Food for Thought

You have better things to do than worry
why others aren’t taking what you have to offer.
Don’t waste your magic on people who won’t be moved by it.

—AOL Daily Horoscope (Wednesday, April 10, 2002)

When life knocks you to your knees, and it will, why, get up!
If it knocks you to your knees again, as it will, well . . .
isn’t that the best position from which to pray?

—Ethel Barrymore

Practice easing your way along . . .
do your best; take it as it comes.
You can handle anything if you think you can.
Just keep your cool and your sense of humor.

—Smiley Blanton, M.D.

If you are going through hell . . . keep going.

—Winston Churchill

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero

Do not go where the path may lead;
go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

The real contest is always between what you’ve done and what you’re capable of doing.
You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else.

—Geoffrey Gaberino

Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect.
There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions.
So what? Get started now. With each step you take,
you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled,
more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.

—Mark Victor Hansen

You achieve much once you stop telling yourself you can’t do things.

—Elizabeth Kadetsky

As there is only so much we can accomplish in a day, week or lifetime,
we might as well make sure that at least some of it is what we really want to do.

—Kajama(Tuesday, July 23, 2002)

If you’re confused and don’t know what to do,
ask yourself what you would want to do if ANYTHING were possible.
It may reveal something important you’ve been trying to ignore.

—Kajama(Thursday, September 5, 2002)

If your life is a mess and you don’t know where to begin to make things better,
you might start by simply putting your physical world in order.
Get rid of the dirt and clutter in your environment and replace junk food
and other unhealthy habits with something better.
As you go through this process, you’ll find yourself receiving insights into the deeper issues
that are troubling you, and you’ll feel empowered to create positive change in your life.

—Kajama(Tuesday, May 11, 2004)

If I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of advice for all humanity it would be this:
Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life; and when it comes, hold your head high,
look it squarely in the eye and say, “I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.”

—Ann Landers

There is no limit to what you can imagine.
And with commitment, with effort, what you can imagine you can become.
Put your mind to work for you. Believe that you can do it.
The world will tell you that you can’t.
Yet, in your belief you’ll find the strength, you’ll find the ability, to do it anyway.

—Ralph Marston

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity.
We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.

—Marie Beyon Ray

Don’t follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit
as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise.

—Joan Rivers

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

—Kenny Rogers

Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons.

—Ruth Ann Schabacker

The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it,
to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.

—Hannah Whitall Smith

Put blinders on to those things that conspire to hold you back, especially the ones in your own head.
Guard your good mood. Listen to music every day, joke and love and read more for fun, especially poetry.

—Meryl Streep, U of New Hampshire commencement, 2003

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.
Now put the foundations under them.

—Henry David Thoreau

In the name of God, stop a moment, close your work, and look around you.

—Leo Tolstoy

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

My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate.

—Thornton Wilder

If your ship has not come in yet, swim out to meet it!

—Jonathan Winters