If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there's room to hear more subtle things - that's when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It's a discipline; you have to practice it. 

~ Steve Jobs

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. 

~ Carl Jung

Kindness does wonderful things to a face. 

~ Dixie Doyle

It is never too late to become what you might have been. 

~ George Eliot

Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time. 

~ Shirley Chisholm

There are many fine things which you mean to do some day, under what you think will be more favorable circumstances. But the only time that is yours is the present. 

~ Grenville Kleiser

The world is evolving from imperfection to perfection. It needs all love and sympathy; great tenderness and watchfulness are required from each one of us. 

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, A Bowl of Saki

Gratitude is something of which none of us can give too much. For on the smiles, the thanks we give, our little gestures of appreciation, our neighbors build their philosophy of life. 

~ A.J. Cronin

In the midst of gathering darkness, light becomes more evident.

~ Bonnie Bostrom 

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

~ Steven Covey 

Address things now that could otherwise turn into regrets.  

~ Jane Fonda, paraphrased from Legacy of Wisdom conference, April 17, 2011

We have a spiritual practice of thinking of a fire hydrant as a saint - it's standing there waiting to be of service. It's a way to start reframing our relation to all the everyday things around us.

~ Frederic Brussat, 100 Ways to Keep Your Soul Alive

  

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. 

~ Marcel Proust

Nobody sees a flower really - it is so small - we haven't time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time. 

~ Georgia O'Keeffe

Where there is great love there are always miracles.  

~ Willa Cather

I wake up in the morning asking myself what can I do today, how can I help the world today. 

~ Julia Butterfly Hill

Dive deeply into the miracle of life and let the tips of your wings be burnt by the flame, let your feet be lacerated by the thorns, let your heart be stirred by human emotion, and let your soul be lifted beyond the earth. 

~Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Call of the Dervish

The happy heart gives away the best. To know how to receive is also a most important gift, which cultivates generosity in others and keeps strong the cycle of life. 

~ Dhyani Ywahoo, Voices of Our Ancestors

There's a self expansive aspect of gratitude. Very possibly it's a little known law of nature: the more gratitude you have, the more you have to be grateful for.  

~ Elaine St. James

Wisdom comes from metabolizing what we learn from others and from experience to a point where it can be shared. 

~ Mary Catherine Bateson, Spoken at Legacy of Wisdom conference, April 17, 2011

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.  

~ Joseph Campbell

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the "atomic age" -- as in being able to remake ourselves. 

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Outwardly one's life may suffer every kind of limitation, from bodily paralysis to miserable surroundings, but inwardly it is free in meditation to reach out to a sphere of light, beauty, truth, love, and power. 

~ Paul Brunton, Meditations for People in Crisis

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.  

~ Helen Keller

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude. 

~ Dennis Waitley

The greatest gift one can give is thanksgiving. In giving gifts, we give what we can spare, but in giving thanks we give ourselves. 

~ David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer

Seeing the bounty and ease within and all around and diligently fanning the flame of certainty opens the channel for dissonance to resolve naturally into harmony. 

~ Dhyani Ywahoo, Voices of Our Ancestors 

The trees, the flowers, the plants grow in silence. The stars, the sun, the moon move in silence. Silence gives us a new perspective. 

~ Mother Teresa

So much of modern life is a feverish anticipation of future activity and excitement. We have to learn to step back from this into the freedom and possibility of the present. 

~ Bede Griffiths 

Hope is the deep orientation of the human soul that can be held at the darkest times. 

~ Vaclav Havel

As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds. 

~ The Buddha

Feeling grateful towards someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life. 

~ Christiane Northrup

One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.  

~ Leo Tolstoy

If we could see the miracle of a single flower, our whole life would change. 

~ The Buddha

Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire.  

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Eternal Spirit -- Earth-Maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver; source of all that is and that shall be; Father and Mother of us all. Loving God, in whom is heaven. The hallowing of your name echoes through the universe!  

~ The New Zealand Prayer Book

We will know what both the fullness and the fulfilment of life mean only when the consciousness that the Spirit is our own very self comes to life within us. 

~ Paul Brunton, Perspectives

In the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you.

