Quote Worthy

The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt. - Rene Descartes 

Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

The question is not why good people have trials, but how shall good people respond when they are tried? - Marion D. Hanks

Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being. - Rumi

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. - Joseph Campbell 

Loss and possession, death and life are one, There falls no shadow where there shines no sun. - Hilaire Belloc

Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty... For what task, then, were you yourself created? - Marcus Aurelius

When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable. - Rene Descartes

Good Thoughts And Good Deeds

Good thoughts and good deeds send rays of illumination to others and are far more important and helpful than we realize. The realization of loving thoughts and a compassionate understanding towards others has a subtle but tremendous influence, whatever it is directed. Therefore we should use these tools of the spiritual self for the advancement of ourselves and others. Our visualized ideals, good thoughts and practical works are the means whereby we advance daily.

Food For Thought

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

As you grow, you develop the ideal of where your true belonging could be – the place, the home, the partner, and the work. You seldom achieve all the elements of the ideal, but it travels with you as the criterion and standard of what true belonging could be. - John O'Donohue

Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player. - Albert Einstein

The Fire Truck

              A fire started on some grassland near a farm. The county fire department was called to put the fire out. The fire was more than the county fire department could handle. 

              Someone suggested that a nearby volunteer bunch be called. Though there was doubt that the volunteer outfit would be of any assistance, the call was made. 

              The volunteers arrived in a dilapidated old fire truck. They rumbled straight towards the fire and stopped in the middle of the flames. 

              The firemen jumped off the truck and frantically started spraying water in all directions. Soon they had snuffed out the centre of the fire, breaking the blaze into two easily controllable parts. 

              Watching all this, the farmer was so impressed with the volunteer fire department’s work and was so grateful that his farm had been spared, that right there on the spot he presented the volunteers with a check for one thousand dollars. 

              A local news reporter asked the volunteer fire captain what the department planned to do with the funds. “That oughta be obvious,” he responded, wiping ashes off his coat. “The first thing we’re gonna do is get the brakes fixed on that darn fire truck!”

Life

Do not carry the burden of the past; do not live in the future. The only important thing is that one lives in the present authentically and fully. Whatever your current life is, be the most you can be by living in the moment. - Chan Chih

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? What use is an extra year or two to the man who ‘kills’ what time he has? - David Neiswanger

No rule for higher living will help a man in the slightest until he reaches out and appropriates it for himself, until he makes it practical in his daily life, until that seed of theory in his mind blossoms into a thousand flowers of thought and word and act. - William Jordan

Civilization - Quotes

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos. - Will Durant

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. - Mark Twain

Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men. - Jane Addams

Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades. - Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. - Ayn Rand

Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest. - Emile Zola

Civilization wrecks the planet from seafloor to stratosphere. - Richard Bach 

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. - Robert E. Howard

Every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces. - Frank Herbert

Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. - Eugene Victor Debs

It is the business of future to be dangerous … The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur. - Alfred North Whitehead

Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life. - Elizabeth Goudge

One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person. - William Feather

Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilisation reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well? - Emile Zola

The future of civilisation depends on our overcoming the meaninglessness and hopelessness that characterizes the thoughts of men today. - Albert Schweitzer

The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men. - Havelock Ellis

The man who first abused his fellows with swear-words instead of bashing their brains out with a club should be counted among those who laid the foundations of civilization. - Sir John Denham

The same old hypocrisy. Life is a fight, and the strongest wins. All civilization does is hide the blood and cover up the hate with pretty words! - Ursula K. Le Guin

We are all civilized people, which means that we are all savages at heart but observing a few amenities of civilized behaviour. - Tennessee Williams

You can tell a lot about a civilization by the quality of the people found in its jails. - David Gerrold

Quote Worthy

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself. - Confucius

The vast majority of human beings dislike and even dread all notions with which they are not familiar. Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have always been derided as fools and madmen. - Aldous Huxley 

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged. - Helen Keller

No one can pass through life, any more than he can pass through a bit of country, without leaving tracks behind, and those tracks may often be helpful to those coming after him in finding their way. - Sir Robert Baden-Powell

Non-violence is not a cover for cowardice, but it is the supreme virtue of the brave. Exercise of non-violence requires far greater bravery than that of swordsmanship. Cowardice is wholly inconsistent with non-violence. - Mahatma Gandhi 

Two Wolves

              An old Cherokee told his grandson, “My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth.”

              The boy thought about it, and asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”

              The old man quietly replied, “The one you feed.”

Food For Thought

If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust. - Lord Chesterfield

It is not enough to have a dream, unless you are willing to pursue it. It is not enough to know what is right, unless you are strong enough to do it. It is not enough to learn the truth, unless you also learn to live it. It is not enough to reach for love, unless you care enough to give it. - Samuel Smiles

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

A Balancing Act

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http://www.wimp.com/thisimpossible/