♥♥♥~~~ My Quotes Page ~~~♥♥♥

"The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are." 
~John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913)

“Often the test of courage is not to die but to live.” ~Vittorio Alfieri ~~~ Choose to live... please. 

As anyone who knows me knows ~ I love my quotes! They inspire me... uplift me... help calm my fears... bring joy to my heart... bring peace to my soul. Motivate me to grow!


Sooooooooooooo, I have decided to create this "My Quotes Page" on my blog. It will be a reference page for me and I will add to it as I hear new and inspiring messages of faith, hope and love. If you have a favorite, please post it in the comments!

If you are reading this message as a Note on Facebook, remember that FB updates all of my blog entries automatically from Hedii's Hope directly to my Notes page on my Wall. If you want your comment there or here, it makes no difference. I will update this one as you share your favorites there. Ditto for MySpace. If you have a particular category you want your contribution under, share that with me also. My sidebar "Quotes" section on the right will still have a few of my very first favs along with the "My Quotes Page" link to here.

This will be a constant work in progress. I truly hope that this page blesses each person who finds it... gives hope to those who are hopeless... inspires faith in all who need something to believe in... and allows each and every one of you to accept and love yourselves.

"Acceptance of yourself at your core allows the greatest love of all to grow within your heart and soul. Only then can you truly express the highest unconditional love for someone else."
~Robyn Lyn

"Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
~Christopher Robin to Pooh

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."
~Harvey Fierstein

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."
~Henry David Thoreau

"It's pretty simple. The actions you consistently take create the results of your life. Change your consistent actions and you change your life."
~Tony Robbins
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LIFE

"Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.""
~Grandma Moses

"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it."
~W.M. Lewis

"Don't be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin."
~Grace Hansen

"Having great thoughts is wonderful but if you don't do it ~ it really doesn't matter."
~Bill Booth

"Against the grain should be a way of life
What's worth the prize is always worth the fight
Every second counts 'cause there's no second try
So live like you'll never live it twice
Don't take the free ride in your own life."
~Nickleback

"The 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 Balfour Stevenson

"I believe that truth and loyalty are the most powerful things we have to give, and are that which we most seldom receive in full measure, even though both sides of this equation cause us to thrive. I believe in the elemental goodness of humankind and openly admit my gullibility for it, but have no intention whatsoever in changing it. I believe you can choose to love anyone."
~Gina Drew

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
~Steve Jobs

“Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.”
~Mary Anne Radmacher

"Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth."
~Mark Twain

"People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost."
~H. Jackson Browne

“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”
~James Dean

"When I am anxious it is because I am living in the future. When I am depressed it is because I am living in the past. Yesterday is history, Tomorrow a mystery, Today is a gift from God, That's why it's called the Present! So stop waiting until you finish school, until you go back to school,until you lose five kilos, until you gain five kilos; until you have kids, until your kids leave home; until you start work, until you retire; until you get married, until you get divorced; until Friday night, until Sunday morning; until you get a new car or home; until your car or home is paid off; until spring, until summer, until fall, until winter; until the first or fifteenth; until 'your song' comes on; until you've had a drink, until you've sobered up; until you die, until you are risen again; to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy... Happiness is a journey ~ not a destination.
~Earnie Larsen, "Days of Healing, Days of Joy"

“When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"
~Sydney J. Harris

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
~Confucius

“People only see what they are prepared to see.”~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"After you have made your commitment to say no to what no longer serves you, you will probably be invited to demonstrate that you really mean it."~Alan Cohen

YOUR CORE

"Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you don't have time to criticize others."”
~Jim Rohn

“What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.”
~Plutarch

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."
♥ ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"Everything nourishes what is strong already."
~Jane Austen

"When we are willing to surrender who we think we "should" be, true freedom is revealed and acceptance of "what is" becomes paramount. Surrender is not about giving up your Essential Nature, in fact it means embracing it fully and completely. When you surrender to the "real you," self-acceptance becomes the order of the day. No more wanting to be different instead, acceptance gives away to understanding, love and kindness."
~Rhonda Britten

"Going home means getting comfortable being who you are and who your soul really wants to be. There is no strain with that. The strain and tension come when we're not being who our soul wants to be and we're someplace where our soul doesn't feel at home."
~Melody Beattie, "Finding Your Way Home"