~ Rachel Naomi Remen

A harmonized mind produces harmony in this world of seeming discord. 

~ Paramahansa Yogananda

People are like stained glass windows: They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within. 

~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

The day I acquired the habit of consciously pronouncing the words "thank you", I felt I had gained possession of a magic wand capable of transforming everything.  

~ Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

True affluence is not needing anything. 

~ Gary Snyder

You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?  

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

If planetary peace seems beyond our reach, recall: Miracles are natural when we rely on the Source of All to carry our burdens with us. Then, even peace is possible. 

~ Nan Merrill with Barbara Taylor, Peace Planet: Light for Our World

When the bridge is gone, the narrowest plank becomes precious. 

~ Hungarian Proverb

Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. 

~ Thomas Moore

If you have a strong mind and plant in it a firm resolve, you can change your destiny. 

~ Paramahansa Yogananda

When it seems humanly impossible to do more in a difficult situation, surrender yourself to the inner silence and thereafter wait for a sign of obvious guidance or for a renewal of inner strength. 

~ Paul Brunton, Meditations for People in Crisis

Through love and sincerity continuously beautify your inner life in every way, by daily looking into the mirror of introspection. 

~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them. 

~ A.A. Milne (via Eeyore), Winnie-the-Pooh

We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all.  

~ Dorothy Day

Strength of heart comes from knowing that the pain that we each must bear is part of the greater pain shared by all that lives. It is not just “our” pain but the pain, and realizing this awakens our universal compassion. 

~ Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart

We are never more than one grateful thought away from peace of heart.

~ David Steindl-Rast

We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us. But we make ourselves true inside by manifesting the truth as we see it. 

~ Thomas Merton

 

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. 

~ Albert Camus

Your life is always working, whether you know it or not. Sometimes it works to bring you what you want, and sometimes it works to keep you from what you think you want. 

~ Neale Donald Walsch

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.  

~ John O'Donohue

Few delights can equal the mere presence of one whom we trust utterly.  

~ George MacDonald

I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish. 

~ Mother Teresa

The same pain that can blemish our personality can act as a creative force, burnishing it into an object of delight. 

~ Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Alchemical Wisdom

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. 

~ Leo Buscaglia

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these. 

~ George Washington Carver

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

~ Duke Ellington

Empty your mind of all thoughts.  

Let your heart be at peace.  

Watch the turmoil of beings,  

but contemplate their return. 

Each separate being in the Universe  

returns to the common source.  

Returning to the source is serenity. 

~Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

The little things? The little moments? They aren't little.  

~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one.  

~ Paul Brunton

Drop by drop fills the pot. 

~ Duala Proverb from Cameroon

Heaven and earth are threads from one loom. 

~ Shaker proverb

Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot. 

~ Hausa proverb from Nigeria

Gratitude invites a sense of sufficiency. 

~ Wayne Muller

Strive each day to make your life purer, richer, and more luminous. You will subtly and imperceptibly lead all of creation heavenward. 

~ Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Understanding is not a piercing of the mystery, but an acceptance of it, a living blissfully with it, in it, through and by it.  

~ Henry Miller

The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it. 

~ Marcus Aurelius 

To bring the sublime into the mundane is the greatest challenge there is. 

~ Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Alchemical Wisdom

When I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.  

~ Rabbi Abraham Heschel

I draw prayer round me like a dark protective wall, withdraw inside it as one might into a convent cell and then step outside again, calmer and stronger and more collected again. 

~ Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life

As one can see when the eyes are open, so one can understand when the heart is open. 

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Bowl of Saki

Only gratefulness, in the form of limitless openness for surprise, lays hold of the fullness of life in hope. 

~ David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer

 

Stillness within one individual can affect society beyond measure. 

~ Bede Griffiths

We can't control our destiny, but we can control who we become. 

~ Anne Frank

I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship. 

~ Louisa May Alcott

The unthankful heart...discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!  

~ Henry Ward Beecher

When you listen generously to people they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time. 

~ Rachel Naomi Remen

Appreciation is the vessel for future blessings.  

~ Michael Berg

 

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.  

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Extend the boundaries of the glowing kingdom of your love, gradually including your family, your neighbors, your community, your country, all countries -- all living sentient creatures. 

