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