I’ve got a thing for anything that inspires me or makes me laugh. I bet you do too. Otherwise you wouldn’t have clicked on a post titled “Best.Quotes.Ever.” Here are the best quotes, poems, and other inspirations from my “collection” (an old, faded, stained book with scribbled quotes).

These are in no particular order. They aren’t grouped by category or theme (shocking! I know) except that I moved a few of my absolute favorites to the beginning. Otherwise these are listed simply in the order I captured them starting in 1992.

Share your favorites in the comments. Better: share your own.

*****************

How we live our days

Is how we live our lives.

~ Annie Dillard

*****************

Every day do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow. ~ Doug Firebaugh

*****************

Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.  ~ Abraham

*****************

What you believe is what you create. ~Abraham

*****************

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. ~Ayn Rand

*****************

Masquerading as a normal person day after day is exhausting.  ~ Arlene Storeby

*****************

“All times are beautiful for those who maintain joy within them” ~Rosalia de Castro

*****************

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along” you must do the thing you think you cannot do. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

*****************

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing

There is a time for silence, a time to let go and allow people to hurt themselves into their own destiny

And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over

~ G. Naylor

*****************

An expectation is a premeditated resentment.

*****************

The Ship

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”

“Gone where?”

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her detained port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”

And that is dying.

~Henry van Dyke

*****************

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~ Maya Angelou

*****************

It’s better to look where you’re going than to see where you’ve been.

*****************

There are times when silence has the loudest voice. ~Leroy Brownlow

*****************

Colors

My skin is kind of sort of brownish, pinkish, yellowish, white

My eyes are grayish, blueish, green,

But I’m told they look orange in the night.

My hair is reddish, blondish, brown,

But it’s silver when its wet.

And all the colors I am inside,

Have not been invented yet.

*****************

I love you for all the things you aren’t,

As much as for the things you are,

I love you for all the things you’re not,

And never will be,

Because I love you

Just the way you are to me

~ A Lather

*****************

What lies before us, and what lies behind us, are small matters compared to what lies within us.   ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

*****************

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

*****************

It’s better to be in chains with friends than in a garden with strangers. ~Persian Proverb

*****************

Moving on is a change you take any time you try to stay together.  ~ Billy Joel

*****************

We don’t stop playing because we grow up, we grow up because we stop playing. ~George Bernard Shaw

*****************

I love you

Not only for what you are

But for what I am when I am with you

I love you

Not only for what you have made of yourself

But for what you are making of me

*****************

I believe in the sun

Even when it does not shine

I believe in love

Even when I feel it not

I believe in God

Even when he hides his face

~ Concentration camp wall

*****************

As the old man walked down the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man ahead of him, picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Finally latching arms with the youth, he asked him why he was doing this. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left out on the beach in the morning sun. “But the beach goes on for miles, and there’s millions of starfish,” countered the other, “You can’t possibly make a difference, can you?” The young man looked at the starfish in his hands and then gently threw it into the waves, “It makes a difference to this one.”

*****************

Expect everything

Then the unexpected will never happen

~ Norman Juster

*****************

A friend is someone who knows all about you and likes you anyways.

*****************

Reading quotes is like going on a date

Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t

*****************

Goodbye means wanting to say so much

And being able to say so little

*****************

Let your acquaintances be many, but one in a thousand your confidant.

*****************

There is a difference between interest and commitment.

When you are interested in something, you do it only when it’s convenient.

When you are committed to something, you accept no excuses, only regrets.

*****************

Live life on the edge, the view is better.

*****************

True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable.  ~ David Tyson Gentry

*****************

I always knew that looking back on tears would make me laugh, but I never knew that looking back on the laughter would make me cry.

*****************

It’s hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.  ~ M.L. Mecken

*****************

The most wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed.  ~ Sebastian Chamfort

*****************

To err is human;

To forgive (is) divine

~ Alexander Pope

*****************

We leave ourselves vulnerable when we trust one another. We can play safe and never expose ourselves to risk but that is not what we’re made for.

