Too many rocks in the mountains." comments submitted by backpackers to the U.S. Forest Service (Readers Digest)

"The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake. Please eradicate these annoying animals." comments submitted by backpackers to the U.S. Forest Service (Readers Digest)

"There are many places where the trail would be greatly improved with dynamite" Earl Shaffer, "Crazy 1" '99 hike

"I just like to walk in the woods and sleep on top of the mountains." Earl Shaffer, Crazy 1 '99 thru-hike

"A ramble scramble rocky obstacle course." Earl Shaffer, Crazy 1 '99 thru-hike

"Midafternoon the trail crossed several hayfields One had been freshly cut and the hay baled Fifty years ago, it would have been stacked." Earl Shaffer, "Crazy 1" '99 thru hike

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you sit still." Will Rogers

"I wondered how in the world the people who built this trail expected a blind man to negotiate these cliffs." Bill Irwin

"Practice easing your way along. Don't get fed up or in a dither. Do your best; take it as it comes. Your can handle anything if you think you can. Just keep your cool and your sense of humor." Smiley Blanton, M.D.

"To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top." Robert M. Pirsig

Back.pack.ing (bak'pak in) 1. N. Extended form of hiking in which people carry double the amount of gear they need for half the distance they planned to go in twice the time it should take.

Camp.ing (kamp'in) 1.n. The art of getting closer to nature while getting farther away from the nearest cold beverage, hot shower , and flush toilet.

"Either you reach a higher point today, or you exercise your strength in order to be able to climb higher tomorrow." Friedrich Nietzsche

"Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence." Lin Yutang

"Without heroes, we are all plain people, and don't know how far we can go." Bernard Malamud

“Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime; and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." T.S.Eliot

"The burden is equal to the horse's strength." Talmud

"When walking, walk. When eating, eat." Zen Maxim

"If we take care of the inches, we will not have to worry about the miles." Hartley Coleridge

"Yard by yard, it's very hard. But inch by inch, it's a cinch." Anonamous

"Nothing can be done except little by little." Charles Baudelaire

"Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps till the legend, "over steep ways to the stars,” fulfills itself." W.C. Doane

"Every path has its puddle." English proverb

"I walk firmer and more secure up hill than down." Michel de Montaigne


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Photography

"A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels in the deepest sense."  -- Ansel Adams

"My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea."  -- Edward Weston

"You learn to see by practice.  It's just like playing tennis, you get better the more you play.  The more you look around at things, the more you see.  The more you photograph, the more you realize what can be photographed and what can't be photographed.  You just have to keep doing it."  -- Eliot Porter

"One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind."  -- Dorothea Lange.

"A picture is the expression of an impression.  If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?" -- Ernst Haas

"A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts."  -- Sir Joshua Reynolds

"Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving.  What you have caught on film is captured forever . . . it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything."  -- Aaron Siskind

"There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."  -- Ansel Adams

Words and pictures can work together to communicate more powerfully than either alone."  -- William Albert Allard

"Keep it simple." -- Alfred Einstaedt

"Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject."  Eliot Porter

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to . . . the Feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures." -- Vincent Van Gogh

"Pictures you have taken have an influence on those that you are going to make.  That's life!"  -- John Sexton

"A good picture is equivalent to a good deed."  -- Vincent Van Gogh

The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking."  -- Brooks Anderson

"No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket of unexposed film."  -- Robert Adams

"A mad, keen photographer needs to get out into the world and make mistakes."  -- Sam Abell

"Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still."  -- Dorothea Lange

"Once photography enters your bloodstream, it's like a disease."  -- Anonymous

"Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communication, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution."  -- Ansel Adams

"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera."  -- Dorothea Lange

"Once you really commence to see things, then you really commence to feel things."  -- Edward J. Steichen

"No matter how slow the film, spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer it has chosen."  -- Minor White

"The artist's world is limitless.  It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away.  It is always on his doorstep."  -- Paul Strand


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Environment

“Take a look at your footprints my friends, your mark upon the earth. Do you have the right, merely by birth to be so heavy on the land? - Chief Seattle

"He who walks in another's tracks leaves no footprints.” Joan L. Brannon

”Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” - Albert Einstein

”Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.” - Henrik Tikkanen

“Hug a tree - Sit on a rock - Feel this living earth.” - Mark of Carnac

"We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat.  So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it.  Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it.  Preserve the land for all children and love it, as God loves us all."  Chief Seattle (1852)

”In all things of nature there is something marvelous.” – Aristotle

”Some men go through a forest and see no firewood.”- English proverb

”Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.” - Bill Vaughan

”The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass, speaks to me.  The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky, speaks to me.  The faintness of the stars, the trail of the sun, the strength of fire, and the life that never goes away, they speak to me. And my heart soars.” - Chief Dan George

