The journey of spiritual growth is a long one.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: life growth change spirituality perfectionism self-improvement patience life-long learning

Wisdom will never let us stand with any man on unfriendly footing. We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if we waited for some better sympathy or intimacy to come. But whence and when: Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live.

Categories: life wisdom relationships friendships tolerance sympathy authenticity time life present future

The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values.
Norman Thomas
Categories: life

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
Isaac Asimov
Categories: life

Life is something that everyone should try at least once.
Henry J. Tillman
Categories: life

Life is just one damned thing after another.
Elbert Hubbard
Categories: life

It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Categories: life

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.
Christopher Morley
Categories: life

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
Brendan Gill
Categories: life

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
Ben Stein
Categories: life

You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act.
Barbara Hall A Summons to New Orleans, 2000
Categories: life

There is a history in all man's lives.
William Shakespeare (King Henry IV) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: life

Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
William Goldman "The Princess Bride"
Categories: life

Life is a long lesson in humility.
James M. Barrie
Categories: life

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
John Lennon "Beautiful Boy"
Categories: life

Life is just a mirror, and what you see out there, you must first see inside of you.
Wally 'Famous' Amos
Categories: life

Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.
Truman Capote
Categories: life

Life is an unbroken succession of false situations.
Thornton Wilder
Categories: life

The unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates in Plato, Dialogues, Apology
Categories: life

Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Samuel Butler
Categories: life

Life is just a bowl of pits.
Rodney Dangerfield
Categories: life

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Robert Heinlein "Job", 1984
Categories: life

Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one.
Oliver Wendell Holmes "The Poet at the Breakfast-Table", 1872
Categories: life

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I
Categories: life

Life is a zoo in a jungle.
Peter De Vries
Categories: life

I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.
Anais Nin Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: life living

Your life is entwined with the God who gave you birth.
Frail dust, remember, you are splendor.
MacRina Wiederkehr (This quote refers to a book by the Jesuit Raoul Plus, Dust, Remember Thou Art Splendor). A Tree Full of Angels
Categories: god christlike life

Life consists of what a man is thinking of all day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson How to Want What You Have: Discovering the Magic and Grandeur of Ordinary Existence
Categories: life thoughts

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Samuel Butler The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations
Categories: life vision

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: time life

Reflect that life, like every other blessing, derives its value from its use alone.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life value usefulness

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: opportunity life

A man's years should not be counted until he has something else to count.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: age success life

Change is not only likely, it's inevitable.
Barbara Sher I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Categories: change life

Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.
Leo Tolstoy The Spirit of Loving
Categories: love life

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: awareness life vision

...happiness is a way of traveling rather than a destination.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: happiness joy life success

Every exit is an entry somewhere.
Tom Stoppard Body, Mind and Spirit
Categories: circumstances change life

We do not live an equal life, but one of contrasts and patchwork; now a little joy, then a sorrow, now a sin, then a generous or brave action.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life difficulties perfectionism

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: time leisure life value

We change, whether we like it or not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: change life character

All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.
Samuel Butler The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life joy meaning happiness

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
William Shakespeare (All's Well That Ends Well) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: life circumstances luck

It's not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts.
Adlai Stevenson Slowing Down in a Speeded Up World
Categories: aging life attitude

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.
Samuel Johnson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: action work life

A day is a miniature eternity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: time life priorities

Health is so necessary to all the duties, as well as pleasures of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: health wellness joy life

Each person's life is a story that is telling itself in the living.
William Bridges Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes: Strategies for coping with the difficult, painful, and confusing times in your life
Categories: life living character

From my experience, forgiving is the only way to survive.
Molly Ringwald Quoted in "I Had to Let Go of my Anger" by Tony Vellela, a profile of Molly Ringwald published in the May 10, 1998 Parade magazine.
Categories: forgiveness life anger

To live is like to love--all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct is for it.
Samuel Butler The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life living love

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life want joy happiness focus

Our own felicity we make or find.
Samuel Johnson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: happiness joy attitude life

Life has got to be lived -- that's all there is to it.
Eleanor Roosevelt Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: life courage strength

How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ

Robert Browning The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: joy life enjoyment fun fulfillment

The ability to love oneself, combined with the ability to love life, fully accepting that it won't last forever, enables one to improve the quality of life.
Bernie S. Siegel Love, Medicine and Miracles : Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience With Exceptional Patients
Categories: life love joy happiness

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night... the breath of a buffalo in the winter time... a little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
Crowfoot 1821 A Cherokee Feast of Days: Daily Meditations
Categories: life beauty nature

While it can be a good stretch to occasionally try out activities you don't like, your strongest talents will only show themselves when you're doing what you want to do.
Barbara Sher I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Categories: talents fulfillment life

Once more on my adventure brave and new.
Robert Browning The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: life courage attitude

The understanding of basic reality is never something we achieve; it is only something that can be approached. And, in fact, the closer we approach it the more we realize we do not understand--the more we stand in awe of its mystery.
M. Scott Peck People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil
Categories: reality life mystery

None are completely wretched but those who are without hope.
William Hazlitt Random House Webster's Quotationary
Categories: hope meaning life

One of the greatest moments in anybody's developing experience is when he no longer tries to hide from himself but determines to get acquainted with himself as he really is.
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day
Categories: life growth self-knowledge

There's many a good tune played on an old fiddle.
Samuel Butler The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: life age aging experience

Where do you think you are living, eh? This is the world, look at it! You want certainty, order, all that? Then invent it!
John Banville The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations
Categories: flexibility life living

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy afternoon.
Susan Ertz Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: boredom purpose life

First thing every morning before you arise say out loud,
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day
Categories: morning believe attitude day life

Our latest moment is always our supreme moment. Five minutes delay in dinner now is more important than a great sorrow ten years gone.
Samuel Butler The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: perspective life balance

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.
Frances Bacon Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: perspective attitude balance life

Learn to drink the cup of life as it comes.
Agnes Turnbull The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: acceptance life circumstances problems

We are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it is possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy life envy hope

The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy life present focus happiness

The pleasure of life is according to the man that lives it, and not according to the work or place.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: joy life circumstances attitude work

Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: work talent life success

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin--real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
Fr. Alfred D'Souza Handbook for the Soul
Categories: life expectation obstacles circumstances

Life does not happen to us, it happens from us.
Mike Wickett Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: life circumstances control power

...there is beauty, meaning, truth, love, and mystery in the world at all times and under all circumstances, although these things are sometimes hard to perceive, or even to imagine...Beauty, meaning, truth, love, and mystery do no just add their separate share of goodness to life. The whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. Beauty, plus meaning, plus truth, plus love, plus mystery equals something awesom, nameless, and inconceivable.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: perception vision life spirituality