"When self respect takes its rightful place in the psyche, you will not allow yourself to be manipulated by anyone."
~Indira Mahindra

"Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people."
~Eleanor Roosevelt

"Jealousy is simply and clearly the fear that you do not have value. Jealousy scans for evidence to prove the point - that others will be preferred and rewarded more than you. There is only one alternative - self-value. If you cannot love yourself, you will not believe that you are loved. You will always think it's a mistake or luck. Take your eyes off others and turn the scanner within. Find the seeds of your jealousy, clear the old voices and experiences. Put all the energy into building your personal and emotional security. Then you will be the one others envy, and you can remember the pain and reach out to them."
~Jennifer James

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

"Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."
~Dinah Craik, A Life for a Life, 1859

"Seek not outside yourself, for it will fail and you will weep each time an idol falls."
~ACIM

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."
~John Quincy Adams

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."
~Helen Keller

TRUTH

"If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters."
~Alan Simpson

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything."
~Mark Twain

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
~Benjamin Franklin

“When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will.”
~Abraham Lincoln

"Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny — and also in a willingness to revise or abandon your theories when the tests fail (as they usually do)."
~Stephen Jay Gould

FLIGHT

"Only from the heart can you touch the sky."
~Rumi

"Once you have flown, you walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward; for there you have been, there you long to return."
~Da Vinci

HOPE

"Out of all good things, hope is the best thing. That's why it never dies."
~The Shawshank Redemption

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words and never stops at all."
~Emily Dickinson

"Hope is not a dream but a way of making dreams become reality."
~L. J. Suenens

FAITH

"[The void] It's that place in our lives where what we've been hanging onto . . . clinging to for dear life . . . is stripped away. It's that place in us where we let go of what we know, what we think we know, and what we want and surrender to the unknown. It is the place of saying and meaning, 'I don't know.' It means standing there with our hands empty for a while, sometimes watching everything we wanted disappear; our self image, our definition of who we thought we should be, the clones we've created of ourselves, the people we thought we had to have, the things we thought were so important to collect and surround ourselves with, the job we were certain was ours, the place we thought we'd live in all our lives. . . Surrender control to the supreme wisdom and authority of God and to the Divine in your soul. Step into the void with courage. Learn to say, I don't know. That's not blind faith. It's pure faith that will allow God and your spirit to lead you wherever your soul wants and needs to go."
~Melody Beattie, "Finding Your Way Home"

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS."
~Ghandi

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible."
~Thomas Aquinas

FRIENDSHIP

“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light."
~Helen Keller

"A friend is someone who reaches for your hand, but touches your heart."
~Kathleen Grove

"Friends are made by many acts - and lost by only one."
~Proverb
~Also attributed to Winston Churchill who quoted it during The Sinews of Peace Address

"It is not necessary to blow out another's candle, for your own to shine."
~From Jan's FB wall (Thank you for allowing me to borrow it Jan!)
--Also written as, "It isn't necessary to blow out the other person's light to let your own shine." ~Proverb 120

HATE

"Love is blind; hate is deaf."
~Author Unknown

"Hate cages all the good things about you."
~Madrianne Arvore

"The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less."
~Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 1968

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."
~Herman Hesse

"Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate it; a child who fears noises becomes a man who fears noises."
~Cyril Connolly

"He that fears you present will hate you absent."
~Thomas Fuller

"A Rattlesnake, if Cornered will become so angry it will bite itself. That is exactly what the harboring of hate and resentment against others is - a biting of oneself. We think we are harming others in holding these spites and hates, but the deeper harm is to ourselves."
~E. Stanley Jones

"We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them."
~Charles Caleb Colton

"In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul."
~Mary Renault

"Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed."
~Bertrand Russell

"One does not hate as long as one has a low esteem of someone, but only when one esteems him as an equal or a superior."
~Friedrich Nietzsche

"I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."
~Booker T. Washington

"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life."
Eric Hoffer

"It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility."
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

"Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness."
~William Arthur Ward

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."
~James Baldwin

"A man who lives, not by what he loves but what he hates, is a sick man."
~Archibald Macleish

"Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated."
~George Bernard Shaw

"We love without reason, and without reason we hate."
~Jean-francois Regnard

“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
~Yoda

"While I dance I cannot judge, I cannot hate, I cannot separate myself from life. I can only be joyful and whole. That is why I dance."
Hans Bos

"Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule."
~Buddha

"An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.”
~Mahatma Ghandi

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."
Mother Teresa

"If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen."
~1 John 4:20

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

HEALING

"All healing is essentially the release from fear."
~ACIM

COURAGE

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live."
~Dorothy Thompson

"Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears."
~Arthur Koestler

LETTING GO

"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us."
~Helen Keller

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.”
~C.S. Lewis

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."
~Siddhartha Buddha

"The fear of loss is the pathway to the darkside. Attachment leads to jealousy, the shadow of greed."
~Yoda

"If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive."
~Dorothee Solle

ATTITUDE

"Proactive people can carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them. They are value driven; if their value is to produce good quality work, it isn't a function of whether the weather is conducive to it or not."
~Stephen Covey

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this 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

"People usually show you who they are. Believe them."
~Maya Angelou

HAPPINESS & JOY

"People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within."
~Ramona Anderson

"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves."
~Siddhartha Buddha

"Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy."
~Robert Anthony

"Happiness comes from within, not from fulfilling the 'without'."
~Robyn Lyn

“I do it for the joy it brings, cause I'm a joyful girl. 'Cause the world owes us nothing, we owe each other the world.”
~Ani Difranco

"It is essential to know that to be a happy person, a happy family, a happy society, it is very crucial to have a good heart, that is very crucial. World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just the absence of violence but the manifestation of human compassion."
~Dalai Lama

"This is the true joy in life:
The being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one;
The being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap;
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
Epistle Dedicatory to Arthur Bingham Walkley
“Man and Superman: a Comedy and a Philosophy”

"The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.""
~Allan K. Chalmers

"Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want."
~Margaret Young

"But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?"
~Albert Camus

CHOICES

"In the end, we only regret the chances we didn't take ♥ the relationships we were afraid to have ♥ and the decisions we waited too long to make." ♥
~Tracy O.

"Keep your thoughts positive, because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive, because your words become your behaviors. Keep your behaviors positive, because your behaviors become your habits. Keep your habits positive, because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive, because your values become your destiny."
~Gandhi

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."
~Alice Walker, Peace & Many Blessings!

"I will only speak aloud if my words satisfy the following criteria: 
(1) Are these words true? 
(2) Are they necessary? 
(3) Are they kind?"
~Eknath Easwaran

"Rule your mind or it will rule you."
~Horace, 30 Day SHED ~ DAY 1 Motivational Quote

"Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time."
~Mark Twain, 30 Day SHED ~ DAY 2 Motivational Quote

THE PRESENT

"Be here now" is the only way to be in the present moment regardless of how 'present' we think we are, even when we believe we are feeling a lot or thinking deep. Awareness is a crucial tool to being in the present and awareness takes courage. It is not for the faint of heart. Awareness shows us all the places where growth is calling us. Exciting but not always easy."
~Rhonda Britten

"If I have been of service, if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good, if I am inspired to reach wider horizons of thought and action, if I am at peace with myself, it has been a successful day."
~Alex Noble

PEACE

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."
~Mother Teresa

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children."
~Native American Proverb

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."
~Jimi Hendrix

"Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance is harmony in difference."
~Declaration on the Principles of Tolerance, UNESCO

"This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love."
~Peace Pilgrim

LEGACY

"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."
~Unknown

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thank ful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit."
~Albert Schweitzer

PATIENCE

"PATIENCE - To Wait With Certainty - The Art of Allowing Life to Carry You."
~Unknown

"Patience is the ability to endure waiting, delay, or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset, or to persevere calmly when faced with difficulties."
~Unknown

"Patience is a virtue. The longer you wait for something, the more it's worth it in the end. Perseverece is key, keep on trying and never loose hope."
~Unknown

"One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life."
~Chinese Proverb

"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish."
~John Quincy Adams

“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience.”
~Unknown

"Wait in the power of knowing what is possible.... Do not waver.... Remain steady... Remain true to your goals and allow life to carry you. That which is worthwhile is sometimes created slowly."
~Unknown

"There will be a time when loud-mouthed, incompetent people seem to be getting the best of you. When that happens, you only have to be patient and wait for them to self destruct. It never fails."
~Richard Rybolt

