24 golden hours

"Every morning you are handed 24 golden hours. They are one of the few things in this world that you get free of charge. If you had all the money in the world, you couldn't buy an extra hour. What will you do with this priceless treasure? Remember, you must use it, as it is given only once. Once wasted you cannot get it back." - Author Unknown -

Life

"Life is the art of drawing without an eraser." - John W. Gardner -

Virtues

"Thank God - every morning when you get up - that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you a hundred virtues which the idle never know." - Charles Kingsley -

Smile

"Be nice and smile to everyone you meet. You don't know what they are going through, and they may need that smile. And treasure it." - Christine M. Huppert -

Learning

"Blessed is he who has learned to admire but not envy, to follow but not imitate, to praise but not flatter, and to lead but not manipulate." - William Arthur Ward -

The spirit

"If wrinkles must be written upon our brow, let them not be written upon the heart; the spirit should not grow old." - James A. Garfield -

Dance, dream, live, and love

"You gotta dance like nobody's watching, dream like you will live forever, live like your going to die tomorrow and love like it's never going to hurt." - Meme Grifsters -

Mistakes

"It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something." - Ornette Coleman -

Words and deeds

"Kind hearts are the gardens,

Kind thoughts are the roots,

Kind words are the flowers,

Kind deeds are the fruits.

Take care of your garden

And keep out the weeds,

Fill it with sunshine

Kind words and kind deeds."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -

Kindness

"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness." - Dalai Lama -

Quotation

"The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation." - Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881) -

Thanks Gunji for sharing this quote.

Let Go

A little child was playing one day with a very valuable vase. He put his hand into it and could not withdraw it. His father too, tried his best, but all in vain. They were thinking of breaking the vase when the father said, "Now, my son, make one more try. Open your hand and hold your fingers out straight as you see me doing, and then pull."

To their astonishment the little fellow said, "O no, father. I couldn't put my fingers out like that, because if I did I would drop my penny."

Smile, if you will - but thousands of us are like that little boy, so busy holding on to the world's worthless penny that we cannot accept liberation. I beg you to drop the trifle in your heart. Surrender! Let go, and let God have His way in your life.

- Dr. Billy Graham -

Vision

"If you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you get there?" - Casey Stenge -

Possibilitarian

"Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities - always see them, for they're always there." - Norman Vincent Peale -

Father's wisdom

"This is a tale narrated to me by my father about his father.
Once upon a time when my father was in his teens, his father took him to the mosque to pray. My grandfather, it seems, had a habit of keeping his loose change in his shirt pocket. As they prayed side by side, during one of the prostrations, the coins fell down onto the carpet.
Apparently deep in concentration, my grandfather did not notice it. However a gentleman seated nearby as well as my father noticed the incident. The man reacted fast and scooped the coins and went off into another corner of the mosque.
My father took everything in and as soon as my grandfather finished praying, he started to narrate what transpired. My grandfather having heard just about what transpired stopped my Dad from telling him who took the money.
He then proceeded to tell my Dad the following. If the Man has resorted to stealing in the mosque, then it must be because his circumstances are bad. We must not be quick to judge such people, he said.
Since they owned a grocery shop, my father was told by his father to ensure that every month he should make up a parcel of all the bare necessities required in a household and send it to that person without telling him who it was being sent to.
Wouldn't this world be a better place to live in if we had such wisdom permeating within our societies!"
- Author unknown -

Today

"Live each day as if it were the last day of your life, because so far, it is." - Author unknown -

Privilege

"The privilege of a lifetime is to be yourself" - Joseph Cambell -

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,

Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,

Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say Im a dreamer,
but Im not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

- John Lennon, © Bag productions inc. -

Smile

"If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it" - Andy Rooney -

Have's and have not's

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." - Epicurus -

Good deeds

"In the quiet hours when we are alone and there is nobody to tell us what fine fellows we are, we come sometimes upon a moment in which we wonder, not how much money we are earning, nor how famous we have become, but what good we are doing." - A A Milne -

Purpose

“This is the true joy of Life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one - the 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 happy.” - George Bernard Shaw in Man and Superman -

Plan

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - Mary Oliver -

Trouble

"If I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of advice for all humanity, it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high. Look it squarely in the eye, and say, "I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me." - Ann Landers -

Your smile

"Never frown because you never know who might be falling in love with your smile." - Justine Milton -

Hell and Paradise

A soldier named Nobushige came to Hakuin, the Zen master, and asked: "Is there really a paradise and a hell?"

"Who are you?" inquired Hakuin.

"I am a samurai," the warrior replied.

"You, a soldier!" exclaimed Hakuin. "What kind of ruler would have you as his guard? Your face looks like that of a beggar."

Nobushige became so angry that he began to draw his sword, but Hakuin continued: "So you have a sword! Your weapon is probably much too dull to cut off my head."

As Nobushige drew his sword Hakuin remarked: "Here open the gates of hell!"

At these words the samurai, perceiving the master's discipline, sheathed his sword and bowed.

"Here open the gates of paradise," said Hakuin.

- Author unknown -

It wasn't your baby

There were two warring tribes in the Andes, one that lived in the lowlands and the other high in the mountains. The mountain people invaded the lowlanders one day, and as part of their plundering of the people, they kidnapped a baby of one of the lowlander families and took the infant with them back up into the mountains.

The lowlanders didn't know how to climb the mountain. They didn't know any of the trails that the mountain people used, and they didn't know where to find the mountain people or how to track them in the steep terrain.

Even so, they sent out their best party of fighting men to climb the mountain and bring the baby home.

The men tried first one method of climbing and then another. They tried one trail and then another. After several days of effort, however, they had climbed only several hundred feet.

Feeling hopeless and helpless, the lowlander men decided that the cause was lost, and they prepared to return to their village below.

As they were packing their gear for the descent, they saw the baby's mother walking toward them. They realized that she was coming down the mountain that they hadn't figured out how to climb.

And then they saw that she had the baby strapped to her back. How could that be?

One man greeted her and said, "We couldn't climb this mountain. How did you do this when we, the strongest and most able men in the village, couldn't do it?"

She shrugged her shoulders and said, "It wasn't your baby."

- Author unknown -

Do it

"If you can do it or dream it, you can do it. Do it! Boldness has a genius and power to it." - Goethe -

"The beginning is always today." - Mary Wollstonecraft -

Goodnight kiss!

"Always kiss your children goodnight, even if they're already asleep." - H. Jackson Brown, Jr -

Silence

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vtriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people." - Martin Luther King Jr -