We are always getting ready to live, but never living.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life living balance priorities

As soon as there is life, there is danger.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: risk life safety living

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
Sir Winston Churchill
Categories: giving life give living

To preserve health is a moral and religious duty, for health is the basis of all social virtues. We can no longer be useful when we are not well.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: health wellness life virtue

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life compromise relationship society

Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, fuller life.
W.E.B. DuBois Power Quotes
Categories: fulfillment purpose meaning of life

Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible
Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet
Categories: mystery expression art meaning of life

The great pursuit of happiness..is the greatest feat man has to accomplish.
Robert Henri The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness meaning life success

Men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself: "I am doing God's will on earth."
Anton Chekhov The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness meaning life priorities

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.
Leo Tolstoy Simple Abundance
Categories: change self-improvement growth life

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
Rabindranath Tagore How to Want What You Have
Categories: time aging age hurry life

This is the precious moment, but strangely, sadly, few people know it.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: time appreciation life now present

May you live all the days of your life.
Jonathon Swift Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: life living joy happiness experience

I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That love me, and alone...
Alfred, Lord Tennyson from the poem, 'Ulysses' The Compact Treasury of Inspiration
Categories: joy happiness pain sorrow life

The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
Helen Hayes Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: age aging youth life challenges

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
Helen Keller Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: action life safety courage

Life flows like a river. We can skim the surface or plunge more deeply into our experience. It is solitude that encourages and permits the experience of depth.
Julie Cameron The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: life mystery self-awareness meditation

All life is a manifestation of the spirit, the manifestation of love.
Morihei Ueshiba The Art of Peace: Teachings of the Founder of Aikido
Categories: life love joy happiness gratitude

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 Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: hope joy passion life gratitude appreciate

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation on how it shall be spent.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life time living planning

This is the reality we live: aspiring to be at our best, longing for and sometimes finding meaning and connection within ourselves and with that which is larger the ourselves, we are undone by messy bathrooms, traffic jams, and burnt toast. I am not interested in a spirituality that cannot encompass my humanness.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer The Invitation
Categories: reality everyday life spirituality

Life is surely given us for higher purposes than to gather what our ancestors have wisely thrown away.
Samuel Johnson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: life past discovery progress

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula LeGuin Slowing Down in a Speeded Up World
Categories: goal purpose fulfillment life

Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.
Samuel Johnson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: life time joy happiness aging

To be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars; to be satisfied with your possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor's except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; and to spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit, in God's out-of-doors--these are little guideposts on the footpath to peace.
Henry Van Dyke The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: peace serenity life living

It is better to die than to lose one's freedom.
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo: Discovering the Life of Leornardo da Vinci: A Biography
Categories: freedom life living meaning

I believe humans were born to have joy and to have it more abundantly; that the birthright of everyone is loving, caring, sharing, and abundance.
Peter McWilliams You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought
Categories: joy happiness attitude life emotions

Who loses a day loses life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life time living priorities

You must go after your wish. As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning.
Barbara Sher I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Categories: wish dream life fulfillment meaning

To fill the hour, and leave no creavice...that is happiness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness work leisure life

Different men seek...happiness in different ways and by different means.
Aristotle The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness life living choice

Every good thought you think is contributing its share to the ultimate result of your life.
Grenville Kleiser You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought
Categories: attitude positive success life

The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
Samuel Butler The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life humor perspective humility

Life is playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Samuel Butler The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation
Categories: mistakes learning life perseverance

...focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: focus action life joy journey

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
Aristotle The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness life living purpose

The more balanced our lives, the more serene we feel.
Ann Smith Body, Mind and Spirit
Categories: balance peace serenity life

Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast.
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day
Categories: happiness attitude habit joy life

People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom. People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally 'being lived.' They are acting out scripts written by parents, associates and society.
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Categories: freedom life independence co-dependence

Life without absorbing occupation is hell.
Elbert Hubbard The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life occupation work happiness

The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.
Elbert Hubbard The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: preparation life living success

I believe you can have whatever you really want in this life, in one form or another, sooner or later. All you have to do is take care of your health and be lucky enough to live for a while. But you can't have it all at once and you can't have it forever. No life has the room for everything in it, not on the same day.
Barbara Sher I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Categories: life living priorities health

If you suffer, thank God! It is a sure sign you are alive.
Elbert Hubbard The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: pain suffering life gratitude

Live a balanced life--learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Robert Fulghum All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Categories: life balance living fun creativity joy

Life does not stand still. Where there is no progress, there is disintegration.
Grenville Kleiser The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: purpose progress life growth

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life time celebration attitude

Make the most of today. Translate your good intentions into actual deeds.
Grenville Kleiser The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: action life intentions thoughts

We take care of our health, we lay up money, we make our roof tight and our clothing sufficient, but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting in the best property of all--friends?
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: friendship relationships love life

Make yourself necessary to somebody.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life action success work

When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: dreams goals love life

It is of practical value to learn to like yourself. Since you must spend so much time with yourself you might as well get some satisfaction out of the relationship.
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day
Categories: life living self-esteem meditation

Do be sad, don't be angry, if life deceives you! Submit to your grief; your time for joy will come, the leave me.
Aleksandr Pushkin The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: acceptance cycle of life problems circumstances

No one lives forever; therefore, death is in not the issue. Life is. Death is not a failure. Not choosing to take on the challenge of life is.
Bernie S. Siegel Love, Medicine and Miracles : Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience With Exceptional Patients
Categories: life death living illness joy happiness

Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is the allotted span for all we must cram into it.
Winston Churchill The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: time life aging age balance priorities

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Compact Treasury of Inspiration
Categories: aging purpose fulfillment meaning of life

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
Aristotle The Forbes Book of Business Quotations : 14,266 Thoughts on the Business of Life
Categories: education life learning knowledge wisdom

Life, even in the hardest times, is full of moments to savor. They will not come this way again, not in this way.
Paula Rinehart "Living in the Present Tense" by Paula Rinehart. Discipleship Journal, Jan/Feb 1999.
Categories: gratitude awareness life appreciation savor appreciate

Live your life and forget your age.
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day
Categories: life living aging growth happiness

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
Henry David Thoreau Walden
Categories: time priorities laziness life vision

Life is very short, and very uncertain; let us spend it as well as we can.
Samuel Johnson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: life time future present living

We have come to a place now where our search for Truth must no longer be for the rewards; it must no longer be our seeking a creed to follow, but it must be our living a life.
H. Emilie Cady Lessons in Truth
Categories: truth life choices responsibility action