COMPASSION

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
~Albert Einstein

"The major block to compassion is the judgment in our minds. Judgment is the mind's primary tool of separation."
~Diane Berke

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
~Viktor Frankl

"The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands."
~Arthur H. Stainback

"Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism."
~Hubert H. Humphrey

"I came upon a doctor who appeared in quite poor health. I said, 'There's nothing that I can do for you that you can't do for yourself.' He said, 'Oh yes you can. Just hold my hand. I think that that would help.' So I sat with him a while then I asked him how he felt. He said, 'I think I'm cured."
~Conor Oberst

"The indigenous peoples thought of legal, illegal, and other landownership issues as "fleas arguing over who owns the dog". There is no way to separate our realities and needs from others, no man is an island."
~Crocodile Dundee


KINDNESS

"When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people."
~Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Great persons are able to do great kindnesses."
~Miguel de Cervantes

"There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity."
~Nathaniel Branden

"If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give."
~George MacDonald

"Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind."
~Eric Hoffer

"The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essense of inhumanity."
~George Bernard Shaw

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
~The Dalai Lama

"When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel."
~Harold Kushner

"The greatest pleasure I have known is to do a good action by stealth and to have it found out by accident."
~Charles Lamb

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own."
~Benjamin Disraeli

"A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world: everyone you meet is your mirror."
~Ken Keyes Jr.

"The best way to find good in thyself is to begin to look for good in others."
~Unknown

"The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he 'likes' them: the Christian, trying to treat every one kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on - including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning."
~C.S. Lewis

"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience."
~The Apostle Paul (Col 3:12)

"A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles."
~Washington Irving

"Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other -- it doesn't matter who it is -- and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other."
~Mother Teresa

"What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. They are but trifles, to be sure but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable."
~Unknown

"In the second half of my life, I have come to agree with King David when he said 'Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.'" (Psalm 63:3)
~Gary Amirault

"If someone is too tired to give you a smile, leave one of your own, because no one needs a smile as much as those who have none to give."
~Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch

"No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves."
~Amelia Earhart

"We are never more like Jesus than when we are choked with compassion for others."
~Unknown

"Do something wonderful, people may imitate it."
~Albert Schweitzer

"Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end."
~Scott Adams

"Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver."
~Barbara De Angelis

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."
~Mother Teresa

"No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted."
~Aesop

"Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence or learning."
~Frederick W. Faber

"God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance."
~The Apostle Paul (Romans 2:4)

"Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate."
~Albert Schweitzer

"I choose kindness... I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. Kind to the rich, for they are afraid. And kind to the unkind, for such is how God has treated me."
~Max Lucado

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him, his own."
~Benjamin Disraeli

"Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness."
~Seneca

"We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we do not know as an absolute stranger."
~Albert Schweitzer

"If you think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself."
~Unknown

"The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you."
~John E. Southard

"I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end."
~Albert Schweitzer

"The ideas that have lighted my way have been kindness, beauty and truth."
~Albert Einstein

"Kindness is the oil that smoothen the friction of life."
~Anonymous

"From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life."
~Arthur Ashe

"All you have shall some day be given; Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors."
~Kahlil Gibran

"No matter how little you have, you can always give some of it away."
~Catherine Marshall

"Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours."
~C. S. Lewis

"I've never known any human being, high or humble, who ever regretted, when nearing life's end, having done kindly deeds. But I have known more than one millionaire who became haunted by the realization that they had led selfish lives."
~B. C. Forbes

"You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity."
~George Eliot

"I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again."
~William Penn

LOVE

"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us."
~Helen Keller

"You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving."
~Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

"Life without ♥love♥ is like a tree without blossoms or fruit."
~Kahlil Gibran

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.""
~Helen Keller

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LOVE ONE ANOTHER
Positive Alternatives

Rather than being annoyed, be amused.
Instead of getting angry, become curious.
In place of envy, feel admiration.
In place of worry, take action.
In place of doubt, have faith.
Negative energy is just positive energy that's flowing in the opposite direction.

There's no need to fight or run away from that negative energy. All you need to do is change its direction. The more negative you are, the more positive you can be. An automobile that can travel 70 miles per hour to the east... can also travel just as fast when going west. But first, someone must turn it around.

