encouragement

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
~Charles A. Beard~

No matter how long the night, the day is sure to come.
~African Proverb~

Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening; no doubt, no awakening.
~Zen Saying~

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald~

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.
~ Babe Ruth~

It's never too late to be what you might have been.
~George Eliot~

If you can learn to bend, you need not break.
~Taoist Saying~

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
~Carl Bard~

To escape criticism - do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
~Elbert Hubbard~

If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.
~Mary Pickford~

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
~Dolly Parton~

Fall seven times, stand up eight.
~Japanese Proverb~

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
~Duke Ellington~

Every man’s life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.
~Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor~

What does not destroy me, makes me strong.
~Friedrich Nietzsche~

If the oyster had hands, there would be no pearl.
~Stephen Nachmanovitch~

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
~Kahlil Gibran~

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great ...
~Mark Twain~

One’s best success comes after his greatest disappointments.
~Henry Ward Beecher~

Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.
~Henry Ward Beecher~

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.
~Basil King~

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
~Kahlil Gibran~

Life is a cup to be filled not drained.
~Anonymous~

The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
~Charles F. Kettering~

Even monkeys fall out of trees.
~Japanese Proverb~

Ease destroys bravery, trouble...creates strength.
~Maimonides~

Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.
~Theodore Roosevelt~

Hope is like a road in the country; there wasn’t ever a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.
~Lin Yutang~

Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all.
~Buddha~

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
~Helen Keller~

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
~Chinese Proverb~

Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.
~James Bryant Conant~

Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.
~Golda Meir~

Mistakes are the portals for discovery.
~James Joyce~

If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close is eyes and walk in the dark.
~St. John of the Cross~

The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.
~Welsh Proverb~

Opportunity’s favorite disguise is trouble.
~English Proverb~

dreams | spiritual | encouragement
power of thought | inspiration | wisdom
nature | birds | artists | celtic | to mull over
indigenous wisdom | golden rule? | tai chi
death poems | life & living | love | back to top

celtic

indigenous wisdom

Our enemies are sacred because they make us strong.
~ American Indian Saying~

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
~Crowfoot~

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
~Chief Seattle~

Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
~Cree Indian Prophecy~

The heart of the family is the mother because life comes from her.
~Onondaga~

Every step you take should be a prayer. And if every step you take is a prayer, then you will always be walking in a sacred manner.
~Oglala Lakota Holyman~

Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture your heart.
~Indian Saying~

You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round... Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle. The nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children.
~Black Elk, Oglala Sioux Holy Man~

The only law we obey is the natural law, God's law. We have the Black Hills for our church. We have the wind and the rain and the stars for our Bible. The world is an open Bible for us. We Indians have studied it for millions and millions of years.
~Mathew King, Lakota~

When you were born you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.
~Cherokee Proverb~

A long time ago my father told me what his father had told him, that there was once a Lakota holy man, called "Drinks Water", who dreamed what was to be... He dreamed that the four-leggeds were going back to the Earth, and that a strange race would weave a web all around the Lakotas. He said, "You shall live in square gray houses, in a barren land..." Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
~Black Elk~

These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future.
~Vernon Cooper, Lumbee~

If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man, he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary that eagles be crows.
~Sitting Bull~

Perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy.
~Eskimo saying~

Are you standing on a whale, fishing for minnows?
~Polynesian saying~

Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while a great wind is bearing me across the sky.
~Ojibwa~

spiritual

When the heart grieves over what it has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left.
~Sufi Epigram~

Do not be satisfied with what people say or tell you or with tradition or with myth or legend or with what has come down in scriptures or with conjecture or with logical inference or with weighing evidence or with liking for a view after pondering over it or with someone's else's ability or with the thought "The guru is our teacher." When you know in yourselves: "These things are wholesome, blameless, commended by the wise, and being adopted and put into effect they lead to welfare and happiness," then you should practice and abide in them ....
~The Buddha~

Spirituality is like a bird:
If you hold it too closely, it chokes,
And if you hold it too loosely, it escapes.
~ Israel Salanter Lipkin~

Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow, Grow."
~The Talmud~

Every step you take should be a prayer. And if every step you take is aprayer, then you will always be walking in a sacred manner.
~Oglala Lakota Holyman~

When I was a boy, I fell into a hole in the ground, was broken and could not climb out. A stranger came along and saved me. He said it was his obligation; that for help he once received, he must help ten others, each of who would then help ten others. In this way, good deeds would spread out like the ripples from a pebble thrown into a pond.
~A Taoist Parable~