”A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.” William Blake, Proverbs of Hell, 1790

”A man does not plant a tree for himself, he plants it for posterity.” - Alexander Smith

”A tree is our most intimate contact with nature.”- George Nakashima, woodworker

”Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!”- Henry David Thoreau

”Though a tree grows so high, the falling leaves return to the root.”- Malay proverb

"If people destroy something replaceable made by mankind, they are called vandals; if they destroy something irreplaceable made by God, they are called developers."  - Joseph Wood Krutch

"The Earth does not belong to us.  We belong to the Earth." - Chief Seattle

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."  - Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949

"God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods.  But he cannot save them from fools."  -  John Muir

EARTH'S 10 COMMANDMENTS
By: Rick Baron
Thou shalt love and honor the earth, for it blesses thy life and governs thy survival.
Thou shalt keep each day sacred to the earth, and celebrate the turning of its seasons.
Thou shalt not hold thyself above other living things, nor drive them to extinction.
Thou shalt give thanks for thy food, to the creatures and plants that nourish thee.
Thou shalt limit thy offspring, for multitudes of people are a burden unto the earth.
Thou shalt not kill, nor waste earth's riches upon weapons of war.
Thou shalt not pursue profit at the earth's expense, but strive to restore it's damaged majesty.
Thou shalt not hide from thyself or others, the consequences of thy actions upon the earth.
Thou shalt not steal from future generations, by impoverishing or poisoning the earth.
Thou shalt consume material goods in moderation, so all may share earth's bounty.

"A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers but borrowed from his children."  - Audubon


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Happiness

"He who laughs last thinks the slowest." - Anonymous

"It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside." Anonymous

”Mental sunshine will cause the flowers of peace, happiness and prosperity to grow upon the face of the earth.  Be a creator of mental sunshine.” - Kathi's Garden

"The really happy man is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour." Anon.

"I feel very happy to see the sun come up every day, I feel happy to be around... I like to take this day- any day- and go to town with it." James Dickey

"Everyone wants to live on top of a mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while your climbing it" Anonymous

“There are hundreds of languages in the world, but a smile speaks them all.”

"True happiness...arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions." Joseph Addison

"When you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere." Anonymous

“It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside.”  Anonymous

"It's easy to let life deteriorate into making a living instead of making a life." - Anonymous

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Abraham Lincoln

“Those who wish to sing always find a song.” Swedish proverb

“True happiness does not come from without, it comes from within.” Gandhi

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements in life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about." Charles Kingsley

"All animals except man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it." Samuel Butler

"The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself." Benjamin Franklin

"One is happy as a result of one's own efforts-once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness- simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self -denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience." George Sand

"Happiness is not in our circumstances, but in ourselves. It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are.” John B. Sheerin

"Most true happiness comes from one's inner life, from the disposition of the mind and soul. Admittedly, a good inner life is difficult to achieve, especially in these trying times. It takes reflection and contemplation and self-discipline." W.L.Shirer

"We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learned to bear its ills, without being overcome by them." Juvenal

"Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.” George Bernard Shaw

"Make one person happy each day and in forty years you will have made 14,600 human beings happy for a little time, at least." Charlie Willey

"The great part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not our circumstances." Martha Washington

"Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them." Leo Tolstoy

"The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it put your whole soul into it-every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have." John D. Rockefeller III

"Happiness is not a station to arrive at, but a manner of traveling." Margaret Lee Runbeck

"Happiness is to be found along the way, not at the end of the road, for then the journey is over and it is too late." Robert R. Updegraff

"If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased." Katharine Hepburn's mother

"Today a new sun rises for me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything seems to speak to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it." Anne De Lenclos

"It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you've wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane." Charles Lindbergh

"Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it." Joseph Campbell

"Until you know that life is interesting, and find it so, you haven't found your soul." Geoffrey Fisher

"The true object of human life is play." G.K. Chesterton

"I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it." Rita Mae Brown

"We only do well the things we like doing." Colette

"In order to have great happiness, you have to have great pain and unhappiness-otherwise how would you know when you're happy?" Leslie Caron

"A sense of humor can help you overlook the unattractive, tolerate the unpleasant, cope with the unexpected, and smile through the unbearable." Moshe Waldoks


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Difficult Days

“Maybe this world is another planet's hell."  --Aldous Huxley

"The difficulties of life are intended to make us better not bitter.”