May you have warmth in your igloo, oil in your lamp, and peace in your heart.
Eskimo proverb The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life happiness joy happy necessities serenity

Every man is the architect of his own fortune.
Sallus Body, Mind and Spirit
Categories: goals vision mission life actions

We go on a journey in our youth that we are called on to repeat in our forties. But the second time, the journey is different; it's not one of discovery but of power and danger. We can either accept the invitation or turn toward safety.
John Tarrant "How will you fail?" by Harriet Rubin, Fast Company, October 1999
Categories: courage discovery self-awareness middle age mid-life

The secret of what life's all about
Was answered by the sages:
Life's about one day at a time
No matter what your age is.
Robert Half The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life age aging time present balance

In order to develop love -- universal love, cosmic love, whatever you would like to call it -- one must accept the whole situation of life as it is, both the light and the dark, the good and the bad. One must open oneself to life, communicate with it.
Chogyam Trungpa The Spirit of Loving
Categories: love life mystery personal growth

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life risk living present growth

Routine is a ground to stand on, a wall to retreat to; we cannot draw on our boots without bracing ourselves against it.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: routine foundation life support habit

Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.
William Shakespeare [Troilus and Cressida] Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: depth spirituality character integrity inner life

It is in his pleasure that a man really lives.
Agnes Repplier The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happiness pleasure life meaning balance

Happiness depends on ourselves.
Aristotle The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness attitude choice life living

Life is a narrative that you have a hand in writing.
Henriette Anne Klauser Write It Down, Make It Happen: Knowing What You Want - and Getting it
Categories: life direction decisions responsibility choices

I sing the body electric.
Walt Whitman The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation
Categories: health wellness fitness body joy life

This life is not for complaint, but for satisfaction.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life complaint attitude happiness fulfillment joy

All experience is an arch to build on.
Henry Brooks Adams Body, Mind and Spirit
Categories: experience life growth learning change

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying.
And this same flower that smiles
today, Tomorrow will be dying.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: time aging life fulfillment happiness

Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.
Socrates The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: living life joy meaning fulfillment purpose

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.
Elbert Hubbard The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: happiness circumstances attitude life problems

The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
Vince Lombardi Lessons from the Art of Juggling
Categories: excellence success commitment life joy happiness

If you want to find what's right for you, sometimes it's enough to figure out what's wrong.
Dale Dauten "A black-and-white hunt for vitality, niche in life" by Dale Dauten, Arizona Republic, September 2, 1999
Categories: meaning purpose life job career decisions

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
Kafka Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: aging beauty vision youth life

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness with others.
Samuel Butler The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: work leisure rest balance life

We have only one reality, and that is here and now. What we miss by our evasions will never return, but if we squander ourselves, then too we lose being. Each day is precious: a moment can be everything.
Karl Jaspers Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: life present living balance purpose

Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives...most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the results of creativity...[and] when we are involved in it, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Categories: creativity life living fulfillment meaning

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product.
Eleanor Roosevelt The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy enjoyment work effort life

I believe that a simple and unassuming life is good for everybody, physically and mentally.
Albert Eistein, from "What I Believe" The Quotable Einstein
Categories: moderation humility wellness long life

Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: focus attention happiness wellness life

The world belongs to the energetic.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: energy effort work success life

When coasting in our comfort zones, we don't grow. We continue to do more of the same...Maintaining a comfort zone can, paradoxically, lead to discomfort in the long run. If by being comfortable we avoid important life issues, internal tension accumulates...Eventually, as both internal and external pressures for change persist, the "comfort zone" ceases to serve us.
Eric Allenbaugh Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: comfort growth change rut decisions life

...miracles don't come from the cold intellect. They come from finding your authentic self and following what you feel is your true course in life.
Bernie S. Siegel Love, Medicine and Miracles : Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience With Exceptional Patients
Categories: authenticity purpose fulfillment life meaning

Every day is my best day; this is my life; I'm not going to have this moment again.
Bernie Siegel, MD Handbook for the Soul
Categories: life attitude choice joy priorities vision

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin Jump Start Your Brain
Categories: time life opportunity priorities planning

Learning how to learn is life's most important skill.
Michael Gelb and Tony Buzan Lessons from the Art of Juggling; How to Achieve Your Full Potential in Business, Learning and Life
Categories: learning life skill growth success

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
William Shakespeare, from Julius Caesar Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: death courage bravery living life

Whatever you do, you need courage.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life action character courage fear

Life is half spent before one knows what it is.
French proverb The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs
Categories: life learning growth time aging

Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life living action goal balance

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair...
``To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.
Samuel Johnson Light from Many Lamps
Categories: friendship relationships loneliness aging life

The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Categories: life meaning relationships friendships respect

I so love the Spanish proverb "God says, 'Choose what you will and pay for it,'" which stresses that life holds no easy answers, that conscious choices are often costly ones. We must live with and pay for their consequences. Understanding this, we learn what it means to be fully human. Furthermore, we can exploit every delay as a cycle of growth.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: choice life living consequences growth

Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour;
``Improve each moment as it flies!
``Life's a short summer, man a flower;
``He dies--alas! how soon he dies!
Samuel Johnson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: time present opportunity life joy happiness

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
George Santayana Soliloquies in England, 1922, "War Shrines"
Categories: birth death life acceptance attitude

Find something you love to do and you'll never have to work a day in your life.
Harvey Mackay The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: meaning life success love dreams

To those who have lived long together, everything heard and everything seen recalls some pleasure communicated, some benefit conferred, some petty quarrel or some slight endearment. Esteem of great powers, or amiable qualities newly discovered may embroider a day or a week, but a friendship of twenty years is interwoven with the texture of life.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: relationship friendship marriage family joy life

If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Power Quotes
Categories: meaning purpose life fulfillment cause leadership

I am grateful for and bless the act of creation and all my loving creators. To be alive is the greatest gift one can receive. Life, with its mystery, joy, love, pain, difficulties, and opportunities. I bless them all as I bless the wonder of our existence and I bless all who use the gift of life to increase the quality of love and healing we all require to survive. Peace.
Bernie Siegel, MD A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles
Categories: gratitude blessing life love healing

How dull is it to pause, to make an end
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life!
Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Compact Treasury of Inspiration
Categories: work purpose meaning of life fulfillment

The man who has accomplished all that he thinks worthwhile, has begun to die.
E.T. Trigg The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life goals purpose meaning fulfillment

Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.
Samuel Butler The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life feelings instinct growth learning