Risk is a part of loving.

~ Father Farnick

*****************

The truth is not in a kiss,

But a kiss is what we would like the truth to be.

~ Steve Martin

*****************

Platonic friendship: the interval between the introduction and the first kiss

*****************

Our friendship does not depend on being together

It is deeper than that

*****************

A person dies when they stop loving

Not when they stop living

*****************

If you do something tonight that you’ll regret in the morning,

Sleep Late!

*****************

Success is getting what you want

Happiness is wanting what you get

*****************

After a while, you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security and presents aren’t promises.

And you begin to accept your defeats with your eyes open and your head up, with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child. And you learn to build all your roads today because tomorrows ground is too uncertain for plans and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure, that you really are strong, and you do have worth, and you learn, and learn, and learn.

With every goodbye, you learn.

~ V.A. Shofstall

*****************

There is no stronger bond of friendship than a mutual enemy.  ~ Frankfort Moure

*****************

Walkin’ through time

Reachin’ for yesterday

‘cause we’re frightened of tomorrow

Trying to find the feeling that’s gone astray far away

I remember the look in your eyes

Love we made unafraid

Now we’ve opened the window

So let’s not close the shade

Holdin’ on ‘cause the memory of you is something I just can’t erase

Holdin’ on I don’t know what to do ‘cause the pieces won’t fit into place

but no matter what happens, we can’t let I end this way

~ Champlin/Saviano

*****************

If only closed minds came with closed mouths. ~ Nicole Aitoro

*****************

People who think they know everything are an annoyance to those of us that do

*****************

Friendship – a binding contract you sign with laughter and break with tears

*****************

Death is not real. It is only a moment in time and time here can be measured by a single sunset.

*****************

Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance.  ~ Robert Quillen

*****************

Why am I upset when I think I’m different from everyone else,

But angry when I realize I’m the same?

~ Heather Heine

*****************

The problems of this earth can al begin to end with the journey of one person from apathy to compassion, from fear to acceptance, from over-bearingness to open-mindedness and hate to love. ~ Jacob Weintrub, PVMHS class of ‘93

*****************

Love is friendship that has caught fire. It takes root and grows, one day at a time.

Love is the quiet understanding and mature acceptance of imperfection. It is real. It gives you strength and grows beyond you to bolster your beloved. You are warmed by his presence, even when he is away. Miles do not separate you.  You have so many little films in your head that you keep replaying. But near or far you know he is yours and you can wait.

Love says “Be patient. Don’t panic.”   Plan your future with confidence. Love is not based on sex. It is the maturation of friendship that makes sex so much sweeter. You must be friends before you can be lovers.

Love means trust. You are calm, secure, and unthreatened. He feels your trust and it makes him even more trustworthy. Love never steers you in the wrong direction. Love is elevating. It lifts you up. It makes you look up. It makes you a better person than you were before.

~ Ann Landers

*****************

We, the willing

Led by the unknowing

Are doing the impossible

For the ungrateful

We have done so much

For so long

With so little

We are now qualified

To do anything

With nothing

~ Mr. P’s bulletin board

*****************

There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.  ~ Edith Whenton

*****************

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I was 21, I was astonished how much the old man had learned in 7 years. ~ Mark Twain

*****************

I’m so accustomed to being tense that when I’m calm I get nervous.

*****************

Don’t take life too seriously you’ll never get out of it alive.  ~ E. Hubbard

*****************

The best thing one could give another is a chance.  ~ Papa Kanopkan

*****************

Victory is getting up one more time than falling down.

*****************

I hate quotations. Tell me something you know.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

*****************

Everyone is a stranger until the first hello is said.  ~ Fr Tony Pena

*****************

In order to find yourself you must first get lost.

*****************

Silence is not what I should chose, yet it suits me better than a lie.  ~ Ursala Le Guin

*****************

Courage is resistance of fear,

Not absence of fear

~Mark Twain

*****************

If you are walking on thin ice, you might as well dance

*****************

Life is too serious to be taken seriously.  ~ Oscar Wilde

*****************

It makes all the difference whether one sees darkness through the light or brightness through the shadows. ~David Lindsay

*****************

Once in a while

A friend comes along

Who understands so completely

gives so unselfishly

cares so deeply.