"When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on."  Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"Luckily, I never feel at one time more than half my pains." Joseph Joubert

"Be strong!
 We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
 We have hard work to do and loads to lift;
 Shun not the struggle-face it; 'tis God's gift." Maltbie D. Babcock

"To every disadvantage there is a corresponding advantage." W. Clement Stone

"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues. And I'm asking you sir, at the top of my lungs, unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.  IT'S NOT."  Dr. Seuss (1904-1991)

"The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing." - Edward Abbey

"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm" - Anonymous

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."  -- Albert Einstein

"Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature." - Helen Keller

“Our real blessings often appear to us in the shapes of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience, and we soon shall see them in the proper figures.” Joseph Addison

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” Source Unknown

“The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were not limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.” Helen Keller

“One of the secrets of success is to refuse to let temporary setbacks defeat us.” Mary Kay

“There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.” Bern Williams

“If we allow our minds to brood over the vastness of the task before us, we shall panic and accomplish nothing. Whereas, if we coolly get to grips with it, we shall find that even a mountain of work will diminish day by day and vanish.” Gandhi

"That which does not kill me makes me stronger." Friedrich Nietzsche

"When nobody around you seems to measure up, it's time to check your yardstick." Bill Lemley

"Look alive. Here comes a buzzard."  -- Pogo, character in "Pogo," comic strip by Walt Kelly

"It isn't important to come out on top; what matters is to be the one who comes out alive." Bertolt Brecht

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal." Hannah More

"You must have long-range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short-range failures." Charles C. Noble

"Now that I'm here, where am I?" Janis Joplin

"The minute you think you've got it made, disaster is just around the corner." Joe Paterno

"Out of every fruition of success, no matter what, comes forth something to make a new effort necessary." Walt Whitman

"We must look for the opportunity in every difficulty instead of being paralyzed at the thought of the difficulty in every opportunity." Walter E. Cole

"Fight one more round. When your feet are so tired you have to shuffle back to the center of the ring, fight one more round." James J. Corbett

"When you're a professional, you come back no matter what happened the day before." Billy Martin

"Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion." B.C. Forbes

"All that is necessary is to accept the unacceptable, do without the indispensable, and bear the unbearable." Kathleen Norris

"Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset." Saint Francis de Sales

"Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue." Andre Gide

"Misery is a communicable disease." Martha Graham

"Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach." Sydney Smith


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Friendship

"No matter how serious your life requires you to be, every one needs a friend to act goofy with." - Anonymous

"What is a friend?  A single soul dwelling in tow bodies." -Aristotle -

”If what I say resonates with you, it is merely because we are both branches on the same tree.” - W. B. Yeats

"It is better to be hated for what one is than to be loved for what one isn't" - Andre Gide

“Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never, ever the same.” Source Unknown

“You must give time to your fellow men- even if it's a little thing, do something for others- something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.” Albert Schweitzer

“The best portion of a good man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.” William Wordsworth

"Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies." - Frederick Nietzsche

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own." Ben Sweetland

"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well." Foe Ancis

"What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?" George Eliot

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." Philo

"I expect to pass through life but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do for any fellow being, let me do it now... As I shall not pass this way again." William Penn

"He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it." Dante Alighieri

"Like the body that is made up of different limbs and organs, all mortal creatures exist depending upon one another." Hindu proverb

"Success has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It's what you do for others." Danny Thomas

"There is no wilderness like a life without friends; friendship multiplies blessings and minimizes misfortunes; it is a unique remedy against adversity, and it soothes the soul." Baltasar Gracian

"I know what things are good; friendship and work and conversation." Rupert Brooke

"Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious." Saint Thomas Aquinas

“One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are." Gail Godwin

“'Tis the human touch in the world that counts- the touch of your hand and mine-
Which means far more to the sinking heart than shelter or bread or wine
For shelter is gone when the night is o'er, and bread lasts only a day
But the touch of the hand and the sound of the voice
Live on in the soul always. Spencer M. Free

"My life seems to have become suddenly hollow, and I do not know what is hanging over me. I cannot even put the shadow that has fallen on me into words. At least into written words. I would give a great deal for a friends voice.” John Addington Symonds

"Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim." Henry Adams

"True friends... Face in the same direction, toward common projects, interests, goals." C.S.Lewis

"Good company upon the road is the shortest cut." Anon.

"Some birds aren't meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up, does rejoice. I guess I just miss my friend." - Shawshank Redemption

"It is well, when judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with the same godlike and superior impartiality."  -- Arnold Bennett

"Friendship is like money, easier made than kept."  -- Samuel Butler

"A friend is one who knows us, but loves us anyway."  -- Fr. Jerome Cummings

"It destroys one's nerves to be amiable everyday to the same human being."  -- Benjamin Disraeli

"I hate it in friends when they come too late to help."  -- Euripides

"My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me!  -- Henry Ford

There are three great friends: an old wife, an old dog, and ready money."  -- Benjamin Franklin

"When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it."  -- E. W. Howe

"Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate."  -- Thomas Jones

"The real test of friendship is: Can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy together those moments of life that are utterly simple? They are the moments people looks back on at the end of life and number as their most sacred experiences."  -- Eugene Kennedy

"The better part of one's life consists of his friendships."  -- Abraham Lincoln

"The imaginary friends I had as a kid dropped me because their friends thought I didn't exist."  -- Aaron Machado