~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Gratitude is the most passionate transformative force in the cosmos. When we offer thanks to God or to another human being, gratitude gifts us with renewal, reflection, reconnection.  

~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. 

~ Willie Nelson

In the dew of little things, the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. 

~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by its own fullness, not by its reception. 

~ Harold Loukes

Any place is sacred ground, for it can become a place of encounter with the divine Presence. 

~ David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart

If the past is unredeemable, and the future unpredictable, what more practical course is open than to safeguard the present by constant remembrance of the divine? 

~ Paul Brunton, Notebooks

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. 

~ Duke Ellington

Every act of love is a work of peace no matter how small.   

~ Mother Teresa

It takes a person of great heart to see...the wisdom the elders have to offer, and so serve them out of gratitude for the life they have passed on to us. 

~ Ken Nerburn

That's what I consider true generosity. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing. 

~ Simone de Beauvoir

No one has ever become poor by giving.  

~ Anne Frank

The foundation of greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment, instead of pursuing the idea of greatness. 

~ Eckhart Tolle

Paradoxically, we achieve true wholeness only by embracing our fragility and sometimes, our brokenness. Wholeness is a natural radiance of Love, and Love demands that we allow the destruction of our old self for the sake of the new. 

Jalaja Bonheim, Aphrodite's Daughters

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. 

~ Margaret Mead

One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?"

~ Rachel Carson

To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. 

~ William Blake

A single crocus blossom ought to be enough to convince our heart that springtime, no matter how predictable, is somehow a gift, gratuitous, gratis, a grace. 

~ David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer

Don't be concerned about being disloyal to your pain by being joyous. 

~ Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Alchemical Wisdom

Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don’t claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent. 

~ Jalaluddin Rumi

The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had. 

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Claiming your own blessedness always leads to a deep desire to bless others. 

~ Henri Nouwen

In our relationships we need to uphold that aspect of the person which is the real person and the soul beyond their own self-doubt. 

~ Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Alchemical Wisdom

It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.  

~ Rachel Carson

Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light. 

~ Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Gratitude is the intention to count-your-blessings every day, every minute, while avoiding, whenever possible, the belief that you need or deserve different circumstances. 

~ Timothy Miller, How To Want What You Have

The burden which is well borne becomes light. 

~ Ovid

Within us is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the universal beauty, the eternal One. 

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The hope that is left after all your hopes are gone -- that is pure hope, rooted in the heart. 

~ David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye. 

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Turn your face to the sun, and the shadows fall behind you. 

~ Maori proverb

A friend is a gift you give yourself. 

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.  

~ Indian Proverb

Treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of reward. Your life will never be the same. 

~ Og Mandino

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.  

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Catastrophe is the essence of the spiritual path, a series of breakdowns allowing us to discover the threads that weave all of life into a whole cloth. 

~ Joan Halifax, Being with Dying

O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.  

~ Henry David Thoreau

Beauty seen makes the one who sees it more beautiful. 

~ David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart

Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life reveals just the opposite: that letting go is the real path to freedom. 

~ Sogyal Rinpoche, Glimpse After Glimpse

The more alert we become to the blessing that flows into us through everything we touch, the more our own touch will bring blessing. 

~ David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart

Religion isn’t about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness. 

~ Karen Armstrong

Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art. 

~ Joanna Macy

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily difference we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.  

~ Marion Wright Edelman

Those who are lifting the world upward and onward are those who encourage more than criticize.  

~ Elizabeth Harrison

A single grateful thought toward heaven is the most complete prayer. 

~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

I have reached a point in my life where I understand the pain and the challenges; and my attitude is one of standing up with open arms to meet them all.  

~ Myrlie Evers

 And Joy is Everywhere

It is in the Earth's green covering of grass;
In the blue serenity of the Sky;
In the reckless exuberance of Spring;
In the Living flesh that animates our bodily frame;
In the perfect poise of the Human figure, noble and upright;
In Living;
In the exercise of all our powers;
In the acquisition of Knowledge;
In fighting evils... 

Joy is there Everywhere. 

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are. 

 ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

When people begin to meditate, they often say that their thoughts are running riot and have become wilder than ever before. But I reassure them that this is a good sign. Far from meaning that your thoughts have become wilder, it shows that you have become quieter, and you are finally aware of just how noisy your thoughts have always been. Don’t be disheartened or give up. Whatever arises, just keep being present, keep returning to the breath, even in the midst of all the confusion. 

~ Sogyal Rinpoche

To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe -- to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it -- is a wonder beyond words. 

~ Joanna Macy

To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.  

~ Johannes A. Gaertner

To this day I believe we are here on earth to live, grow, and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom. 

~ Rosa Parks

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words. 

~ Donna Roberts

Look into your hand. The fingers are like five brothers and sisters from the same family. Suppose we are a family of five. If you remember that if one person suffers, you all suffer, you have the wisdom of nondiscrimination. If the other person is happy, you are also happy. Happiness is not an individual matter. 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within. 

~ Eckhart Tolle

Compassion is the pillar of world peace.  

~ H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama

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

~ Mother Teresa

If you dedicate yourself to service, the doors will open. 

~ Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Alchemical Wisdom

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

~ Albert Einstein

I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we've attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can't be happy now, we'll likely not be happy when.  

~ Philip Gulley, Porch Talk

People gain so much hope when they know they are not experiencing something alone.  

~ Joyce Rupp

The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry.  

~ Maya Angelou

Be Yourself. 

Life is precious

as it is. 

All the elements

for your happiness are

already here. 

There is no need

to run, strive, search, or struggle. 

Just be. 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses fear. 

~ Upanishads

If you don’t have happiness in the present moment, there is no way to have happiness in the future. 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

When we try to pick anything out by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. 

~ John Muir

When you are motivated by the desire to transcend suffering, to get out of a difficult situation, and to help others to do the same, you become a powerful source of energy that helps you to do what you want to do to transform yourself and to help people.  

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Thanksgiving comes to us out of the prehistoric dimness, universal to all ages and all faiths. At whatever straws we must grasp, there is always a time for gratitude and new beginnings. 

~ J. Robert Moskin

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. 

~ A.J. Muste

Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again. 

~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others. 

~ Archibald Rutledge

We may forget with whom we laughed, but not with whom we shared tears.  

~ Tanzanian proverb

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  

~ Gwendolyn Brooks

Envy is the art of counting another's blessings instead of your own.  

~ Harold Coffin

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. 

Jalaluddin Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair. 

~ Howard Thurman

Instead of looking for love, give it; constantly renew it in yourself and you will always feel its presence within you. It will always be there smiling at you, gazing on you kindly. 

~ Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. 

~ John Burroughs

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Loss makes artists of us all as we weave new patterns in the fabric of our lives. 

~ Greta W. Crosby

Learn how to see.  Realize that everything connects to everything else. 

~ Leonardo da Vinci 

Let the beauty we love be what we do. 

~ Jalaluddin Rumi

The universe is change; life is your perception of it. 

~ Marcus Aurelius

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. 

~ Jalaluddin Rumi

Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside. 

~ Ramana Maharshi

There is this wave of gratefulness developing ... a new way of being mindful. It is an interactive form of mindfulness. There is a hunger for mindfulness that expresses itself interactively! This gives me great hope. 

~ David Steindl-Rast

The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them. 

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Love is so exquisitely elusive. It cannot be bought, cannot be badgered, cannot be hijacked. It is available only in one rare form: as the natural response of a healthy mind and healthy heart. 

~ Eknath Easwaran, Words to Live By

The gratitude that we encounter helps us believe in the goodness of the world, and strengthens us thereby to do what's good. 

~ Dr. Albert Schweitzer

The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members, a heart of grace, and a soul generated by love.  

~ Coretta Scott King

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go out and do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.~ 

~ Howard Thurman

Gratitude can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. 

~ Melody Beattie

Love consists in leaving the loved one space to be themselves while providing the security within which that self may flourish.

~ Tony Judt

To love unconditionally requires no contracts, bargains, or agreements. Love exists in the moment-to-moment flux of life.

        ~ Marion Woodman

There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved.  

~ Charles Morgan

Every time you express gratitude or compassion for any aspect of yourself or someone else, you breathe life in. 

~ Mariah Fenton Gladis, Tales of a Wounded Healer