When you sense yourself becoming negative, stop and consider what it would mean to apply that negative energy in the opposite direction. Turn your sadness into caring. Transform your complaints into useful suggestions. Change your bitterness into determination. The energy is already there, All you need to do is change its direction.
~Nancie Dittert

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"My command to you is this: love one another as I have loved you."
~John 15:12

"Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been know to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature."
~Mohandas Gandhi

"While God waits for His temple to be built of love, men bring stones."
~Rabindranath Tagore

"You don't have to go looking for love when it's where you come from."
~Werner Erhard

"Love is not consolation. It is light."
~Friedrich Nietzsche

"Loving is never a waste of time."
~Astrid Alauda

"Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence."
~David Byrne

"Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that."
~Michael Leunig

"Love is not singular except in syllable."
~Marvin Taylor

"Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict."
~Rabindranath Tagore

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."
~1 John 4:18

"You learn to like someone when you find out what makes them laugh, but you can never truly love someone until you find out what makes them cry."
~Author Unknown

"Love withers under constraints: its very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited where its votaries live in confidence, equality and unreserve."
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

"A man is not where he lives, but where he loves."
~Latin Proverb

"Love never reasons but profusely gives; gives, like a thoughtless prodigal, its all, and trembles lest it has done too little."
~Hannah Moore

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."
~William Shakespeare, Mid-Summer Night's Dream, 1595

"Love is the greatest refreshment in life."
~Pablo Picasso

"Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity."
~Henry Van Dyke

"Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end."
~Author Unknown

"Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination."
~Voltaire

"At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet."
~Plato

"Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold."
~Zelda Fitzgerald

"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction."
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, translated from French by Lewis Galantière

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
~Thomas Merton

"Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up."
~1 Corinthians 8:1

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."
~Mother Teresa

"In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person."
~Margaret Anderson

"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
~Galatians 5:14

"Take away love, and our earth is a tomb."
~Robert Browning

"The only true gift is a portion of yourself."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."
~Robert Heinlein

"Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins."
~Proverbs 10:12

"You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection."
~Buddha

"Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving."
~Kahlil Gibran

"The hardest-learned lesson: that people have only their kind of love to give, not our kind."
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

"If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus."
~Emma Goldman, The Tragedy of Women's Emancipation

"A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave."
~Mohandas Gandhi

"The art of love... is largely the art of persistence."
~Albert Ellis

"A baby is born with a need to be loved - and never outgrows it."
~Frank A. Clark

"Love does not care to define and is never in a hurry to do so."
~Charles du Bos

“The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present.”
~Barbara De Angelis

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."
~C.S. Lewis

"If I love you, what business is it of yours?"
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Where love is, there God is also."
~Mohandas Gandhi

"Where there is love there is life."
~Mohandas Gandhi

"Come live in my heart and pay no rent."
~Samuel Lover

“Intense love does not measure; it just gives."
~Mother Teresa

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them ♥"
~Mother Teresa

"If I have not love, I am nothing."

“I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.”
~Roy Croft

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."
♥~Jimi Hendrix

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS."
~Ghandi

"Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perserveres.
Love never fails."
~I Corinthians 13:4-8

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”
~Mother Teresa

With all that said...

"Even if he came back begging, crying & sliding down a rainbow on a unicorn, I wouldn't take him back. Well...but...I'd probably keep the unicorn, though. Cuz unicorns are AWESOME."
~Lianne Gallagher Packard

Yes they are Lianne...  yes they are... and so are you!  :)

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And *YOU* are the one who'll decide where to go."
~Dr. Seuss (Oh, the Places You'll Go!)

"You're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting, So...
Get on your way!"
~Dr. Seuss (Oh, the Places You'll Go!)

"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."
~James Dean

"Come to the edge. We can't. We're afraid. Come to the edge. We can't. We will fall! Come to the edge. And they came. And he pushed them. And they flew.”
~Guillaume Apollinaire

"I wish for you a life of wealth, health and happiness; a life in which you give yourself the gift of patience, the virtue of reason,the value of knowledge, and the influence of faith in your own ability to dream about and achieve worthy rewards."
~Jim Rohn (September 17, 1930 - December 5, 2009)

THE CHALLENGE

"Let others lead small lives, but not you.
Let others argue over small things, but not you.
Let others cry over small hurts, but not you.
Let others leave their future in someone else's hands,
but not you."
~Jim Rohn