"When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat."  -- Henry Miller

"A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy."  -- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive."  -- Anaďs Nin

"We have been friends together in sunshine and in shade."  -- Caroline Norton

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate now knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."  -- Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude

"Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen."  -- Samuel Paterson

"Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. Her life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, she would never have been able to find these words."  -- Rainer Maria Rilke

"Friends need not agree in everything or go always together, or have no comparable other friendships of the same intimacy. On the contrary, in friendship union is more about ideal things: and in that sense it is more ideal and less subject to trouble than marriage is."  -- George Santayana

"Good friends are good for your health."  -- Irwin Sarason

"Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence."  -- Sydney Smith

"A friend is a gift you give yourself."  -- Robert Louis Stevenson

"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out".  -- Walter Winchell


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Experience

"You cannot create experience. You must undergo it."  -- Albert Camus

”You can observe a lot by just watching.” - Yogi Berra

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The advantages of solitude can be realized only by experience.” Gandhi

"Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. – Anonymous

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious."  -- Albert Einstein

"Experience is the name every one gives his mistakes."  -- Elbert Hubbard

"Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you."  -- Aldous Huxley

"Experience teaches only the teachable."  -- Aldous Huxley

"Experience is the worst teacher; it gives the test before presenting the lesson."  -- Vernon Law

"Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing."  -- Vince Lombardi

"We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience."  -- George Bernard Shaw

"Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until I have walked in his moccasins."  -- Sioux Indian Prayer

"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want."  -- Don Stanford

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour."  -- Robert L. Stevenson

"Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing."  -- Oscar Wilde

"Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes."  -- Oscar Wilde

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience--well, that comes from poor judgment."  -- Cousin Woodman


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Success/ Failure

"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows."  -- Aristotle Onassis

"The strength of a nation is derived from the integrity of its homes."  -- Confucius

"Its better to be compassionate than correct." - Anonymous

"Their is no failure, only delays on the road to success." Anonymous

"On the day of victory no one is tired." Anonymous

"If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded."  -- Maya Angelou

"There are trivial truths, and there are great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true."  -- Neils Bohr

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."  -- Niels Bohr

"Destiny is not a matter of chance; but a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, It is a thing to be achieved."  -- William Jennings Bryant

"To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself."  -- Francis Crawford

"Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it."  -- Josephus Daniels

"... I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."  -- Thomas Edison

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."  -- Albert Einstein

"Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right."  -- Henry Ford

"The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart."  -- Robert G. Ingersoll

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery."  -- James Joyce

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing."  -- Abraham Lincoln

"The possibility that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."  -- Abraham Lincoln

"Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory."  -- Orison Swett Marden

"No other success can compensate for failure in the home."  -- David O. McKay, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Advice to parents at General Conference of he LDS Church, April, 1964

"What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?"  -- Robert Schuller

"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."  -- Beverly Sills

"Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousands times worse than nothing."  -- Sydney Smith

"Do not let yourselves be discouraged or embittered by the smallness of the success you are likely to achieve in trying to make life better. You certainly would not be able, in a single generation, to create an earthly paradise. Who could expect that? But, if you make life ever so little better, you will have done splendidly, and your lives will have been worthwhile."  -- Arnold Toynbee

"If you want a place in the sun, you've got to put up with a few blisters."  -- Abigail Van Buren

"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."  -- Gore Vidal

"Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure."  -- George E. Woodberry


Top

Knowledge/Wisdom

"To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions."  --Sam Keen

"Stupidity is a privilege; some people just abuse it" Anonymous

”The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.” - Huang Po

”The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” - William James

”Part of the problem today is that we have a surplus of simple answers and a shortage of simple problems.” - Syracuse Herald

”Wisdom is oftentimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar.” - William Wordsworth, 1798

”He was not merely a chip off the old block, but the old block itself.” - Edmund Burke

”Without the body, the wisdom of the larger self cannot be known.” - John Conger

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school." - Albert Einstein

"All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is still my own." - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"There is no knowledge that is not power." - Mortal Kombat Three

"Don't gain the world and lose your soul, wisdom is better than silver or gold" - Bob Marley

"Ignorance of your freedom is all that enslaves you." -- Anonymous

"I exchanged a dollar with a man and we each left with one dollar; I exchanged an idea with a man and we each left with two ideas" Anonymous

"Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot."  -- Anonymous

"Know her mind and you can have her body, know her heart and you have her soul."  -- Anonymous

"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."  -- Josh Billings

"Be wiser than other people, if you can, but do not tell them so."  -- Lord Chesterfield

"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes."  -- Winston Churchill

"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active."  -- Leonardo da Vinci 

"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men."  -- Roald Dahl

"I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones."  -- The Doctor, Timewyrm: Genesys, author, John Peel

