"If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere." --Vincent van Gogh "The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters." --Thomas Jefferson "Whom do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances they encounter day by day. Next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all men, bearing easily and good naturedly what is offensive in others and being as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as is humanly possible to be... those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not ultimately overcome by their misfortunes... those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert their true selves but hold their ground steadfastly as wise and sober-minded men." --Socrates "A good marriage requires the determination to be married for good." --Anonymous "The reward for a thing well done is to have done it." --Ralph Waldo Emerson "No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else." --Charles Dickens "One does evil enough when one does nothing good." --German Proverb "One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine with only interests." -- John Stuart Mill "Make your life a mission--not an intermission." -- Arnold Glasgow "Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have." -- Louis E. Boone "You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was." --Irish Proverb "Forgiveness is the economy of the heart...Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits." --Hannah More "Life is too transient to be cruel with one another, Too short for thoughtlessness, Too brief for hurting. Life is long enough for caring, Lasting enough for sharing, Precious enough for loving. Be very gentle with one another." --Richard S. Gilbert "Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity." --Christopher Morley "There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war, except its ending." --Anonymous "War is not about what's right. It's about what's left." --Unknown "There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: Those who are afraid to try themselves, and those who are afraid that you will succeed." --Ray Goforth "Goodwill is the only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy." --Marshall Field "We live in the age of "Everything Has Rights." Now, I'm not denying that the concept of rights is valid, but I wonder... whatever happened to obligations? One rarely hears the term anymore. Indeed, have you ever heard of a "human obligations movement?"... The very ideal that holds a democracy together--the willingness to make personal sacrifice for the common good--is going quickly by the wayside." --John K. Rosemond "Fear can keep us up all night long, but faith makes one fine pillow." --Philip Gulley "Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction." --Antoine de Saint Exupery "There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth." --Maya Angelou "Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active." --Edith Hamilton "Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don't say." --Anonymous "Conscience that isn't hitched up to common sense is a mighty dangerous thing." --Margaret Deland "No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." --Samuel Johnson "Music is a secret and unconscious mathematical problem of the soul." --Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz "Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die." --Malachy McCourt "Integrity is one of several paths; it distinguishes itself from the others because is it is the right path, and the only one upon which you will never get lost." --M. H. McKee "If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own." --Charlotte Bronte "Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind." --Emily P. Bissell "Real education should educate us out of self into something far finer--into a selflessness which links us with all humanity." --Nancy Astor "Pride slays thanksgiving, but an humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves." --Henry Ward Beecher "The humblest citizen of all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error." --William Jennings Bryan "If you live your life as if there is no God, you had better be right." --Anonymous "The best thing to spend on your children is your time." --Louise Hart "That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong." --William J. H. Boetcker "Wise men talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something." --Plato "Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can." --Danny Kaye "And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." --Abraham Lincoln "No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character." --Ralph Waldo Emerson "It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly." --Bertrand Russell "Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings." --Victor Hugo "The only one thing I can change is myself, but sometimes that makes all of the difference." --Anonymous "Resentment is one burden that is incompatible with your success. Always be the first to forgive; and forgive yourself first always." --Dan Zadra "The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny." --Albert Ellis "Vanity working on a weak mind produces all kinds of mischief." --Mr. Knightly of the Jane Austen book, Emma "If one has to earn a living, therefore, the safest occupation is that most remote from the arts." --T. S. Eliot "Close your eyes, and let music set you free." --The Phantom (Phantom of the Opera) "I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind." --Albert Einstein "Profanity is a crutch for the conversationally handicapped." --Anonymous "No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which one is true." --Nathaniel Hawthorne "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." --Antoine de Saint-Exupery "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis - a conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever." --Thomas Jefferson "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." --Ralph Waldo Emerson "War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses." --Thomas Jefferson "I consider an human soul without education like marble in the quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties till the skill of the polisher fetches out the colours, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot and vein that runs through the body of it." --Joseph Addison "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." --Robert Louis Stevenson "No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character." --Ralph Waldo Emerson "Treasure each other in the recognition that we do not know how long we shall have each other." --Joshua Loth Liebman "Because everything we say and do is the length and shadow of our own souls, our influence is determined by the quality of our being." --Dale Turner "Moment to moment, there are aspects of life that we like, and other we don't. There are always going to be people who disagree with you, people who do things differently, and things that don't work out. If you fight against this principle of life, you'll spend most of your life fighting battles." --R. Carlson, Ph.D. "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 little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson "Why be afraid of what people will say? Those who care about you will say, "Good luck!" and those who care only about themselves will never say anything worth listening to anyway." --J. Z. Knight "Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse." --Nigerian Proverb "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you. If you really make them think, they'll hate you." --Donald Robert Perry "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." --Galileo Galilei "'I can forgive, but I cannot forget' is only another way of saying, 'I will not forgive.' Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note--torn in two and burned up so that it never can be shown against one." --Henry Ward Beecher "There is no real excellence in all of this world which can be separated from right living." --David Starr Jordan "La cosa mas bonita de este mundo es vivir cada segundo como nunca mas." --Vinicius De Moraes My translation: "The most beautiful thing in the world is to live each second as if it were your last." "When science finally locates the center of the universe, some people will be surprised to learn they're not it." "If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut." --Albert Einstein "The chemists are a strange class of mortals, impelled by an almost insane impulse to seek their pleasure among smoke and vapor, soot and flame, poisons and poverty, yet among all these evils I seem to live so sweetly, that may I die if I would change places with the Persian King." --Johann Becher "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them..." --Henry David Thoreau "The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship." --Robert Heinlein (true or not, I found this one interesting...) "Music is an incomparably more powerful means and is a subtler language for expressing the thousand different moments of the soul's moods." --Tchaikovsky "It is the special province of music to move the heart." --Bach "Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul." --Montaigne "It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it." --Francis Beaumont "Do not marry a person that you know that you can live with; only marry someone that you cannot live without." --Unknown "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature." --Marcus Aurelius "To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny." --Joseph Addison "Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born." --Ronald Reagan "The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of 'real food for real people' you'd better live real close to a real good hospital." --Neal Barnard M.D. "Only sick music makes money today." --Nietzsche "Fear less, hope more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Hate less, love more; And all good things are yours." --Swedish Proverb "Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't." --Richard Bach "I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see." --John Burrough "The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it." --Anonymous "As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand." --Josh Billings "There are hundreds of languages in the world, but a smile speaks them all." --Anonymous "What we must decide is perhaps how we are valuable, rather than how valuable we are." --Edgar Friedenbar "In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing." --Antonio Porchia "Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them." --John W. Gardner "It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn't." --Martin Van Buren "I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen." --Frank Lloyd Wright "A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him." -- Alexander Solzenitsyn "It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it." --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "All things good to know are difficult to learn." --Greek Proverb "Discussion is an exchange of knowledge, arguments an exchange of ignorance." --Robert Quillen "The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment." --Dorothy Nevill "If you don't think every day is a good day, just try missing one." --Cavett Robert "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" --Psalms 14:1 "A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence." --Barbara Walters "To become an able and successful man in any profession, three things are necessary, nature, study and practice." --Henry Ward Beecher "A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul." --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "You can get all A's and flunk life." --Walker Percy "The man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd." --James Crook "Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company." --George Washington "I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent plant. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." --Jack London "What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say." --Ralph Waldo Emerson "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can't find them, make them." --George Bernard Shaw "To have a good friend is one of the highest delights in life; to be a good friend is one of the noblest and most difficult undertakings." --Anonymous "Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others." -- Robert Louis Stevenson "I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother-in-law is attractive, but I only have photographs of her." --Anonymous "I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong." --Abraham Lincoln "Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it spring the issues of life." -- Proverbs 4:23 "To be nobody but yourself--in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else--means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." --e. e. cummings "The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss." --Thomas Carlyle "Some minds are like concrete, thoroughly mixed up and permanently set." --Denny Brake "Life begins when you get out of the grandstand into the game." --P. L. Debevoise "The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." --William James "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." --John Lennon "I count life just a stuff to try the soul's strength on." --Robert Browning "Don't sweat the small stuff--and it's all small stuff." --the title of a book written by Dr. Richard Carlson (highly recommended) "The next time you see LA rainclouds, don't complain--it rains for you. So lay down your umbrellas; strip off your plastic macs. You've never felt the rain, my friend, til you've felt it running down your back." --from the song "Mamunia" by Paul McCartney "Let us never lose sight of the reason for the journey, or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way." --Gloria Gaither "This is the true joy in life--being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you consistent." --George Bernard Shaw "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." --Proverbs "The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure is occupation." --G. Bernard Shaw "Vision looks inward and becomes duty. Vision looks outward and becomes aspiration. Vision looks upward and becomes faith." --Stephen S. Wise "Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved." --W.J. Bryant "My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair." --Thomas Jefferson "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream." --Mark Twain "All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions." --Adlai E. Stevenson "Life is like playing a violin solo in public, learning the instrument as you go." --Anonymous "Above all be true to yourself, and if you can not put your heart in it, take yourself out of it." --Hardy D. Jackson "The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration." --Pearl S. Buck "The service we render others is the rent we pay for our room on earth." --Wilfred Grenfell "Life is a wave, which in no two consecutive moments of its existence is composed of the same particles." --John Tyndall "People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering." --Augustine "I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death." --Thomas Paine "Thou wouldst be loved--then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being every thing which thou now art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise And love--a simple duty." --Edgar Allen Poe "Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a tongue that never hurts." --Charles Dickens "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never really was in the first place." --Anonymous "Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." --Vincent van Gogh "The chemist who can extract from his heart's elements, compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise, and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love." --Kahlil Gibran "Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are." --Charles Augustin Sainte-Beauve "Where words cease, there music begins." --Heinrich Heine "I am bigger than anything that can happen to me. All these things, sorrow, misforturne, and suffering, are outside my door. I am in the house, and I have the key." --Charles Fletcher Lummis .:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~* :._.:*~*:. Funnies "A pessimist is someone who looks at the land of milk and honey and sees only calories and cholesterol." "If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people? " "From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put." --Winston Churchill "Entropy isn't what it used to be." "You can't eat your friends and have them too." --Budd Schulberg "Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out alive." --Bugs Bunny "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate." --Henry J. Tillman "There is no danger of developing eyestrain from looking on the bright side of things." --Anonymous "Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man, but they don't bite everybody." --Stanislaw J. Lec "A closed mouth gathers no foot." --Anonymous "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, life goes on..." --The Beatles "I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe." "Southern DOS: Y'all reckon? (Yep/Nope)" "i souport publik edekasion."