A collection of my favorite sayings from a variety of sources.
"Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness."
Shakti Gawain
"Flattery is from the teeth out. Sincere appreciation is from the heart out."
Dale Carnegie
"Yes, the natural way is always best.
If you are going to make noise
It is better to rumble like the rocks
Than to tinkle like artificial jade."
Lao Tzu
"Loving compassion is like the sunlight
Awakening and bringing joy to beings.
In beauty it is like a rainbow,
Lifting the hearts of all who see it."
Jack Kornfield
"That which does not kill you makes you strong."
Nietzsche
"You can't beat love. Nothin' beats love. If you give one thing, you get three things back."
'Daddy' Bruce Randolph,
Good Samaritan
"The best news is that we can screw up. We should praise life each moment, because it is unblemished."
Eugene Fisher,
cab driver
"I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.
I believe in love even when I feel it not.
I believe in God even when He is silent."
written on a wall in a concentration camp
"Hug someone today who doesn't look like you!"
Columbine High School memorial
"Blossoms are scattered by the wind, and the wind cares nothing, but blossoms of the heart the wind cannot touch."
Columbine High School memorial
"Love is like a beautiful song (that) echoes on in the heart when the last note is silent."
Columbine High School memorial
"Some people come into our lives and quickly go; some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same."
Columbine High School memorial
"Hatred never ceases by hatred; by love alone it is healed. This is the timeless and eternal law. Forgiveness is primarily for our own sake, so that we no longer carry the burden of resentment. Our hearts are already heavy enough."
The Gatekeeper
Columbine High School memorial
"Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."
Columbine High School Memorial
"Love is stronger than death."
Columbine High School Memorial
"When there seems no way out . . . . let God in."
Columbine High School Memorial
"Faith makes things possible – not easy."
Columbine High School Memorial
"You don't have to be perfect to be a light in a dark, dark world."
Beth Nimmo, mother of Rachel Scott (killed at Columbine High School)
"Bad things are not the worst things that can happen to us. Nothing is the worst thing that can happen to us. An easy life doesn't teach us anything. In the end, it's the learning that counts.
"There's two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. There is no disaster that can't become a blessing, and no blessing that can't become a disaster."
Jenn Smull, Columbine student
"We must not confuse what God causes to happen with what God allows to happen."
from Columbine memorial service
"When the morning falls on the farthest hill,
I will sing His name, I will praise Him still.
When dark trials come and my heart is filled
With the weight of doubt, I will praise Him, still.
"For the Lord, our God, He is strong to save
From the arms of death, from the deepest grave,
And He gave His life in His perfect will,
And by His good grace I will praise Him, still."
- from Fernando Ortega's "This Bright Hour"
"Sometimes a thunderbolt will shoot from a clear sky; and sometimes, into the midst of a peaceful family - without warning of gathered storm above or slightest tremble of earthquake beneath - will fall a terrible fact, and from that moment everything is changed. The air is thick with cloud, and cannot weep itself clear. There may come a gorgeous sunset, though."
- George MacDonald
"What is the point to being dreary? Let me respond with the image of a beautiful landscape painting. If you have ever taken art lessons, or even watched an artist at work, you recognize the importance of that preparation called underpainting. The artist fills the canvas with dull browns and greys roughly in the shape of the composition she intends to portray. Only after this darker underlayerment does she begin to sharpen and define the hills, trees, streams and roads that make up the elements of the picture. Finally, shadows and highlights are added.
"If the artist were to begin with the shadows and highlights, we would see a flat and uninspiring picture. As viewers, we might not know what was missing, but nevertheless, we would quickly lose interest.
"Life is much the same. If we wish to omit the darker parts that lend depth to our existence, we also lose much of the sparkle and zest that gladdens us. We cannot live one-dimensional lives."
- The Reverend Beth Robey Hyde
"We are not
separate
from spirit,
we are in it."
- Plotinus
Learn to Listen
Learn to listen like a teddy bear,
With ears open and mouth closed tight.
Learn to forgive like a teddy bear,
With arms open and imperfect eyesight.
Do not ask for your life's load lightened,
But for courage to endure.
Do not ask for fulfillment in all your life,
Do not ask for perfection in all you do,
But for the wisdom not to repeat mistakes.
And, finally, do not ask for more,
Before saying, "Thank you,"
For what you have already received.
If you're looking for somebody to blame --
Look in the mirror.
There is no challenge that cannot be met,
And dream that cannot be achieved.
- A resident of Covenant House, an emergency shelter for homeless children
"Acting thus, we contribute to the progress of our creed by serving others. Acting otherwise, we harm our own faith, bringing discredit upon the others. [One]who exalts [their] own belief discrediting all others, does so surely to display [their] religion with the intention of making a display of it. But behaving thus, [they] give it the hardest blow."
- King Asoka, patron of Buddhism, 23 centuries ago
"And if a stranger stays with you in your land, you shall do [them] no wrong. The stranger that stays with you shall be to you as the homeborn among you, and you shall love [them] as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."
- Torah, Book of Leviticus (19:33-34)
"Let there be no compulsion in religion."
- the Qu'ran
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
- the Qu'ran 17.33
To know even one life has breathed easier because we have lived; this is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, writer, philosopher, 1803-82
Morning Has Broken
Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the world
Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day
- Cat Stevens' version
"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed."
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
Angel art courtesy of:
© 2009, klbrowser