Food for Thought

Most people can do extraordinary things
if they have the confidence or take the risks.
Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly
and treat life as if it goes on forever.

—Philip Andrew Adams

All human actions
have one or more of these seven causes:
Chance, nature, compulsions,
habit, reason, passion, and desire.

—Aristotle

As time passes we all get better at blazing a trail
through the thicket of advice.

—Margot Bennett

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

—Buddha

You can never plan the future by the past.

—Edmund Burke

If there is right in the soul,
there will be beauty in the person.
If here is beauty in the person,
there will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home,
there will be peace in the world.

—Chinese proverb

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light.
Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.

—Glenn Clark

A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.

—Reverend William Sloan Coffin, Jr.

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.

—Maureen Dowd

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.

—Peter Ferdinand Drucker

We don’t see ourselves as spiritual beings having a human experience;
we see ourselves as the other way around.

—Wayne Dyer

A ‘No’ uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater
than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please or, what is worse, to avoid trouble.

—Mahatma Gandhi

Bitter are the tears of a child; sweeten them.
Deep are the thoughts of a child; quiet them.
Sharp is the grief of a child; take it from him.
Soft is the heart of a child; do not harden it.

Pamela Glenconner

Negative emotion is your indication from your Inner Being
that the action you are considering is not in harmony with your greater intentions.

—Abraham Hicks

Out of sight, out of mind.

—Homer

About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

—Herbert Hoover

Four things come not back:
The spoken word, the sped arrow, time past, the neglected opportunity.

—Omar Ibn

The full man does not understand the wants of the hungry.

—Irish proverb

You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind.

—Irish proberb

You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow.

—Janis Joplin

If your eye is just a little clouded, flowering illusions are rampant.

—Kisu

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

—Anne Lamott

There are really only three types of people:
Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say, “What happened?”

—Ann Landers

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach.

—Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The greatest cause of ill-health is mountain-climbing over molehills.

—Maxwell Maltz

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

—Maori proverb

Sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side.

—Claude McDonald

As long as any adult thinks that he, like the parents and teachers of old, can become introspective,
invoking his own youth to understand the youth before him, he is lost.

—Margaret Mead

God gives us a memory, so that we may have roses in December.

—Vittorio Mori

Love what you do. Have a passion for what you do,
and no matter what else you have to do, what you love will always be with you.

—Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe

Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

—New Testament: James, i, 19

Sometimes it’s important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it’s essential
to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day
simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow.

—Douglas Pagels

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

Dolly Parton

It is better to be alone than in ill company.

—George Pettie

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

—Elizabeth Kubler Ross

As you cooked the porridge, so must you eat it.
As you make your bed, so you will sleep.

—Russian proverb

He that goeth to bed with dogs ariseth with fleas.

—James Sandforth

Our plans miscarry if they have no aim.
When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

—Seneca proverb

To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

—Mother Teresa

He who puts up with insult invites injury.

—Yiddish proverb

Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark.

—Zen proverb

You can complain because roses have thorns; or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.

—Ziggy

Difficulties are challenges that can make us bitter or better . . . the choice is ours.

—Author Unknown