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."  -- Albert Einstein

"Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited while imagination embraces the entire world."  -- Albert Einstein

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."  -- Albert Einstein

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it isn't at all comprehensible."  -- Albert Einstein

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."  -- Albert Einstein

"The two most abundant things in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity."  -- Harlan Ellison

"Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing."  -- Engineer's Motto

"We never know the worth of water 'til the well is dry."  -- English Proverb

"Ignorance of one's misfortunes is clear gain."  -- Euripides

"You couldn't get a clue during the clue mating season in a field full of horny clues if you smeared your body with clue musk and did the clue mating dance."  -- Edward Flaherty

"The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything."  -- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"Thought is the labour of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure."  -- Victor Hugo

"If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?"  -- Thomas Henry Huxley

"Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors."  -- Thomas Henry Huxley

"In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous."  -- Robert G. Ingersoll

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."  -- William James

"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."  -- William James

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."  -- Samuel Johnson

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."  -- Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham City Jail, 1963

"Intelligence, in diapers, is invisible. And when it matures, out the window it flies. We have to pounce on it earlier."  -- Stanislaw J. Lec

"There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."  -- Oscar Levant

"We are all either fools or undiscovered geniuses."  -- Bonnie Lin

"I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."  -- Abraham Lincoln

"If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."  -- Abraham Lincoln

"Know thyself."  -- Linnaeus

"Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing."  -- Konrad Lorenz

"A love affair with knowledge will never end in heartbreak."  -- Michael Garrett Marino

"If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached."  -- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners" columnist and author

"We are drowning in information, but starved for knowledge."  -- John Naisbilt

"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."  -- Isaac Newton, Brewster's Memoirs of Newton. Vol. ii. Chap. xxvii.

"You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think."  -- Dorothy Parker

"I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person."  -- Pogo, character in "Pogo," comic strip by Walt Kelly

"The whole point of getting things done is knowing what to leave undone."  -- Lady Stella Reading

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."  -- Bertrand Russell

"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."  -- Carl Sagan

"Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it."  -- George Bernard Shaw

"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."  -- George Bernard Shaw

"It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing."  -- Gertrude Stein

"But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one: men know him not-and to know not is to care not for."  -- Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1897

"When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him."  -- Johnathan Swift

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."  -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"Why is it that wherever I go, the resident idiot heads straight for me?"  -- Gwynn Thomas

"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."  -- James Thurber

"Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence."  -- Henrik Tikkanen

"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said, 'I don't know.'"  -- Mark Twain

"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them."  -- Mark Twain

"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed."  -- Mark Twain

"To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered."  -- Voltaire

"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."  -- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

"The truth is more important than the facts."  -- Frank Lloyd Wright


Top

Past & Future

"Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same." – Anonymous

"Time is like a river of fleeting events, and its current is strong; as soon as something comes into sight, it is swept past us, and something else takes its place, and that too will be swept away." Marcus Aurelius

"Cease to inquire what the future has in store, and take as a gift whatever the day brings forth." Horace

"God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road." Isak Dinesen

"One never knows what each day is going to bring. The important thing is to be open and ready for it." Henry Moore

"This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good, but what I do today is important, because I am exchanging a day of my life for it! When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something that I have traded for it. I want it to be gain, and not loss; good, and not evil; success, and not failure; in order that I shall not regret the price I have paid for it." Anon.

"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning." J.B. Priestly

"Yesterday has gone. Tomorrow may never come. There is only the miracle of this moment. Savor it. It is a gift.” Anon

"I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today." William Allen White

”All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today and yesterday.” - Chinese proverb

”There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now.” - Eugene O'Neill

”Time is nature's way to keep everything from happening at once.” - J. A. Wheeler

”Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” - Niels Bohr

"You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing on." Heraclitus

"Enjoy yourself. These are the "good old days" you're going to miss in the years ahead." Anon.

"If we are ever to enjoy life, now is the time, not tomorrow or next year... Today should always be our most wonderful day." Thomas Dreier

"Life is only this place, this time, and these people right here and now." Vincent Collins

"The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation." Samuel Johnson

"Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys." Andre Gide

"Whether one is twenty, forty, or sixty; whether one has succeeded, failed or just muddled along; whether yesterday was full of sun or storm, or one of those dull days with no weather at all, life begins each morning! Each morning is the open door to a new world-new vistas, new aims, new tryings." Leigh Mitchell Hodges

"Normal day let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return." Mary Jean Iron

”One faces the future with one's past.” - Pearl S. Buck

”One today is worth two tomorrows.” - Benjamin Franklin

”We never remember days, only moments.” - Cesare Pavese

”So many years in one yesterday.” - Carla Phelps Wert

"Yesterday is the past, tomorrow is the future, today is a gift; that's why it's called 'The Present'." Anonymous

