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How we spend our days is of course
how we spend our lives.
- Annie Dillard
Related topics: Wisdom
It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil.
If they would only expend the same
amount of energy loving their fellow men,
the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
- Helen Keller
"Mother Teresa Prayer"
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
... Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
... Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some
false friends and some true enemies;
... Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
... Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
... Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
... Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
... Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
... Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
We can do no great things - only small things with great love.
- although commonly attributed to Mother Teresa,
who kept a copy of this prayer on
the wall of her Calcutta orphanage,
this prayer was actually written by Kent Keith.
Spend time every day listening to what your muse is trying to tell you.
- Saint Bartholomew
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Thank you, Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Today, I Will Spend Time In Silence.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Spend some time alone every day.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm,
you'll never enjoy the sunshine.
- Morris West
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree,
I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
- Abraham Lincoln
None is more impoverished than the one who has no gratitude.
Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves,
and spend without fear of bankruptcy.
- Fred De Witt Van Amburgh
When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln
Instead of worrying about what people say of you,
why not spend time trying to accomplish
something they will admire.
- Dale Carnegie
While you can and should keep your composure and happiness
regardless of circumstances - regardless of your friends,
family and co-workers - regardless of gossip, sarcasm, and negativity.
Nonetheless, life is much easier and more pleasant
when you spend as much time as possible
in the company of enthusiastic positive people -
not necessarily those who agree with you,
but those who respect your right to your point of view.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
While most managers spend their time attempting
to predict the future accurately -
and while that's valuable -
the best managers are able to generate a future
which was not going to happen otherwise -
that is, a future which was not predictable.
- Werner Erhard
Yesterday is a canceled check;
tomorrow is a
promissory note;
today is the only cash you have;
so spend it wisely.
- Kay Lyons
Many people allow their need
for other people's approval to control their lives.
They spend their lives worrying about what others think of them.
- Rick Warren
Most of us spend our lives as if
we have another one in the bank.
- Ben Irwin
To a very young child, mommy and daddy are gods.
We spend our lives looking to regain
that sense of being cared for and protected.
Thus religion.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Give me six hours to chop down a tree
and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
- Abraham Lincoln
If we spend the time we waste in sighing
for the perfect golden fruit
in fulfilling the conditions of its growth,
happiness will come, must come.
It is guaranteed in the very laws of the universe.
If it involves some chastening and renunciation, well,
the fruit will be all the sweeter for this touch of holiness.
- Helen Keller
Too many people spend money they haven't earned,
to buy things they don't want,
to impress people they don't like.
- Will Rogers
It is your own life, certainly, to spend as you choose.
- Tanya, from Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer
Keep close to Nature's heart...
and break clear away, once in awhile,
and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods.
Wash your spirit clean.
- John Muir
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Our faith gives us knowledge of something better.
- E. F. Schumacher
As we work to create light for others,
we naturally light our own way.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Our "Rainbows and Butterflies" are the small miracles of our life -
the little things that are so easy to overlook,
yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment
to notice and to pay attention.
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh,
for the touch of a hand and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson
Our opportunity is to Soar our Spirit.
To see Light and Joy in everything.
To spread our wings and fly boldly.
To give thanks for rainbows and butterflies -
our symbols of renewal and rebirth.
To offer daily Thanksgiving - for ourselves, our family,
our friends, our community, for the whole world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
What we think, we become.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.
- The Buddha
When the vast cathedral of our being
becomes a sanctuary for all creation,
we become the face of God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell
We have only this moment,
sparkling like a star in our hand -
and melting like a snowflake.
- Marie B. Ray
"Hurry up" ranks right up there with "you need to"
as a destroyer of our humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Every thought we think is creating our future.
- Louise L. Hay
Life is NOT "Supposed to be Fair."
Know that there is no single way that life is "supposed" to be.
Demanding that life meet our expectations
is a sure fire recipe for a miserable existence.
Life is a game with no rules.
Life just happens to us regardless of our best intentions.
Our only path to happiness lies in being open
to receiving whatever life throws at us -
with Gratitude. Have NO Expectations of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Some people come into our lives and quickly go.
Some people stay for awhile,
and move our souls to dance.
They awaken us to a new understanding,
leave footprints on our hearts,
and we are never, ever the same.
- Flavia Weedn
Each of us dwells in a cathedral of our own BEing
that is created vast enough to encompass Unity with all creation.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Treat the earth well.
It was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.
- Native American traditional
It is our choices ... that show what we truly are,
far more than our abilities.
- J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets)
Our mettle is tested by storms,
not by calm.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The opposite of courage in our society
is not cowardice, it is conformity.
- Rollo May
Dreams are renewable no matter what our age.
- Dale Turner
Our lives are defined not by the challenges we encounter,
but by how we respond to those challenges.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All our dreams can come true,
if we have the courage to pursue them.
- Walt Disney
We can only be said to be truly alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
- Thornton Wilder
We cannot choose our external circumstances,
but we can always choose how to respond to them.
- Epictetus
Through our own recovered innocence
we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
- Henry David Thoreau
Our loved ones -
whether by blood, by marriage, or by choice -
are delicate treasures.
If we hold them too close, they break -
as a butterfly would.
By honoring and enjoying
the freedom of our loved ones,
we gain our own freedom.
Have the courage to trust that
the beautiful butterflies of your life
will return - or not - as life intends.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors,
we borrow it from our children.
- Native American Proverb
Our Joy comes from living our own lives simply -
never from demanding that others live simply -
or from ever making any demands whatsoever upon others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
May we so love as never to have occasion
to repent of our love!
- Henry David Thoreau
Miracles are the natural way of the Universe -
our only job is to move our doubting minds aside
and let the miracles flow.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We all have our thorns. We, and Life, have our moments.
Life occurs before our morning coffee.
Life occurs in our bathrobe with our hair uncombed.
Bless and give thanks for All of Life - the bloom and the thorns.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe,
our class, and our nation;
and this means we must develop a world perspective.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Love is the great miracle cure.
Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.
- Louise L. Hay
Our greatest glory is not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
- Confucius
Most of the shadows of life are caused
by standing in our own sunshine.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The best cure for our own self-inflicted suffering
is often service to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We must be proactive in our love
in order for it to change our lives.
- Marianne Williamson
Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us
that we are nothing but acorns
and that our greatest happiness will be
to become bigger, fatter, shinier acorns;
but that is of interest only to pigs.
Our faith gives us knowledge of something better:
that we can become oak trees.
- E. F. Schumacher
Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.
- Winston Churchill
We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
This is our moment, this is our time.
- Bono
We really have to understand the person we want to love.
If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Once we accept our limits, we can go beyond them.
- Albert Einstein
We think sometimes that poverty is only
being hungry, naked and homeless.
The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and
uncared for is the greatest poverty.
We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
- Mother Teresa
Life is in our point-of-view.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
- Marianne Williamson
The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people
is that they trigger confusion in us
that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with.
To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves,
we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.
- Pema Chodron
Thank you for visiting: How we spend our days is of course by Annie Dillard.
Please sign-up on the form below to receive my free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote email.
Thank you, Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.