Once in a while

A friend comes along

You can talk with so comfortably

Laugh with so freely

Confide in so easily.

And you realize no distance

Can ever come between

Your friendship.

Once in a while

A friend comes along

Who is as dearly treasured

As you.

~ Mary D. Hughs

*****************

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.  ~ Voltaire

*****************

It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important.

*****************

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not so sure

*****************

The weight of this sad time we must obey, speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.  ~ Shakespeare

*****************

All your life you are told the things you cannot do. They will say you’re not good enough or strong enough or talented enough, they’ll say you’re the wrong height, or the wrong weight, or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. They will tell you no, a thousand times no, until all the “nos” become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no. And you will tell them yes. ~ Nike Ad

*****************

We cannot become what we need to be by remaining where we are. ~Max de Pree

*****************

The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven.  ~ John Milton

*****************

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.  ~ Abraham Lincoln

*****************

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any reason but because they are not already common.  ~ John Locke

*****************

If you cannot win make the fellow ahead of you break the record.

*****************

The best and most beautiful things in this world can’t be seen or even touched, they must be felt by the heart.

*****************

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

*****************

Friendship will not stand the strain of very much good advice for long. ~ Robert Lynd

*****************

We learn our virtues from our friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection. ~ Richter

*****************

Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.  ~ Hippocrates

*****************

To see a world in a grain of sand

And heaven in a flower

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour

~William Blake

*****************

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.  ~ Aristotle

*****************

You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem.  ~ Eldridge Cleaver

*****************

People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges. ~ Joseph Fort Newton

*****************

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence. ~ Marianne Moore

*****************

For such,

Being made beautiful overmuch

Consider beauty a sufficient end

Lose natural kindness and maybe

The heart-revealing intimacy

That chooses right, and never find a friend

~ William Butler Yeats

*****************

Let your friends be the friends of your deliberate choice

*****************

When a friend is in trouble, don’t annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think of something appropriate and do it. ~ Edgar Watson Howe

*****************

What’s it about?

Life isn’t about keeping score. It’s not about how many friends you have, or how many people call you. Or how accepted or unaccepted you are. Not about if you have plans this weekend, or if you’re alone.

It isn’t about who you’re dating, who you used to date, how many people you’ve dated, or if you haven’t been with anyone at all. It isn’t about who you have kissed.

It’s not about sex. It isn’t about who your family is, or how much money they have. Or what kind of car you drive. Or where you are sent to school.

It’s not how beautiful or ugly you are. Or what clothes you wear, what shoes you have on, or what kind of music you listen to. It’s not about if you hair is blond, red, black, brown, or green. Or if your skin is too light or too dark.

Not about what grades you get, how smart you are, how smart everybody else thinks you are, or how smart standardize tests say you are. Or if this teacher likes you, or if this guy or girl likes you. Or what clubs you’re in or how good you are at “your” sport. It’s not about representing your whole being on a piece of paper and seeing who will “accept the written you”

Life just isn’t.

But life is about who you love and who you hurt. It’s about who you make happy or unhappy purposefully. It’s all about keeping or betraying trust. It’s about friendship, used as a sanctity or a weapon. It’s about what you say and mean, maybe hurtful, maybe heartening. About starting rumors and contributing to petty gossip. It’s about what judgments you pass and why. And who your judgments are spread to.

It’s about who you’ve ignored with full control and intention. It’s about jealousy, fear, ignorance, and revenge. It’s about carrying inner hate and love, letting it grown and spreading it.

But most of all, it’s about using your life to touch or poison other people’s hearts in such a way that could have never occurred alone. Only you choose the way those hearts are affected – and those choices are what life’s all about.