”I have come to terms with the future.  From this day onward I will walk easy on the earth.  Plant trees.  Kill no living things.  Live in harmony with all creatures.  I will restore the earth where I am.  Use no more of its resources than I need.  And listen; listen to what it is telling me.” - M. J. Slim Hooey

"What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us.  And when we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen." - Henry David Thoreau

"Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time." – Anonymous

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending."  -- Anonymous

"We do not remember days; we remember moments."  -- Anonymous

"Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present."  -- Roger Babson

"Look at life through the windshield, not the rear-view mirror."  -- Byrd Baggett

"To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it more fit for its prime function of looking forward."  -- Margaret Fairless Barber

"Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future."  -- Paul Boese

"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."  -- Winston Churchill

"Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?"  -- François de La Rouchefoucauld

"I never think of the future - it comes soon enough."  -- Albert Einstein

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."  -- Albert Einstein

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."  -- George Orwell

"Time is at once the most valuable and most perishable of all our possessions."  -- John Randolph

"We see the brightness of a new page where everything yet can happen."  -- Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."  -- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."  -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia."  -- Charles Schultz

"Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title."  -- Virginia Woolf


Top

Inspiration

"Every flower must grow through dirt."  -- Anonymous

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars"  -- Les Brown

"If a man wants his dream to come true, he must wake up." Anon.

"If a man would move the world, he must first move himself." Socrates

"The moment somebody says to me, "This is risky," is the moment it becomes attractive to me." Kate Capshaw

"We can't all be heroes, because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by." Will Rogers

"The fun of being alive is realizing you have a talent and you can use it every day so it grows stronger... And if you're in an atmosphere where this talent is appreciated instead of just tolerated, why it's just as good as sex." Lou Centlivre

"Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk." Anonymous

"Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere."  -- Anonymous

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."  -- Aristotle

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."  -- Aristotle

"Motivation will almost always beat mere talent."  -- Norman R. Augustine

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."  -- James Baldwin

"I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it, and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else; hard work and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't."  -- Lucille Ball

"The great advantage of being in a rut is that when one is in a rut, one knows exactly where one is."  -- Arnold Bennett

"Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense."  -- Thomas Arnold Bennett

"Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there."  -- Josh Billings

"He who kisses the joy is it flies lives in eternity's sunrise"  -- William Blake

"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility."  -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones."  -- Phillip Brooks

"We got to roll with the punches, play all of our hunches, make the best of whatever comes your way. Forget that blind ambition, learn to trust your intuition -- plowing straight ahead, come what may."  -- Jimmy Buffett, Cowboy in the Jungle (song)

"Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind."  -- Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks

"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door."  -- Emily Dickinson

"Genius is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration."  -- Thomas Edison

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labour in freedom."  -- Albert Einstein

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."  -- George Eliot

"A problem is a chance for you to do your best."  -- Buke Ellington

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life."  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over."  -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward."  -- Henry Ford

"One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do."  -- Henry Ford

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."  -- Henry Ford

"He that would have the fruit must climb the tree."  -- Thomas Fuller, M.D.

"We must become the change we want to see."  -- Gandhi

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is most important that you do it."  -- Gandhi

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being."  -- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"What does not kill me makes me stronger."  -- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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

"When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be."  -- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"Every calling is great when greatly pursued."  -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing that you will make one."  -- Ellen Hubbard

"May the road rise to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields and, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand."  -- Irish Blessing

"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow."  -- Helen Keller

"When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another."  -- Helen Keller

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"  -- Robert Francis Kennedy

"He who limps is still walking."  -- Stanislaw J. Lec

"Whatever you are, be a good one."  -- Abraham Lincoln

"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up."  -- Vince Lombardi

"Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them."  -- Orison Swett Marden

"We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, callings.  -- Abraham Maslow

"Victory belongs to the most persevering."  -- Napoleon Bonaparte

"As for courage and will - we cannot measure how much of each lies within us, we can only trust there will be sufficient to carry through trials which may lie ahead"  -- Andre Norton

"Chance is always powerful. - Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."  -- Ovid

"Remember your dreams."  -- Maryanne Radmacher-Herhey

"To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought."  -- Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

"Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim."  -- George Santayana

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."  -- Semisonic, Closing Time

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult."  -- Seneca

"... then the world 's my oyster"  -- William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor

"Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will."  -- James Stephens

"If you want to sing out, sing out, and if you want to be free, be free, 'cause there's a million ways to be, you know that there are..."  -- Cat Stevens, from a song lyric

"Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."  -- Harriet Beecher Stowe

"Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?"  -- The Artist Formerly Known As Prince

"Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible."  -- Mao Tse-tung

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."  -- Sun Tzu

"The mind has exactly the same power as the hands: not merely to grasp the world, but to change it."  -- Colin Wilson

"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming."  -- John R. Wooden, Practical Modern Basketball