All those who walk with God reach their destination.
~Sai Baba ~

Sever the chains of the ego. Set yourself free and witness the bright essence of your inner being. Discover within your heart the wisdom of a prophet without books, without teachers, and without prudence.
~Rumi, The Life and Thought of Rumi~

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
~Mahatma Ghandi~

I find that we are all such sinners that it is better to leave the judging to God.
~Mahatma Gandhi~

If the chimney is full of smoke, how can the light be seen? If the mind is full of dirt, how can the soul shine?
~Yogaswami of Jaffna ~

Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble.
~Arabic Proverb~

If there is a soul, it is a mistake to believe that it is given to us fully created. It is created here throughout a whole life. And living is nothing else but that long and painful bringing forth.
~Albert Camus~

The only law we obey is the natural law, God's law. We have the Black Hills for our church. We have the wind and the rain and the stars for our Bible. The world is an open Bible for us. We Indians have studied it for millions and millions of years.
~Mathew King, Lakota~

dreams | spiritual | encouragement
power of thought | inspiration | wisdom
nature | birds | artists | celtic | to mull over
indigenous wisdom | golden rule? | tai chi
death poems | life & living | love | back to top

dreams

What is now proved was once imagined.
~William Blake~

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
~Eleanor Roosevelt~

It may be that those who do most, dream most.
~Stephen Leacock~

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
~Langston Hughes~

The longer the night lasts, the more our dreams will be.
~Chinese Proverb~

If you can imagine it you can create it. If you can dream it, you can become it.
~William Arthur Ward~

Reach high, for the stars lie hidden in your soul.
Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
~Ralph Vaull Starr~

For God speaks in one way, and in two, though people do not percieve it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on mortals, while they slumber on their beds, then he opens their ears, and terrifies them with warnings, that he may turn them aside from their deeds, and keep them from pride, to spare their souls from the Pit, their lives from traversing the River.
~Job 33:15-17~

A long time ago my father told me what his father had told him, that there was once a Lakota holy man, called "Drinks Water", who dreamed what was to be... He dreamed that the four-leggeds were going back to the Earth, and that a strange race would weave a web all around the Lakotas. He said, "You shall live in square gray houses, in a barren land..." Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
~Black Elk~

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
~Kahlil Gibran~

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however.
~Richard Bach~

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens
~Carl Jung~

Those who lose dreaming are lost.
~Australian Aboriginal Proverb~

A dream is an answer to a question we haven't yet learned how to ask.
~Fox Mulder ~

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
~Japanese Proverb~

inspiration

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
~William Shedd~

The world is a great book; he who never stirs from home, reads only a page.
~Saint Augustine~

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 planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
~Jack London~

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.
~Rabindranath Tagore~

Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.
~Anon~

How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.
~Trina Paulus~

Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
~Albert Schweitzer~

Never doubt that a small group of thoughful, committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
~Margaret Mead~

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
~Eleanor Roosevelt~

Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable are the kind who do nothing.
~William Feather~

If I have seen farther than other men it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
~Isaac Newton~

I always tell the kids, ‘You know what’s great about going the extra mile? There’s very little traffic.
~Jim Larranaga~

dreams | spiritual | encouragement
power of thought | inspiration | wisdom
nature | birds | artists | celtic | to mull over
indigenous wisdom | golden rule? | tai chi
death poems | life & living | love | back to top

birds

Your song caresses
the depth of loneliness,
O high mountain bird
~Basho~

Birds have always been important to the Indian because they go where they wish, they light where they may and they're free. ...The eagle flies highest in the sky of all the birds and so he is the nearest to the Creator, and his feather is the most sacred of all. He is the highest of the birds and so belongs to all the tribes, to all the peoples.
~Buffalo Jim, Seminole~

But they that wait for God shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.
~Isaiah 40:31~

Shall the birds sing God's praise and I keep silent?
~Persian Proverb~

A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.
~Kahlil Gibran~

wisdom

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" was his response. "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
~Lewis Carroll~

We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.
~Marcel Proust~

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
~Ancient Chinese Proverb~

Advice is like snow – the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon and the deeper it sinks into the mind.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge~

The more you know the less you understand.
~Tao Te Ching~

The more a man knows, the more he forgives.
~ Confucius~

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.
~ Albert Einstein~

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

What you cannot avoid, welcome.
~ Chinese Proverb~

A time comes when silence is betrayal.
~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.~

To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the highest skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the highest skill.
~Sun-Tsu~

Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.
~Clementine Paddleford~

Most of us go to our graves with our music still inside of us.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes~

Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be.
~Fannie Brice~

If the world is cold make it your business to build fires.
~Horace Traubel~

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.
~Booker T. Washington~

One kind word can warm three winter months.
~Japanese proverb~

We should take from the past its fires and not its ashes.
~Jean Juarès~

Deep roots are not reached by frost.
~J.R.R. Tolkien~

Fear builds walls to bar the light.
~Baal Shem Tov~

If the head and body are to be well, you need to begin by curing the soul.
~Plato~

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself
~Chinese Proverb ~

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.
~Buddha~

When the student is ready, the Master appears.
~Buddhist Proverb~

Examine what is said, not him who speaks.
~Arabic Proverb~

Silence is the mother of truth.
~Benjamin Disraeli~

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
~G.K. Chesterton~

What you don't see with your eyes, don't invent with your mouth.
~Jewish Proverb~

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
~Kahlil Gibran~

To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.
~Chinese Proverb~

There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.
~French Proverb~

That they may have a little peace, even the best dogs are compelled to snarl occasionally.
~William Feather~

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
~Mohandas Gandhi~

Embrace your uniqueness. Time is much too short to be living someone else's life.
~Kobi Yamada~

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.
~Buddha~

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.
~Mahatma Gandhi~

Men are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.
~Molie're~

When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.
~Samuel Johnson~

Surrender, not control, is always the path.
~Victoria Nelson~

If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
~Kahlil Gibran~

He who wants a rose must respect the thorn.
~Persian proverb~

If I try to be like him, who will be like me?
~Yiddish proverb~

These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future.
~Vernon Cooper, Lumbee~

Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows.
~Henry David Thoreau~

There are only two ways to live your life. One as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
~Albert Einstein~

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
~Ralpho Waldo Emerson~

To Our Children We Can Give Two Things. One is Roots, the Other is Wings.
~Unknown~

What is beautiful is not always good, but what is good is always beautiful.
~Unknown~

Who finds a faithful friend finds a treasure.
~Ben Sira 6:14~

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~

The future enters into us, in order to transform us, long before it happens.
~Rainer Maria Rilke~

To trust a stranger without investigation invites troubles so endless even descendants must endure.
~Tirukkural 51:508~

We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.
~Tao Te Ching~

The believer is happy, the doubter wise.
~Greek Proverb~

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.
~Warren Buffet, Investor~

When you think, you become.
~Mohandas Gandhi~

Men and women are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
~Franklin D. Roosevelt~

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
~Albert Einstein~

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.
~Buddha~

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
~Proverbs 23:7~

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit drieth the bones.
~Proverbs 17:2~

If you think you are free,
You are free.
If you think you are bound,
You are bound.
For the saying is true:
You are what you think.
~Ashtavakra Gita 1:11 - From "The Heart of Awareness"~

Suffering is the difference between what is and what I want it to be.
~Dr. Spencer Johnson~

Be careful what you set your heart on, for it will surely be yours.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
~Marcus Aurelius Antoninus~

You are your only master. Who else? Subdue yourself, And discover your master.
~Adapted from the Dhammapada, translated by Thomas Byrom~

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
~Albert Einstein~

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.
~Chinese Proverb~

To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.
~Confucius~

Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them.
~ Lady Bird Johnson~

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
~Eleanor Roosevelt~

A merry heart doeth good like medicine.
~King Solomon~

We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same.
~Carlos Castaneda~

Our best friends and our worst enemies are our thoughts. A thought can do us more good than a doctor or banker or a faithful friend. It can also do us more harm than a brick.
~Dr. Frank Cran~

If you can imagine it you can create it. If you can dream it, you can become it.
~William Arthur Ward~

If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
~Thomas A. Edison~

Embrace Change. True success can be defined by your ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
~Connie Sky~

If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
~Douglas Noel Adams~

It's not what you are, but what you don't become that hurts.
~Oscar Levant~

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

We see things not as they are, but as we are.
~H.M. Tomlinson~

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

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy."
~Leo Buscaglia~

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.
~St. Augustine~

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
~Brian Tracy~

art and artists

Every artist was first an amateur.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

I play the guitar because it lets me dream out loud.
~Michael Hedges~

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.
~Georgia O'Keeffe~

To draw, you must close your eyes and sing.
~Pablo Picasso~

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.
~Pablo Picasso~

I do not evolve, I am.
~Pablo Picasso~

I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.
~Pablo Picasso~

Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.
~Pablo Picasso~

Go on working, freely and furiously, and you will make progress.
~Paul Gauguin~

Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.
~Henri Matisse~

An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.
~Henri Matisse~

I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.
~Henri Matisse~

An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc.
~Henri Matisse~

To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.
~Henri Matisse~

The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself and carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion. It is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his passion.
~Auguste Renoir~