*****************

Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving cheering words while the ears can hear them and while their hearts can be thrilled with them. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

*****************

Plagiarism is a rape of the mind

*****************

In the end, we are all separate; our stories, no matter how similar, come to a fork and diverge. We are drawn to each other because of our similarities, but it is our differences we must learn to respect. ~ Roberta Israeloff

*****************

Someone, somewhere

is peacefully watching

two seeds

haphazardly tossed

by a strong wind,

lightly landing

side by side

on a soft fertile soil,

growing

separate

together

In a vast, expanding landscape

under the same sun

under the same moon

clinging to their own roots…

deep, hard, determined,

still

side by side

intertwining

growing closer

sharing the same air

the same wind

the same rain…

Learning to understand

to comfort

to give

to receive

to love

~ Saturdays by Hallmark

*****************

For each hour

of your loneliness

I wish you a day of comfort;

for each minute of your grief

a year of peace;

and for every tear,

a thousand reasons to smile

~ Hallmark card

*****************

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. ~ Harry Truman

*****************

A broken heart is what makes life so wonderful five years later, when you see the guy in an elevator and he is fat and smoking a cigar and saying long-time-no-see.  ~ Phyllis Battelle

*****************

 The oldest shortest words – ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are those which require the most thought.  ~ Pythogaros

*****************

Life is not so short but that there is always enough time for courtesy.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

*****************

Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest. ~ Mark Twain

*****************

The true secret of giving advice is after you have given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.  ~ Hannah Whitall Smith

*****************

It could be worse, suppose your errors were counted and published every day, like those of a baseball player.

*****************

Anyone who thinks there aren’t two sides to every argument is probably in one. ~ The cockle bur

*****************

Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member. ~ Groucho Marx

*****************

To know how to refuse is as important as to know how to consent. ~ Baltasar Gracian

*****************

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done. ~ Longfellow

*****************

No one can really understand the grief or joy of another.  ~ Franz Schubert

*****************

Hearts have not tears to flow.  ~ Dylan Thomas

*****************

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some people move our souls to dance. They awaken us to new understanding with the passing of whispers of their wisdom. Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon. They stay in our lives for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same. ~Flavia Weedn

*****************

Sometimes the best way to figure out who you are is to get to that place where you don’t have to be anything else. ~Mandy Hale

*****************

Some love lasts a lifetime. Real love lasts forever.

*****************

The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we’re moving.  ~ Oliver Wendall Holmes

*****************

I went to the wood because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life…and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. ~ Thoreau

*****************

No one can hurt you without your consent.  ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

*****************

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. ~ Goethe

*****************

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

*****************

The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say, or what we do, but who we are. ~ Stephen Covey

*****************

Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be. ~ Goethe

*****************

Today it’s up to you to create the peacefulness you long for.

*****************

To put meaning in one’s life may result in madness.

But without meaning life it torture

Of restless and vague desire –

It is a boat longing for the sun and yet afraid.

~ Masters

*****************

The 92 year old, petite, well poised lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with her hair fashionably coifed and make up perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved into a nursing home today.

Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary.

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready.

As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet curtains that had been hung on the window.

“I love it,” she stated with enthusiasm of an 8 year old having just been presented with a new puppy.

“Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room, just wait.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she replied, “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged…it’s how I arrange my mind.”

“I already decided to love it. It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice, I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do”

*****************

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security deserves neither and will lose both. ~ Ben Franklin

*****************

All of us hold misconceptions about other women, perpetuated by the labels society assigns us and reinforced by the limitations of our own experiences. Nun. Stay-at-home mom. Soldier. While these labels may be accurate, they are always inadequate. ~This Day in the Life

*****************

Just remember, the physicality of who we are, is the least of who we are.