Meditation is simply about being yourself and knowing about who that is. It is about coming to realize that you are on a path whether you like it or not, namely the path that is your life.
Jon Kabat-Zinn Simple Abundance
Categories: meditation authenticity inner peace acceptance life

The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
Aristotle The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: beauty soul challenges circumstances life attitude

I believe that we are here to contribute love to the planet--each of us in our own way.
Bernie Siegel, MD Handbook for the Soul
Categories: love meaning life purpose ministry service

I have come to believe that a life enslaved to one Goal, no matter how noble, becomes a mechanism rather than an organism, a business plan rather than a biography, a tool rather than a gift.
James Ogilvy Living Without a Goal: Finding the Freedom to Live a Creative and Innovative Life by James Ogilvy
Categories: goal ambition balance priorities life purpose

You may feel like dwelling on your limits or your fears. Don't do it...A perfect prescription for a squandered, unfulfilled life is to accommodate self-defeating feelings while undercutting your finest, most productive ones.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: limitations fears fulfillment life waste success

The path to accelerating and enjoying the learning process requires us to see success and failure as equally instructive and valuable.
Michael Gelb and Tony Buzan Lessons from the Art of Juggling; How to Achieve Your Full Potential in Business, Learning and Life
Categories: learning life growth failure success mistakes

Do not die without having lived. Give yourself the opportunity to show your true color and when you do go, go out in a blaze of glory.
Bernie S. Siegel Love, Medicine & Miracles
Categories: live living joy enjoy life risk dare

Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead.
Morihei Ueshiba The Art of Peace
Categories: growth self-improvement learning life journey self-awareness

One of the false dichotomies of modern life is that between work and personal time. It is widely held that there is a set of skills that we need for one and quite a different set that we need for the other. But this is not true. The skills of problem-solving, for example are of great value in our personal lives, and overcoming stress and anxiety is a key skill in our work. Being fair to yourself, and to others, helps both personal and work relationships. Low mood is a major cause of unhappiness and also reduces effectiveness at work.
Gillian Butler, PhD and Tony Hope, MD Managing Your Mind
Categories: balance life skills happiness personal effectiveness

Life is full of chances and changes, and the most prosperous of men may...meet with great misfortunes.
Aristotle The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: chance change circumstances life difficulties misfortune

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.
Kahlil Gibran Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: life living effort work determination dedication

To continue learning is to embrace the process of trial and error at higher and higher levels.
Michael Gelb and Tony Buzan Lessons from the Art of Juggling; How to Achieve Your Full Potential in Business, Learning and Life
Categories: learning life growth mistakes failure success

The spirit is fascinated by the future,
Thomas Moore The Education of the Heart
Categories: soul spirituality routine everyday life self-realization

We protract the career of time by employment, we lengthen the duration of our lives by wise thoughts and useful actions. Life to him who wishes not to have lived in vain is thought and action.
Johann Zimmerman The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: thought action purpose meaning fulfillment life

To live life requires intense self-deception or
W. Paul Jones 'Courage as the heart of faith'
Categories: courage strength hope faith living life

It is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while.
Don Marquis The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy beauty life boredom ennui priorities

You agree--I'm sure you agree, that beauty is the only thing worth living for.
Agatha Christie Simple Abundance
Categories: beauty nature art appreciation music meaning life

Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Mark Twain The 13 Secrets of Power Performance
Categories: life character integrity personality example mentor leadership

If we really want to live, we'd better start at once to try;
If we don't, it doesn't matter, but we'd better start to die.
W.H. Auden Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life
Categories: living life joy happiness will choice enjoyment attitude

I hope that you will abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience--to appreciate the fact that life is complex.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled
Categories: problems challenges difficulties life living growth

He has not learned the first lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life fear success growth change courage

You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.
Barbara Sher I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Categories: learning aging life living beginning curiosity

When you play it too safe, you're taking the biggest risk of your life...Time is the only wealth we're given.
Barbara Sher I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Categories: time safety risk wealth life living

Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing; when we have made it the next wish is to change again.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life change growth vision dream goal

Pessimism is a very easy way out when you're considering what life really is, because pessimism is a short view of life...If you take a long view, I do not see how you can be pessimistic about the future of man or the future of the world.
Robertson Davies, novelist Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Categories: pessimism optimism life living attitude future

That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own self-esteem.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life happiness joy self-esteem self-awareness self-confidence growth

I have a need inside me, of a certain joy, you see? An expression of joy. I feel it. I suppose that I am glad to be alive, glad to have a man whom I love and a life that I enjoy and the things which I work on which sometimes make my spirit sing. And I hope everybody has that feeling inside. I am grateful that I have a spirit inside me which often sings.
Nina Holton, sculptor Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Categories: joy life living happiness work gratitude spirit

The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: action truth life character honesty integrity

Problems are solved only when we devote a great deal of attention to them and in a creative way...to have a good life, it is not enough to remove what is wrong with it. We also need a positive goal, otherwise why keep going? Creativity is one answer to that question: It provides one of the most exciting models for living.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Categories: problems creativity life living goals positive

The outer forms of our lives can change in an instant, but the inner reorientation that brings us back into a vital relation to people and activity takes time.
William Bridges Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes: Strategies for coping with the difficult, painful, and confusing times in your life
Categories: change relationships action life structure transitions

The most effective way I know to understand and clarify life purpose is to develop a personal mission statement.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: life purpose priorities goals mission values

Success is not a destination that you ever reach. Success is the quality of your journey.
Jennifer James Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: success growth change life balance joy happiness

Up, sluggard, and waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough.
Benjamin Franklin Jump Start Your Brain
Categories: life energy priorities rest work effort

...the Law of Stress-Hardinesss...states that stress is not only to be expected but preferred...we can and should develop an positive, workable approach to stress management...Think of it. The perfect no-stress environment is the grave...When we change our perception we gain control. The stress becomes a challenge, not a threat. When we commit to action, to actually doing something rather than feeling trapped by events, the stress in our life becomes manageable.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: stress attitude life power action wellness

Although our inattention can contribute to our lack of total well-being, we also have the power to choose positive behaviors and responses. In that choice we change our every experience of life!
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: focus choice life attitude wellness power

Let us be about setting high standards for life, love, creativity, and wisdom. If our expectations in these areas are low, we are not likely to experience wellness. Setting high standards makes every day and every decade worth looking forward to.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: life love creativity standards expectations wellness

Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities--that's training or instruction--but is rather a making visible what is hidden as a seed...
To be educated, a person doesn't have to know much or be informed, but he or she does have to have been exposed vulnerably to the transformative events of an engaged human life...
One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated.
Thomas Moore The Education of the Heart
Categories: education heart life experience vulnerability learning