"Do or do not. There is no try."  -- Yoda, character in the movie The Empire Strikes Back


Top

God's Plan

“This life is a test. It is only a test. Had it been an actual life you would have received further instructions on where to go and what to do!” - Anonymous

"The believer is happy, the doubter wise" - Greek Proverb"

"God has no religion" - Mahatma Gandhi

“Whatever you want to do, do it now. There are only so many tomorrows.” -- Michael Landon

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” -- Helen Keller

“Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.” -- Henry Ward Beecher

“When God gives us a rough path, he provides us with strong shoes.” -- Corrie Ten Boom

"The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."  -- Mahatma Gandhi

“I strive hard to preserve my physical body. Do I take the same pains to know my soul?” -- Gandhi

“God is Omnipresent. Hence it is that He speaks to us through stones, trees, insects, birds, beasts, etc.” -- Gandhi

“When God cares, why should we be full of cares.” -- Gandhi

‘When man's mind is filled with the Light of Heaven, all obstacles in his path fade away.” -- Gandhi

“A river goes dry when cut off from its source. So also do we when cut off from our Original Source, i.e., God.” -- Gandhi

“When God is our Guide, we need worry about nothing.” Gandhi

"Because of all that I have seen, teaches me to trust the Creator for all that I have not seen." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable...but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing." -- Agatha Christie

"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and have my senses put in tune once more." -- John Burroughs

" I thank You God for this most amazing day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes." -- E.E.Cummings

"Jesus, please teach me to appreciate what I have before time forces me to appreciate what I had." -- Susan L. Lenzkes

"When at night you can not sleep, talk to the Shepard and stop counting sheep". -- Anon.

"A power greater than any human being helped make this decision." -- Herbert J. Steifel

"It is when things go hardest, when life becomes most trying, that there is greatest need for having a fixed goal. When few comforts come from without, it is all the more necessary to have a fount to draw on from within." -- B.C. Forbes

"What God expects us to attempt, He also enables us to achieve." -- Stephen Olford

"With them I gladly shared my all and learned the great truth that where God guides, He provides." -- Frank N.D. Buchman

"God gave burdens, also shoulders." -- Yiddish proverb

"God tests His real friends more severely than the lukewarm ones." -- Katheryn Hulme

"God alone can finish." -- John Ruskin

"My life is a mystery which I do not attempt to really understand, as though I were led by the hand in a night where I see nothing, but can fully depend on the love and protection of Him who guides me." Thomas Merton

"Even now I am full of hope, but the end lies in God." -- Pindar

"This is courage in a man: to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends." -- Euripides


Top

Weather

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather." John Ruskin

"One lyrical hiker wrote: ‘In Maine, Lady Winter is beautiful and alluring, but not to be trusted. One day she whispers a gentle invitation and flashes you a quick, sunny smile. 'Come along,’ she says. 'We'll have fun.' The next day, she turns on you, becoming icy, angry and aloof. Flirt with her if you like. Court her if you will. Love her if you must. But don't trust her. Don't ever trust her.'" -- Bill Irwin "Blind Courage"

"Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away hunger." -- Saint Basil

"Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"It is no use to grumble and complain;
It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice;
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain-
Why, rain's my choice." -- James Whitcomb Riley

"You don't save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it might rain." -- Leo Durocher

"If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

"No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn." -- Hal Borland

"Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime." -- Martin Luther

"There ain't no cloud so thick that the sun ain't shinin' on t'other side.” -- Rattlesnake, a 1870s mountain man

"If you think it's going to rain, it will." -- Clint Eastwood

"The wind was cold off the mountains and I was a naked man with enemies behind me, and nothing before me but hope." -- Louis L'Amour

"Do not wait for ideal circumstances, nor the best opportunities; they will never come." -- Janet Erskine Stuart

"Much rain wears the marble." -- William Shakespeare

"One step and then another, and the longest walk is ended.
One stitch and then another, and the longest rent is mended.
One brick upon another, and the tallest wall is made.
One flake and then another, and the deepest snow is laid." -- Anon.

“The drops of rain make a hole in the stone not by violence, but by oft falling." -- Lucretius

"If you want to see the sun shine, you have to weather the storm." -- Frank Lane

"If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." -- Dolly Parton

"Adversity is like the period of the rain...cold, comfortless, unfriendly to man and to animal; yet from that season have their birth the flower, the fruit, the date, the rose and the pomegranate.” -- Sir Walter Scott

"Friends are the sunshine of life." -- John Hay


Top

Adversity

“Adversity introduces a man to himself.” -- Anonymous

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life last."  -- Rachel Carson

”He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.” - Psalms, 1.3

”A man is a bundle of relations; a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world.” - Ralph W. Emerson, 1803 – 1882