*****************

You know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you’re called a widow, or a widower. If you’re a child and you lose your parents, then you’re an orphan. But what’s the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that’s just too fucking awful to even have a name.  ~ 6 Feet Under

*****************

The power you need is there but it will only come out when your desire to change your life is stronger than your desire to stay the same. ~ Debbie Ford

*****************

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us…as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ~ Marianne Williamson

*****************

The most important thing is to be able at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you could become.  ~ Charles Dubois

*****************

A true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.  A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

*****************

The most exhausting activity is pretending to be what you know you aren’t. ~Rick Warren

*****************

 I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me. ~ Dudley Field Malone

*****************

Sometimes we expect more from others because we would be willing to do that much for them.

*****************

Autobiography in 5 Chapters

1.

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I fall in.

I am lost…I am hopeless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

2.

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I’m in the same place.

But it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

3.

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it there.

I still fall in…it’s a habit

My eyes are open

I know where I am

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

4.

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I walk around it.

5.

I walk down another street.

*****************

“Grief is not a condition to be cured but a natural part of life. Spirit does not know loss; it knows that every story begins and every story ends, yet love is eternal. ~Louise Hay

*****************

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.

*****************

Three Simple Rules in Life

1. If you do not go after what you want, you’ll never have it.
2. If you do not ask, the answer will always be, no.
3. If you do not step forward, you will always be in the same place.

*****************

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

*****************

Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first. ~ Frederick B Wilcox

*****************

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.  ~ Dr. Seuss

*****************

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words ~ Elbert Hubbard

*****************

One of the biggest mistakes we can make on our spiritual journeys is to assume that everyone else around us wants to be as happy as we are, and that they want it badly enough to do all the work required to get there. Don’t push your values on other people, just live by your values and let your life be your message. I know it’s hard when someone you love is clearly creating their own suffering… but you can’t get them to stop until they are ready to stop. Be as patient with them as the Universe is with you. Namaste.

*****************

The most dangerous phrase in the language is “we’ve always done it this way” ~Admiral Grace Hopper

*****************

“What Will Matter”, by Michael Josephson. How will the value of your days be measured …when you are gone?

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.

So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire. The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away. It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.

It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured? What will matter is not what you bought but what you built, not what you got but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success but your significance. What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught. What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence but your character. What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone. What will matter is not your memories but the memories of those who loved you. What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice. Choose to live a life that matters

*****************

Be nice to yourself. It’s hard to be happy when someone’s mean to you all the time. ~Christine Arylo

*****************

Quiet people have the loudest minds. ~ Stephen Hawkings

*****************

In relationships the little things are the big things. ~ Stephen Covey

*****************

Are you going to be comfortable or are you going to be courageous?  ~ Brene Brown

*****************

She let go

Without a thought or word, she let go.

She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go…

No one was around when it happened. There was no applause of congratulations. No one thanked or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. It was what it was, and it is just that. In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.

~Ru Safire Rose

*****************

Truth can’t exist in the same space as secrets and lies. ~Sons of Anarchy

*****************

Well done, is well said. — Anthony Liccione

*****************

Fear and faith cannot co-exist. ~Neil Anderson

*****************

It’s not the length but depth of life that matters. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

*****************

Be a voice, not an echo. ~Albert Einstein

*****************

Do the right thing even when the right thing is the hard thing. ~Bryan Stevenson

*****************

There is one investment that supersedes all others. Invest in yourself. ~Warren Buffet

*****************

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. ~ George Saunders

*****************

Life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself. ~ George Bernard Shaw

*****************

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. ~ Nelson Mandela

*****************

All times are beautiful for those who maintain joy within them. ~Rosalia de Castro

*****************

The whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.

*****************

The only thing of importance when we depart, will be the traces of love left behind. ~Albert Schweitzer

*****************

Too often we overvalue what we aren’t and undervalue what we are. ~Malcolm Forbes

*****************

Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from

*****************

There are two things children should get from their parents: roots and wings. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

*****************

The opposite of belonging is fitting in. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are. It requires you to be who you are. ~ Brene Brown

*****************

What you say tells people what you think.

What you do tells people what you believe.

*****************

There are moments words can’t reach. ~ Hamilton

*****************

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. ~Nelson Mandela

*****************

Every hand that we don’t shake must become a phone call that we place.

