Tuesday ~ January 5, 2016

The people who are aware of themselves are henceforward independent; and they are never bored, and life is only too short, and they are steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness. They alone live, while other people, slaves of ceremony, let life slip past them in a kind of dream.

( Virginia Woolf, 1882 - 1941 )

Monday ~ January 4, 2016

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

( Helen Keller, 1880 - 1968 )

Sunday ~ January 3, 2016

Persistence. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "Press on!" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

( Calvin Coolidge, 1872 - 1933 )

Saturday ~ January 2, 2016

Where after all do basic human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person, the neighborhood we live in, the school or college we attend, the factory, farm or office where we work. Such are the places where every man woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for purpose in the larger world.

( Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884 - 1962 )

Friday ~ January 1, 2016

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

( Mark Twain, 1835 - !910 )

Thursday ~ December 31, 2015

i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twentysix and thirtysix
even thirtysix but
i am runnining into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me

( Lucille Clifton, 1936 - 2010 )

Wednesday ~ December 30,2015

Tuesday ~ December 29, 2015

Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings.
Not all things are blessed,
but the seeds of all things are blessed.
The blessing is in the seed.

( Muriel Rukeyser, 1913 - 1980 )

Wednesday ~ February 25, 2015

My illusion is more real to me than reality. And so do we often build our world on an error, and cry out that the universe is falling to pieces, if anyone but lift a finger to replace the error by truth.

( Mary Antin, 1881 - 1949 )

Monday ~ December 28, 2015

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of science. Those who know it not, and can no longer wonder and no longer feel amazement, are as good as dead. We all had this priceless talent when we were young. But as time goes by, many of us lose it. True scientists never lose the faculty of amazement. It is the essence of their being.

( Hans Selye, 1907 - 1982 )

Sunday ~ December 27, 2015

It's all I have to bring today -
This, and my heart beside -
This, and my heart, and all the fields -
And all the meadows wide -
Be sure you count - should I forget
Some one the sum could tell -
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover Dwell.

( Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886 )