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.” Helen Keller

“Experience cold or heat, pleasure or pain. These experiences are fleeting; they come and go. Bear them patiently." -- Sri Krishna(Bhagavad Gita)

"In the darkest hour the soul is replenished and given strength to continue and endure." -- Heart Warrior Chosa

"A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory." - Anonymous

"Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened." - Anonymous

"Perhaps someday it will be pleasant to remember even this." -- Virgil

"The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow." -- H.G. Wells

"Sometimes I found that in my happy moments I could not believe that I had ever been miserable." -- Joanna Field

"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." -- Chinese proverb

"We can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough...What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties." -- Katherine Mansfield

"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness." -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"Life is a perilous voyage." Palladas

"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think" - La Bruyere

"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." Friedrich Nietzsche

"I think these difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes around worrying about are of no importance whatsoever." Isak Dinesen

"You can surmount the obstacles in your path if you are determined, courageous and hardworking...Do not fear to pioneer, to venture down new paths of endeavor." Ralph J. Bunche

"The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it." George C. Scott

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome." Booker T. Washington

"The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory." Blaise Pascal

"Adversity is, to me at least, a tonic and a bracer." Sir Walter Scott

"A man is insensible to the relish of prosperity till he has tasted adversity." Sa'Di

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop you strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength." Arnold Schwarzenegger

"Nothing is so bad that you have to sit down and go crazy." John Telgen

"Turn your stumbling blocks into stepping stones" Anon.


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Change

"Don't fear change; change fear." Anonymous

”There is nothing permanent except change.” – Heraclitus

"There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in traveling in a stage coach, it is often a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place." Washington Irving

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain

Status Quo
Start with a cage containing five apes. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the Banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water. After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result-all the apes are sprayed with cold water.
Turn off the cold water.
If, later, another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes will try to prevent it even though no water sprays them. Now, remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one.
The New ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous Newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well.
Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.
After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced.
Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not?
"Because that's the way it's always been around here."
Sound familiar?

“A human being is part of the Whole...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 this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.” Albert Einstein

“What isn't tried won't work!” Claude McDonald

“Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, ‘This is the real me,’ and when you have found that attitude, follow it.” William James

“The young do not know enough to be prudent and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation.” Pearl S Buck

“Life isn't a destination it's a journey. We all come upon unexpected curves and turning points, mountaintops and valleys. Everything that happens to us shapes who we are becoming. And in the adventure of each day, we discover the best in ourselves.” Source Unknown

"Climbing Katahdin out of sequence would be different than I had imagined, but probably more like it should be. The big moments of my life had rarely lived up to the expectations I had heaped on them. This reminded me that the journey, not the destination, was the important thing." Bill Irwin "Blind Courage"

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." Helen Keller

"Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes." Hugh Prather

"We change, whether we like it or not." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"All things must change to something new, to something strange." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The healthy being craves an occasional wildness, a jolt from normality, a sharpening of the edge of appetite, his own little festival of the Saturnalia, a brief excursion from his way of life." Robert Maciver

"None of us know what the next change is going to be, what unexpected opportunity is just around the corner, waiting to change all the tenor of our lives." Kathleen Norris

"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 into another.” Anatole France

"Everyday...life confronts us with new problems to be solved which force us to adjust our old programs accordingly." Dr. Ann Faraday


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Choices

"Indecision leaves more regrets than a bad decision." Anonymous

"The world is full of givers and takers. The takers may feel better, but the givers sleep better." Anonymous

”Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds, the harvest can be either flowers or weeds.” - Author Unknown

”Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong." - Peter T. McIntyre

"Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly." - Anonymous

”To fully enjoy life, sometimes you have to break the rules.” - Kate Hepburn

“Every man has his own destiny; the only imperative is to follow it, no matter where it leads him.” Henry Miller

“You don't get to choose how you're going to die or when. You can only decide how you're going to live.” Joan Baez

“He who loses his individuality loses all.” Gandhi

“We take these risks not to escape from life, but to prevent life from escaping us..." Unknown

"As you think, you travel, and as you love, you attract. You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." James Lane Allen

"Every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing, but the degree to which he thinks determines the degree to which he'll rise." Ayn Rand

"A human being fashions his consequences as surely as he fashions his goods or his dwelling. Nothing that he says, thinks or does is without consequences." Norman Cousins

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized; they die when neglected. Life is a long line of opportunities." John Wicker

"Form the habit of making decisions when your spirit is fresh...to let dark moods lead is like choosing cowards to command armies." Charles Horton Cooley

"Choose always the way that seems the best, however rough it may be; custom will soon render it easy and agreeable." Pythagoras

"Of all paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do. To find this path, and walk in it, is the one thing needful for him." Thomas Carlyle

"There is only one success-to be able to spend your life in your own way." Christopher Morley

"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition." Abraham Lincoln

"I want to do it because I want to do it."