Whoever does not consecrate himself wholly to art with all his wishes and values can never reach the highest goal. He is not an artist at all.
~Rainer Maria Rilke~

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.
~Auguste Rodin~

If one is the master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time insight into and understanding of many things.
~Vincent Van Gogh~

I have ... a terrible need ... shall I say the word? ... of religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars.
~Vincent Van Gogh~

I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture.
~Vincent Van Gogh~

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
~Vincent Van Gogh~

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
~Vincent Van Gogh~

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.
~Vincent Van Gogh~

Conscience is a man’s compass.
~Vincent Van Gogh~

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.
~Ludwig van Beethoven~

I want to seize fate by the throat!
~Ludwig Van Beethoven~

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.
~Bob Marley~

I follow Nature without being able to grasp her...I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.
~Claude Monet~

I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.
~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart~

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

It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.
~Isaac Asimov~

Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.
~Leonardo da Vinci~

The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.
~François Auguste René Rodin~

To the artist there is never anything ugly in nature.
~François Auguste René Rodin~

In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.
~Marc Chagall~

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another . . . and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.
~Leonard Bernstein~

He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing, cannot be an artist.
~Anton Pavlovich Chekhov~

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.
~Albert Einstein~

Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manefestation of nature agree to find new shapes.
~Kahlil Gibran~

Art is a collarboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.
~André Gide~

The artist is one to whom all experience is revelation.
~Lewisohn~

The artist needs no religion beyond his work.
~Elbert Hubbard~

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.
~John Fitzgerald Kennedy~

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be.
~Abraham Maslow~

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
~Leo Tolstoy~

If an artist is not able to commit himself totally to his art, how can he expect the world to do so?
~Unknown Author~

Every time an artist dies, part of the vision of mankind passes with him.
~Franklin Delano Roosevelt~

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe~

The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.
~Max Forrester Eastman~

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another . . . and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.
~Leonard Bernstein~

Creativity is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to God.
~Bob Moawad~

Working is the thing an artist must do, whether he is mired in the mud or elevated off the ground by a torrent of inspiration.
~Eric Maisel~

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.
~Lena Horne, Singer~

He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.
~Leonardo da Vinci~

to mull over...

To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.
~Confucius~

You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.
~ Martin Luther~

When someone demands blind obedience, you'd be a fool not to peek.
~Jim Fiebig~

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.
~James Russell Lowell~

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~

Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds along rocks.
~Charlotte Bronte~

To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.
~George Washington~

I am more afraid of an army of one hundred sheep led by a lion than an army of one hundred lions led by a sheep.
~Charles Maurice, Prince de Talleyrand-Perigord~

Not all those who wander are lost.
~J.R.R. Tolkien~

Brute force, no matter how strongly applied, can never subdue the basic human desire for freedom and dignity. It is not enough, as communist systems have assumed, merely to provide people with food, shelter and clothing. Human nature needs to breathe the precious air of liberty.
~Dalai Lama~

Suffering is the difference between what is and what I want it to be.
~Dr. Spencer Johnson~

Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.
~Dr. Laura Schlessinger~

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.
~Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 BCE~

Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.
~Confucius~

If I won't be myself, who will?
~Alfred Hitchcock~

Don't sacrifice your own welfare
for that of another,
no matter how great.
Realizing your own true welfare,
be intent on just that.
~Dhammapada 166, translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu~

We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.
~William Gladstone~

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.
~Victor Hugo~

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.
~Vesta M. Kelly~

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.
~Richard Bach~

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where He stands at times of challenge and controversy.
~Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.~

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.
~A comment made by Scots Historian Professor Alexander Tyler in 1787, about the fall of the Athenian Republic~

Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City. . . For my will is as strong as yours. And my kingdom is as great. You have no power over me.
~Labyrinth~

Follow not in the footsteps of the masters, but rather seek what they sought.
~Unknown~

dreams | spiritual | encouragement
power of thought | inspiration | wisdom
nature | birds | artists | celtic | to mull over
indigenous wisdom | golden rule? | tai chi
death poems | life & living | love | back to top