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness or ablities that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
William Penn Words for All Occasions
Categories: kindness love friendship sharing talent life

If you know peace, then you thrive; if you know contentment, then you are rich.
Su Shi Zen Lessons: The Art of Leadership
Categories: peace contentment wealth living good life

A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: wisdom money future present balance life

Draw from others the lesson that may profit yourself.
Terence Body, Mind and Spirit
Categories: learning life growth self-knowledge models observation

The cost of a thing is that amount of life which must be exchanged for it.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: possessions materialism life balance priorities values

Events, circumstances, etc., have their origin in ourselves. They spring from seeds which we have sown.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: circumstances life attitude consequences choice responsibility

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

Robert Browning The Thinker's Way: 8 Steps to a Richer Life
Categories: goals purpose dreams fulfillment life work

To live as fully, as completely as possible, to be happy...is the true aim and end to life.
Llewelyn Powers The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness fulfillment life living success goal

Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?
Henry James The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life live happiness action fulfillment success

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
Aristotle The Forbes Book of Business Quotations: 14,266 Thoughts on the Business of Life
Categories: life living meditation contemplation self-awareness growth

I will not surrender responsibility for my life and my actions.
John Powell Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: responsibility actions life self-control mistakes blame

The time of life is short;
To spend that shortness basely were too long.
William Shakespeare (King Henry IV) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: life priorities balance focus vision mission

That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.
Robert Louis Stevenson The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations
Categories: success meaning fulfillment life service giving

That which we do not call education is more precious than that which we call so.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: education learning experience life wisdom growth

There is nothing more tragic than a person who achieves wealth, fame, power or prestige only to find he's lost the love of his family and friends, the respect of his colleagues, and above all has lost the ability to appreciate life for its own sake.
Roger Dawson The 13 Secrets of Power Performance
Categories: balance life happiness purpose meaning fulfillment

It's always too soon to quit!
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day
Categories: quit persevere determined attitude belief life

Life isn't supposed to be an all or nothing battle between misery and bliss. Life isn't supposed to be a battle at all. And when it comes to happiness, well, sometimes life is just okay, sometimes it's comfortable, sometimes wonderful, sometimes boring, sometimes unpleasant. When your day's not perfect, it's not a failure or a terrible loss. It's just another day.
Barbara Sher I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Categories: life sorrow sadness joy happiness failure loss living

Living a life of integrity is one of the greatest missions we can undertake.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: life living mission integrity choices responsibility purpose

Life's strict rule is this: You get more of what you focus on. Ignoring this, we abandon our healthiest, concentrative energies and court emotional upheaval.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: life focus vision stress wellness happiness energy

The real enemies of life are the 'oughts' and 'ifs.' They pull us backwards into the unalterable
Henri Nouwen "Living in the Present Tense" by Paula Rinehart, Discipleship Journal , Jan/Feb 1999.
Categories: regret worry present past future life living

How easily we can forget how precious life is! So long as we can remember, we've just been here, being alive. Unlike other things for which we have a good comparison--black to white, day to night, good to bad--we are so immersed in life that we can see it only in the context of itself. We don't see life as compared to anything, to not-being, for example, to never having been born. Life just is.
But life itself is a gift. It's a compliment just being born: to feel, breathe, think, play, dance, sing, work, make love, for this particular lifetime.
Today, let's give thanks for life. For life itself. For simply being born!
Daphne Rose Kingma A Grateful Heart
Categories: gratitude life joy attitude enthusiasm optimism living thankfulness

Life is a journey, and one thing’s for sure: You don’t see many hearses with luggage racks on them. We’re privileged to be here, so instead of just using God’s resources, we should leave the place a little better than we found it-or at least leave it the same.
Joel Cunningham "Unit of One" Fast Company, December 1999
Categories: life death greed materialism service volunteerism giving

Engrossed late and soon in professional cares, getting and spending, you may so lay waste your powers that you may find, too late, with hearts given away, that there is no place in your habit-stricken souls for those gentler influences which make your life worth living.
Sir William Osler Light from Many Lamps
Categories: balance priorities too busy meaning life joy happiness work

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon--instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.
Dale Carnegie Light from Many Lamps
Categories: today present now balance joy enjoyment life living happiness

...the supply of misery, pain, and suffering is unlimited. But so is the supply of pleasure, contentment, and fufillment. It is we who do the rationing.
Ration no more! Capture wellness this instant! This instant is all there is. Live it!
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: wellness happiness pleasure pain fulfillment life contentment

In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.
Aristotle The Forbes Book of Business Quotations : 14,266 Thoughts on the Business of Life
Categories: action rewards life living volunteer good honors

All work done mindfully rounds us out, helps complete us as persons.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: vocation work balance fulfillment life living growth

Expressing your enthusiasms can add years of creative life to your time on earth.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: life aging fulfillment enthusiasm vision talents action

What is the value of a meteor shower, a symphony, a good belly laugh, a poem, a bird's song, an act of selfless kindness, or a child's smile? These things are valuable because they quietly, persistently give life meaning. Not everyone can perceive the significance of a meteor shower or a symphony; not everyone is capable of appreciating acts of selfless kindness or good belly laughs. People who are capable of appreciating these things are blessed. Those who are not capable of appreciating such experiences would be better off if they could learn how. If they cannot learn how, or do not try to learn how, then they are cursed in ways that they cannot comprehend.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: joy living life meaning gratitude appreciation everyday blessings

People have to face regrets. Becoming mature means learning to accept what you cannot change, facing unresolved sorrows and learning to love life as it really happens, not as you would have it happen.
Barbara Sher I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Categories: regrets mature sorrow sadness change life circumstances

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Compact Treasury of Inspiration
Categories: aging retirement meaning of life fulfillment purpose usefulness

This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: time life appreciation purpose meaning opportunity action

You were intended not only to work, but to rest, laugh, play, and have proper leisure and enjoyment. To develop an all-around personality you must have interest outside of your regular vocation that will serve to balance your business responsibilities.
Grenville Kleiser The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: work play rest laughter leisure balance life

How could youths better learn to live than by once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would educate their minds as much as mathematics.
Henry David Thoreau Walden
Categories: life living education learning knowledge wisdom experience

True hope dwells on the possible, even when life seems to be a plot written by someone who wants to see how much adversity we can overcome.``

True hope responds to the real world, to real life; it is an active effort.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: hope life difficulties problems circumstances adversity action

Progress comes from the intelligent use of experience.
Elbert Hubbard The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: progress growth change experience learning life success

