If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet,
had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts,
where should we have been now?
Hanging on the gallows.

-Thomas Jefferson

Socrates was born on this day in 470 BC. His student, Plato, quoted him as saying,
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't.

"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go."
- Theodore Roethke  (American poet born May 25,1908-1963)

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thought.
With our thoughts, we make our world. - Gautama Buddha

 Books by Dalai Lama

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

-Ralph Waldo Emerson 

"Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."
- Henry David Thoreau

O to be delivered from the rational into the realm of pure song. . .

- Theodore Roethke American poet (1908-1963) (pronounced RET-key)

Erich Fromm, renowned German-American psychologist and humanistic philosopher said our quest for certainty blocks our progress.
"Uncertainty is the very condition that impels man to unfold his powers."

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.
- Confucius

Journalism largely consists in saying "Lord Jones is dead" to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.

- G.K. Chesterton
English writer, called the Prince of Paradox (1874-1936)

The best way to know God is to love many things.

-Vincent Van Gogh

The day will come when after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation,
we shall harness the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time
in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.

- Pierre Teihard de Chardin
(1881-1955, French paleontologist and Jesuit priest)

I think it is in our interest to punish the first insult;
because an insult unpunished is the parent of many others.
Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1785

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished:
if you're alive, it isnt.

- Richard Bach, Author, philosopher
(I recommend his books)

May your trails be crooked,
winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.
May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

- Edward Abbey from Desert Solitaire (1927-1989)
Author, essayist, environmentalist
Writer Larry McMurtry referred to Abbey as the Thoreau of the American West

"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad."

- Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

I wake up in the morning torn between
the desire to save the world and to enjoy the world.
This makes it hard to plan the day.

- E.B White, American author and noted prose stylist.

“The finest gift you can give anyone is encouragement. Yet, almost no one gets the encouragement they need to grow to their full potential. If everyone received the encouragement they need to grow, the genius in most everyone would blossom and the world would produce abundance beyond the wildest dreams. We would have more than one Einstein, Edison, Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, Dr. Salk and other great minds in a century.”

Sidney Madwed, poet, philosopher, business consultant

Nothing can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not...nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not...unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not...the world is full of educated failure. Persistence and Determination alone are omnipotent.

- Calvin Coolidge (30th president of the United States)

"A really great man is known by three signs: generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success."

Otto von Bismarck (Prussian Prime Minister,
Founder and Chancellor of the German Empire, 1815-1898)

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend... when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth. - Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of Simple Abundance

"Men are not disturbed by things, but the view they take of things."

A freed slave established the school of Stoic philosophy, outlining the simple way to happiness, fulfillment, and tranquility in ninety-three witty, wise, and razor-sharp instructions that make up The Art of Living.

You never enjoy the world aright, til the Sea itself floweth in your vein,
til you are clothed with the heavens  and crowned with the stars,
and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world.
-Thomas Traherne (English Metaphysical poet, 1636-1674)

A problem is never as permanent as a solution.

(Spoken in the 1988 movie Torch song trilogy)

When you're weary, it means you've been making a difference.  Keep going and see it through. When each obstacle is more difficult than the one before,  it means you're making real progress.  -- Ralph Marston, the Daily Motivator, Thought for the Day

Where is this fountain that throws out these flowers in such ceaseless ecstasy?

Rabindranath Tagore,Bengali poet, novelist, philosopher, musician, educator, and an early advocate of Independence for India. Tagaore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Books by Tagore

Astonishing!  Everything is intelligent!

-Pythagoras

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
- Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) bio

When I do good, I feel good.
When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
- Abraham Lincoln

"Circumstance does not make the man. Circumstance reveals man to himself."
  - Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Originally a Unitarian minister, but decided to pursue a career in writing and public speaking)

You cannot achieve mastery by patterning yourself after another, or by following custom or tradition. Sheep and plodders do that. Masters and leaders never do. To enjoy enduring success, we should travel a little in advance of the world.
-John McDonald, the Message of a Master: A Classic Tale of Wealth, Wisdom, & the Secret of Success

All that is visible clings to the invisible, The audible to the inaudible,
The tangible to the intangible, Perhaps the thinkable to the unthinkable.
- Lama Anagarika Govinda

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy. . . practice compassion.
- The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet
(The Art of Happiness:  A Handbook for Living)

Every choice that enhances our spirits
strengthens our energy field; and the stronger our energy
field, the fewer our connections to negative people
and experiences. - Caroline Myss, Ph.D, Anatomy of the Spirit

In prayer, what you need is to forget how worried and confused you are
and remember how wonderful you are! The root word is sanskrit, Pal-al,
which means, judging oneself to be wonderously made.
- Eric Butterworth, The Universe is Calling: Opening to the Divine Through Prayer

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. - Rainer Maria Rilke

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor
imagination nor both together make genius.
Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

- Amadeus Mozart