Farewell...
I pass as all things do
dew on the grass.
Banzan

Sick on my journey,
only my dreams will wander
these desolate moors
Basho

The year is ending:
I have not left
my heart behind.
Hankai

Now as a spirit
I shall roam
the summer fields.
Hokusai

Bitter winds of winter
but later, river willow,
open up your buds.
Ichikyo

From deep in my heart
how beautiful the snow
clouds of the west.
Issho

A journey of no return:
the wanderer's sack is
bottomless.
Kyoshu

Since time began
the dead alone know peace.
Life is but melting snow.
Nandai

Empty-handed I entered
the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going -
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.
Senryu

Like dew drops
on a lotus leaf
I vanish.
Shinsui

Holding back the night
with its increasing brilliance
the summer moon
Yoshitoshi

Our life in this world ... is like a boat rowing out at dawn, leaving no trace behind.
~Sami Mansei~

dreams | spiritual | encouragement
power of thought | inspiration | wisdom
nature | birds | artists | celtic | to mull over
indigenous wisdom | golden rule? | tai chi
death poems | life & living | love | back to top

dreams | spiritual | encouragement
power of thought | inspiration | wisdom
nature | birds | artists | celtic | to mull over
indigenous wisdom | golden rule? | tai chi
death poems | life & living | love | back to top

golden rule

"Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people's suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal."
~ The Dalai Lama~

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Matthew 7:12 (Christianity)

"An' it harm no one, do what thou wilt" (If it harms none, do what you will) (Wiccan)

"...thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Leviticus 19:18 (Judaism)

"One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself" Mencius Vii.A.4 (Hinduism)

"Respect for all life is the foundation." (American Indian)

"All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One." Black Elk (American Indian)

"Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss." T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien (Taoism)

"And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbour that which thou choosest for thyself." Epistle to the Son of the Wolf (Bahá'í)

"...a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?" Samyutta NIkaya v. 353 (Buddhism)

"Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." Udana-Varga 5:18 (Buddhism)

"What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary." Talmud, Shabbat31a (Judaism)

"This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you." Mahabharata, 5:1517 (Brahmanism)

"Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you" Analects 15:23 (Confucianism)

"This is the sum of the Dharma: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you." Mahabharata 5:1517 (Hinduism)

"None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." Number 13 of Imam Al-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths. (Islam)

"The basis of Sufism is consideration of the hearts and feelings of others. If you haven't the will to gladden someone's heart, then at least beware lest you hurt someone's heart, for on our path, no sin exists but this." Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh, Master of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order (Sufism)

"In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self." Lord Mahavira, 24th Tirthankara (Jainism)

"A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated. "Sutrakritanga 1.11.33 (Jainism)

"The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form" (Shinto)

"Don't create enmity with anyone as God is within everyone." Guru Arjan Devji 259 ( Sikhism)

"One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts." (Yoruba - Nigeria)

"The law imprinted on the hearts of all men is to love the members of society as themselves." (Roman, Pagan)

"That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself". Dadistan-i-dinik 94:5 (Zoroastrianism)

"Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others." Shayast-na-Shayast 13:29 (Zoroastrianism)

dreams | spiritual | encouragement
power of thought | inspiration | wisdom
nature | birds | artists | celtic | to mull over
indigenous wisdom | golden rule? | tai chi
death poems | life & living | love | back to top

tai chi

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
~Chinese Proverb~

When one teaches, two learn.
~Robert Half~

A great nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers.
~Tao Te Ching, Chapter 61~

When the student is ready, the Master appears.
~Buddhist Proverb~

Follow not in the footsteps of the masters, but rather seek what they sought.
~Unknown~

The moon is one, but on agitated water it produces many reflections. Similarly ultimate reality is one, yet it appears to be many in a mind agitated by thoughts.
~Maharamayana~

You are your only master. Who else? Subdue yourself, And discover your master.
~ Adapted from the Dhammapada, translated by Thomas Byrom~

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.
~Lao-Tzu~

He is strong who conquers others; He who conquers himself is mighty.
~Lao Tse~

Do you have the patience to wait
til your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
til the right action arises by itself?
~Tao Te Ching, Chapter 15~

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.
~Tao Te Ching, Chapter 11~

In the Midst of Movement....Seek Calm...
~Chinese Proverb~

You can out distance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you.
~Rwandan Proverb~

Can you coax your mind from its wandering and keep to the original oneness? Can you let your body become supple as a newborn child's?
~Tao Te Ching, Chapter 10~

Seek perfection sincerely. Establish life. When you have settled the spirit, you may cultivate the ch'i.
~T'ai Chi Classics translated with commentary by Waysun Liao~

The only devils in the world are the ones running around in our hearts; it is there that is the only place we should fight out battles.
~Gandhi~