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in Paradise. Love your life.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life happiness acceptance blame complain fulfillment success

For neither birth, nor wealth, nor honours, can awaken in the minds of men the principles which should guide those who from their youth aspire to an honourable and excellent life, as Love awakens them.
Plato The Spirit of Loving
Categories: love character integrity principles values life guidance

I don't want life to imitate art. I want life to be art.
Carrie Fisher Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: life living beauty essence fulfillment meaning purpose

The fast pace of our lives makes it difficult for us to find grace in the present moment, and when the simple gifts at our fingertips cease to nourish us, we have a tendency to crave the sensational.
Macrina Wiederkehr A Tree Full of Angels
Categories: life stress grace present appreciation nurture miracles

When it's time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life meaning purpose goal experience risk safety

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and Spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature, if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you, know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus you may feel your pulse.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: morning spring nature life aging attitude age wellness

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Body, Mind and Spirit
Categories: achievement success goals vision mission enthusiasm life

The true object of all human life is play.
G.K. Chesterton The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life meaning goal purpose play fun joy happiness happy

Don't wait for a funeral to pay a compliment. You may not make it in time.
Harvey Mackay Harvey Mackay's United Features syndicated column
Categories: life appreciation gratitude compliment relationships friendship love

To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life opportunity vision good action happiness success

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life perspective meaning joy purpose wisdom success growth

Do not be too timid and squeamish...All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life change growth mistakes failure success fear

He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life living present future procrastination joy happiness fulfillment

Cease to inquire what the future has in store, and take as a gift whatever the day brings forth.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: future present joy fulfillment life living acceptance worry

If we fail to nourish our souls, they wither, and without soul, life ceases to have meaning...The creative process shrivels in the absence of continual dialogue with the soul. And creativity is what makes life worth living.
Marion Woodman from the essay "Soul Moments" Handbook for the Soul
Categories: soul self-nurturing spirituality life meaning creativity living

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge
Aristotle The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: friendship relationships love life difficulties challenges circumstances

You only live once--but if you work it right, once is enough.
Joe E. Lewis Simple Abundance
Categories: fulfillment meaning joy happiness quality of life living go for the gusto

There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness life success work achievement progress growth

One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life time present attitude trivia routine gratitude

Within each of us is a hidden store of energy. Energy we can release to compete in the marathon of life.
Within each of us is a hidden store of courage. Courage to give us the strength to face any challenge.
Within each of us is a hidden store of determination. Determination to keep us in the race when all seems lost.
Roger Dawson The 13 Secrets of Power Performance
Categories: energy persevere life courage bravery determination challenges hopelessness

There is honor in labor. Work is the medicine of the soul. It is more: it is your very life, without which you would amount to little.
Grenville Kleiser The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: honor work wellness soul purpose meaning life character

It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: courage strength life joy adversity challenges difficulties problems attitude

To be a philosopher is...so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.
Henry David Thoreau Walden
Categories: wisdom simplicity independence generosity trust life values balance

Prudence keeps life safe, but it does not often make it happy.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: safety caution risk daring courage happiness life joy action

The older I get, the more I realize the importance of exercising the various dimensions of my body, soul, mind and heart. Taken together, these aspects give me a sense of wholeness. I want to be a whole human being rather than one who limps on one leg because I don't know how to use all of my parts. Intellectual, emotional, and physical activity are not separate entities. Rather, they are dimensions of the same human being.
Robert Fulghum in the essay "Pay Attention" Handbook for the Soul
Categories: aging wisdom body soul spirit life balance wellness

Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery. Love, and don't be caught in opinions and ideas about what love is or should be. When you love, everything will come right. Love has its own action. Love, and you will know the blessings of it. Keep away from the authority who tells you what love is and what it is not. No authority knows and he who knows cannot tell. Love, and there is understanding.
Krishnamurti The Spirit of Loving
Categories: love action life meaning understanding relationships marriage friendship

Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of each day and hour.
Stephen Leacock Light from Many Lamps
Categories: life happiness happy balance present now today joyous enjoyment

Life is what happens when you are making other plans.
John Lennon 1911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
Categories: life living busyness stress plans interruptions transitions change

Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: life challenges difficulties obstacles problems focus perspective action

Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.
Sarah Bernhardt Simple Abundance
Categories: life giving sharing service serving energy enthusiasm volunteering

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full.
King Solomon Ecclesiastes 1:7
Categories: nature cycle of life renewal growth change learning wisdom

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
King Solomon Ecclesiates 3:1, Holy Bible
Categories: nature cycle of life wisdom growth change acceptance rhythm

A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.
Edgar Watson Howe Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: experience life advice learning education school of hard knocks

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, wither thou goest.
King Solomon Ecclesiastes 9:10
Categories: work effort life live career vocation living meaning

Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. Our friends and fellow-workers die off from us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: life living attention focus balance plans goals relationships

Life is at best only a children's game. Yet the game must be played conscientiously.
Yukichi Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: life meaning purpose vision character work effort integrity

The main fact of life for me is love or its absence. Whether life is worth living depends on whether there is love in life.
R.D. Laing Love and Relationships: Inspirations for Meditation and Spiritual Growth by Eileen Campbell
Categories: life meaning purpose fulfillment love relationships friendships marriage

As we become full persons, our knack for "right actions" and good judgement blossoms.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: fulfillment balance life actions judgement character growth vision

..life never calms down long enough for us to wait until tomorrow to start living the lives we deserve. Live is always movement, always change, always unforeseen circumstances. There will always be something to grab your attention...Let's just acknowledge that as far as real life is concerned, we are only one step away from dealing with dysfunction.
...Procrastination has robbed us of too many opportunities.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: procrastination busyness fulfillment meaning joy enjoyment love life stress opportunity

Life's up and downs provide windows of opportunity to determine...[your] values and goals...Think of using all obstacles as stepping stones to build the life you want.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: life living opportunity values goals vision mission obstacles challenges

If each of us can be helped by science to live a hundred years, what will it profit us if our hates and fears, our loneliness and our remorse will not permit us to enjoy them?
David Neiswanger The Forbes Book of Business Quotations: 14,266 Thoughts on the Business of Life
Categories: joy life fulfillment hate fear isolation guilt sadness wellness attitude

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life...When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.
Henry David Thoreau Walden
Categories: life hurry stress balance wisdom patience serenity calm value fear

'Now' is the operative word. Everything you put in your way is just a method of putting off the hour when you could actually be doing your dream. You don't need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it today. Do it for twenty minutes and watch your heart start beating.
Barbara Sher I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Categories: time dreams goals action circumstances life living fulfillment procrastination