Every embrace that we avoid must become a verbal expression of warmth and concern.

Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public. ~Cornel West

*****************

Grief doesn’t last forever  but it always lasts a year. ~ Rabbi Jaffe

*****************

There is much that silence might teach us, if we could but learn to listen to it.  ~Hubert G Locke

*****************

When you look back, look again.

*****************

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

*****************

Service is the rent we pay for the privilege to live on this earth. ~Shirley Chisholm

*****************

Don’t waste words on people who deserve your silence. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is nothing at all.

*****************

It’s not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life; it’s what you whisper to yourself that has the most power. ~ Robert Kiyosaki

*****************

How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. ~A.A. Milne

*****************

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

*****************

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. ~Anais Nin

*****************

My brain and heart divorced a decade ago, over who was to blame about how big of a mess I have become.

Eventually, they couldn’t be in the same room with each other. Now my head and heart share custody of me. I stay with my brain during the week, and my heart gets me on weekends.

They never speak to one another.

Instead, they give me the same note to pass to each other every week and their notes they send to one another always says the same thing:

“This is all your fault”

On Sundays my heart complains about how my head has let me down in the past and on Wednesday my head lists all of the times my heart has screwed things up for me in the future.

They blame each other for the state of my life There’s been a lot of yelling – and crying

SO,

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my gut who serves as my unofficial therapist.

Most nights, I sneak out of the window in my ribcage and slide down my spine and collapse on my gut’s plush leather chair that’s always open for me.

~ and I just sit sit sit sit until the sun comes up

Last evening, my gut asked me if I was having a hard time being caught between my heart nd my head.

I nodded. I said I didn’t know if I could live with either of them anymore.

“My heart is always sad about something that happened yesterday, while my head is always worried about something that may happen tomorrow,”

I lamented. My gut squeezed my hand.

“I just can’t live with my mistakes of the past or my anxiety about the future,” I sighed.

My gut smiled and said: “in that case, you should go stay with your lungs for a while,”

I was confused, – the look on my face gave it away.

“if you are exhausted about your heart’s obsession with the fixed past and your mind’s focus on the uncertain future, your lungs are the perfect place for you. There is no yesterday in your lungs, there is no tomorrow there either,

there is only now,
there is only inhale,
there is only exhale,
there is only this moment,

there is only breath,

and in that breath you can rest while your heart and head work their relationship out.”

This morning, while my brain was busy reading  tea leaves and while my heart was staring at old photographs I packed a little bag and walked to the door of my lungs.

Before I could even knock she opened the door with a smile and as a gust of air embraced me she said “What took you so long?”

~ John Roedel

*****************

“She stopped crossing oceans for them when they would not even help her cross a bridge.” ~Sharon Hulce

*****************

When you trip over love, it is easy to get up.

But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again.

~ Albert Einstein

*****************

With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon. Who could not be happy?

~ Oscar Wilde

*****************

To those I love

If I should ever leave you whom I love

To go along the silent way,

Grieve not,

Nor speak of me with tears,

But laugh and talk

Of me as if I were beside you there.

For I am loving you just as I always have,

you were so good to me!

We cannot see beyond,

But this I know:

I loved you so –

Twas heaven here with you.

~ Isla Paschal Richardson

*****************

Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and being comfortable with not knowing.

~Eckart Tolle

*****************

My Mission Statement 

To be in flow as often as possible. To live my values—be kind, be grateful, be joy, be free—every day. To enjoy the journey and love the moment.

 

To touch other people’s lives in a meaningful way that helps them (and me) heal and grow. To give a voice to people who don’t use their voice. To be an upstander. To spend my time in this world creating dialogue and discussion instead of one-sided debates. And to help people share their opinions in a way that doesn’t mute others. To be a multiplier at home, at work, in my community.

 

To achieve what Ralph Waldo Emerson demanded, “To know one life has breathed easier because you lived”. But for me to multiply this to many lives. “

*****************

Are you still reading? That’s all I’ve got. For now.

Share your favorites and add to my list in the comments.