The significant business of your life is alive and well, awaiting discovery, within your very soul. You and I were born to come into ourselves as complete and distinctive persons. Accepting this, we build a valuable life. This is the hidden, undergirding occupation beneath anyone's meaningful purpose.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: life vocation living goal vision mission purpose fulfillment creativity

It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth--and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up--that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it were the only one we had.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Simple Abundance
Categories: life age aging death meaning fulfillment living priorities priority balance

If we are ever to enjoy life, now is the time--not tomorrow, nor next year, nor in some future life after we have died. The best preparation for a better life next year is a full, complete, harmonious, joyous life this year. Our beliefs in a rich future life are of little importance unless we coin them into a rich present life. Today should always be our most wonderful day.
Thomas Dreier Light from Many Lamps
Categories: balance priorities work life meaning purpose happiness future present now

Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how...The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.
Agnes de Mille Simple Abundance
Categories: living life risk courage bravery daring strength growth stretching

He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life time success priorities focus vision mission goal happiness

It seems we may live in a society that has almost forgotten the glory of what it means to be human. We are in need of healing.
M. Scott Peck A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered
Categories: humanity meaning purpose life spirituality sin society community mistakes failures

You are as young as you feel after trying to prove it.
Lou Erickson Words for All Occasions
Categories: mid-life crisis male menopause age aging change vanity conceit pride

In life as in the dance: Grace glides on blistered feet.
Alice Abrams Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: life character strength courage bravery wounds pain suffering grace

You have the need and the right to spend part of your life caring for your soul. It is not easy. You have to resist the demands of the work-oriented, often defensive, element in your psyche that measures life only in terms of output -- how much you produce -- not in terms of the quality of your life experiences...To be a soulful person means to go against all the pervasive, prove-yourself values of our culture and instead treasure what is unique and internal and valuable in yourself and your own personal evolution.
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., from the essay "Windows of the Soul" Handbook for the Soul
Categories: self-nurture life soul work happiness balance self-esteem growth change

Think of the steady, reassuring rhythm of the natural world--the ebb and flow of the tides, the recurring cycle of the the four seasons, the monthly phases of the moon, and the daily progression from day into night. Rhythm needs to be the cornerstone in our personal world as well...Restoring rhythm to the way you conduct your affairs can bring you contentment and a sense of well-being that will nurture and sustain you when the cares of the world can't be left behind.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: rhythm focus balance meaning fulfillment stress worry anxiety life

If a man carefully examines his thoughts, he will be surprised to find how much he lives in the future. His well-being is always ahead.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: thoughts future perspective life living goal dream vision balance

When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.
Henri Nouwen The Wounded Healer<
Categories: pain suffering depression despair escape overcome overcoming life perspective hope

Keep a definite goal of achievement constantly in view. Realize that work well and worthily done makes life truly worth living.
Grenville Kleiser The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: goal achievement success purpose focus vision mission work life living

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrong.
Charlotte Bronte Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: life aging hate time priorities attitude thoughts blame anger mad recriminations

All of us are far richer than we imagine. None of us possess a life devoid of magic, barren of grace, divorced from power. Our inner resources, often unmined and even unknown or unacknowledged, are the treasures we carry, what I call our spiritual DNA.
Julie Cameron The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: life spirituality imagination creativity power magic grace resources strength wealth

Life is but short; no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorrow, or contests upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our day upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry; and best, in the next place to be quickly reconciled.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life time priorities sorrow questions philosophy resentment anger forgiveness relationship

One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.
Morihei Ueshiba The Art of Peace
Categories: simplicity power status peace joy happiness life success growth heaven money

An Italian philosopher said that "time was his estate"; an estate which will produce nothing without cultivation, but will always abundantly repay the labors of industry, and generally satisfy the most extensive desires, if no part of it be suffered to lie in waste by negligence, to be overrun with noxious plants, or laid out for show rather than for use.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: time life work effort success goal vision planning priorities balance

Living to a ripe old age may not be one of humanity's great blessings, but to live with gusto at a ripe old age is to discover not only what life is about, but what it's always been about.
Joe Klock Like klockwork-- the whimsy, wit, and sometime wisdom of a Key Largo curmudgeon
Categories: attitude age aging elderly senior citizens young at heart quality of life enthusiasm

Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: life problems obstacles challenges difficulties discipline will action character growth change

It is foolish to postpone enjoyment of your ordinary life until you are more successful, more secure, or more loved than you are today.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: joy happiness perfectionism routine present life success security love foolishness wisdom

Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.
Dante Alighieri The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation
Categories: character virtue wisdom knowledge growth integrity origin choice life responsibility

I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life.

I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: responsibility choice attitude problems challenges difficulties circumstances character life pain

If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
Albert Camus How to Want What You Have:
Categories: life sin mistake failure despair depression suicide appreciation gratitude meaning wishing focus

One important source of happiness is the habit of putting off living to some fictional future date. Men and women are constantly making themselves unhappy because in deferring their lives to the future they lose sight of the present and its golden opportunities for rich living.
W. Beran Wolfe Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happy joyous enjoyment meaning purpose fulfillment now present today balance life living

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Phillip James Bailey The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: aging time gratitude attitude value action work effort life meaning fulfillment purpose

Be grateful for the joy of life. Be glad for the privilege of work. Be thankful for the opportunity to give and serve. Good work is the great character-builder, the sweetener of life, the maker of destiny. Let the spirit of your work be right, and whether your task be great or small you will then have the satisfaction of knowing it is worth while.
Grenville Kleiser The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: joy life work privilege gratitude opportunity giving serving sharing character destiny spirit

The secret cause of all suffering is mortality itself, which is the prime condition of life. It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed.
Joseph Campbell, as quoted by Bill Moyers in the introduction The Power of Myth
Categories: suffering pain mortality life death wellness meaning grief acceptance joy fulfillment depression

The measure of our future success and happiness will not be the quality of the cards we are dealt by unseen hands, but the poise and wisdom with which we play them.``
Choose to play each hand to the best of your ability without wasting the time or energy it takes to complain about either the cards or the dealer or the often unfair rules of the game.``
Play both the winning and the losing hands as best you can, then fold the cards and ante up for the next deal!
Joe Klock Like Klockwork: The Whimsy, Wit, and (sometime) Wisdom of a Key Largo Curmudgeon
Categories: success future happiness life poise wisdom complaints time energy rules attitude perseverance

To nourish the soul means to become
Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. Handbook for the Soul
Categories: soul nurture growth kindness compassion love wisdom risk meaning fulfillment purpose life

Life is complex.
Each one of us must make his own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another...The journey of life is not paved in blacktop; it is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled
Categories: life learning spirituality growth self-improvement direction meaning easy answers difficulties problems challenges

To fear love is to fear life.
Bertrand Russell Love and Relationships: Inspirations for Meditation and Spiritual Growth by Eileen Campbell
Categories: love life emotions feelings commitment marriage committed relationships fear afraid friendships sharing trust

To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children, to earn the approbation of honest critics; to appreciate beauty; to give of one's self, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived--that is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: laughter love friendship respect children beauty appreciation volunteer play enthusiasm life living success

Do not let trifles disturb your tranquility of mind. The little pinpricks of daily life when dwelt upon and magnified, may do great damage, but if ignored or dismissed from thought, will disappear from inanition. Most men have worried about things which never happened, and more men have been killed by worry than by hard work. Life is so great in its opportunities and possibilities, that you should rise confidently above the inevitable trifles incident to daily contact with the world. Life is too precious to be sacrificed for the nonessential and transient...Ignore the inconsequential.
Grenville Kleiser Light from Many Lamps
Categories: serenity peace tranquility circumstances problems difficulties challenges focus attitude worry work life opportunities

There is more to life than increasing its speed.
Mahatma Gandhi The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life meaning fulfillment purpose spirituality happiness joy relaxation leisure living busyness smell the roses rest

How we see and hold the full range of our experiences in our minds and in our hearts makes an enormous difference in the quality of this journey we are on, and what it means to us. It can influence where we go, what happens, what we learn, and how we feel along the way.
Jon Kabat-Zinn Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting
Categories: attitude gratitude thought joy happiness emotions life choices decisions learning growth self-improvement experiences perception

...it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually...It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: problems obstacles challenges difficulties pain meaning life wisdom success failure courage growth spirituality

Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!
Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking Glass The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation
Categories: effort work achievement goal dream stress life success excellence vision mission focus leadership progress

...start thinking of yourself as an artist and your life as a work-in-progress. Works-in-progress are never perfect. But changes can be made...Art evolves. So does life. Art is never stagnant. Neither is life. The beautiful, authentic life you are creating for yourself is your art. It's the highest art.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: life living risk stretching daring courage strength perfectionism mistakes creativity authenticity fulfillment meaning purpose balance

It is not uncommon to find oneself thinking such thoughts as "I can't stand this" or "If only I didn't have to do this." As the psychologist Albert Ellis notes, such thoughts frequently involve whining. In essence, we are acting like babies and whining about things "not being fair." One can continue to do this if one choose, say Ellis. However, it is usually more efficient to simply accept the fact that life is not always a bowl of cherries, stop whining, and get on with the task.
John D. Bransford and Barry S. Stein The Ideal Problem Solver
Categories: life fairness worry stress anxiety problems difficulty difficulties challenges action whine complain mature maturity thought

To help the young soul, to add energy, inspire hope, and blow the coals into a useful flame; to redeem defeat by new thought and firm action, this, though not easy, is the work of divine man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: helpful energy inspiration hope encouragement redemption defeat mistakes success persevere action thought creativity work life

It is not how much you know about life but how you live your life that counts. Those who can avoid mistakes by observing the mistakes of others are most apt to keep free from sorrow. In a world full of uncertainties, the record of what has gone before--human experience--is as sure and reliable as anything of which we know.
Ray Lyman Wilbur Light from Many Lamps
Categories: mistakes observation wisdom learning living life sorrow experience history past errors growth change success happiness

Happiness comes more from loving than being loved; and often when our affection seems wounded it is is only our vanity bleeding. To love, and to be hurt often, and to love again--this is the brave and happy life.
J.E. Buchrose The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happy love loving relationships friendships trust family families vanity pride hurt pain courage bravery life

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes, and seeing them gratified. He that labors in any great or laudable undertaking has his fatigues first supported by hope, and afterwards rewarded by joy...
``To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.
Samuel Johnson Light from Many Lamps
Categories: life joy achievement success difficulties challenges problems obstacles dreams vision work energy fatigue hope courage persevere persistance

To live means to experience--through doing, feeling, thinking. Experience takes place in time, so time is the ultimate scarce resource we have. Over the years, the content of experience will determine the quality of life. Therefore one of the most essential decisions any of us can make is about how one's time is allocated or invested.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life
Categories: time balance planner planning priorities balance life living experiences choices

The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
Alfred Adler Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: risk courage strength bravery success failure mistake vision strength goals life living achievement

If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is. Each must find out for himself, and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes. If he succeeds he will continue to grow in spite of all indignities.
Gordon W. Allport, from the Introduction Man's Search for Meaning
Categories: pain suffering terminal illness disability cancer purpose meaning life death sickness die growth self-improvement learning adversity challenges problems difficulties

Life is difficult.
This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult--once we truly understand and accept it--then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: life difficulties challenges pain obstacles problems truth acceptance perspective struggles illness disability problems adversity inner peace

Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make everyday a holiday and celebrate just living!
Amanda Bradley Slowing Down in a Speeded Up World
Categories: happiness friendships living celebration love relationships joy enjoyment sharing caring loving life live happiness attitude give

...the sources of the truest truths are inevitably profoundly personal.
Saul Bellow The Closing of the American Mind
Categories: truth true insight spirituality growth self-knowledge self-awareness honesty transformation change self-improvement life change meditation prayer self-discovery

There are many find things which you mean to do some day, under what you think will be more favorable circumstances. But the only time that is surely yours is the present, hence this is the time to speak the word of appreciation and sympathy, to do the generous deed, to forgive the fault of a thoughtless friend, to sacrifice self a little more for others. Today is the day in which to express your noblest qualities of mind and heart, to do at least one worthy thing which you have long postponed, and to use your God-given abilities for the enrichment of some less fortunate fellow traveler. Today you can make your life...significant and worthwhile. The present is yours to do with it as you will.
Grenville Kleiser Light from Many Lamps
Categories: intentions action today life circumstances present past future time appreciation sympathy generosity appreciation forgiveness self-sacrifice giving sharing talents gifts abilities

...so often we look at a calendar of days as merely a symbol of the passage of time. We forget why we are on this earth. We forget that there is a reason for all of the pain and all of the struggle. We forget that we were put on earth to learn something. If everything were perfect in this life, we would never learn anything new. We would not be able to elevate our spirits through the events that happen to us.
Lynn V. Andrews Walk in Balance
Categories: growth meaning of life purpose fulfillment pain challenges problems time struggle despair depression challenges adversity learning self-improvement problems illness disability