The third element of true love is joy. If during the time you love you cry a lot, you'll make the other person cry a lot too. That is not true love. So true love should have the element of joy. -  Thich Nhat Hahn

"Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.”  
- Nido Qubein

"Youthfulness is about how you live not when you were born.” - Karl Lagerfield

"Everyone is special, everyone is important.  If you think of it that way then, it kind of nullifies the concept of "specialness".  It's a statistical inevitability that most of us are kind of average and there's nothing wrong with that.  That's really a big part of my point...Let's get past that. One will be judged on who you are and what you do.  And, one should not assume that every success and accolade will fall into one's lap simply because you're a good person. Life just doesn't work that way…" - David McCullough, Jr.

From the book In The Garden of Thoughts by Dodinsky

"Do not waste the balance of life left to you in thoughts about other persons, when you are not referring to some advantage of your fellows--for why do you rob yourself of something else which you might do?"  - Marcus Aurelius

“There is nothing more precious than laughter”  - Frida Kahlo

“Physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an attempt by an atom to understand itself.” - Dr. Michio Kaku

"You cannot pick your circumstances, but do the best you can within them."

"Little islands are all large prisons: one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow."  - Richard Burton

"The coin that pays for ecstasy is always stamped despair. One cannot love empathetically until one wanders there."  ~ Jane Krainin - Dictated right before she died of ALS

"Don't wait around for other people to be happy for you.  Any happiness you get you've got to make yourself." - Alice Walker

"The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated." 

- Mahatma Gandhi

Five universally applicable lessons from David Foster Wallace's now-iconic 2005 commencement address...

1. Ruthlessly question your own beliefs and assumptions.
2. Growing is a movement from narcissism to connection.
3. Stay present and open.
4. Create your own meaning.
5. Above all, be good to others.

“Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine - it is stranger than we can imagine.” - Arthur Stanley Eddington

"Remember that if you have health, shelter, clean water and food you are luckier than most. Keep your perspective."

"Everybody can create change because you have yourself.  That's the biggest thing that anybody could have. If you can change yourself that will change the world."  - Alice Walker

"The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." 
- Mahtma Gandhi

Everything that has ever happened to us is there to make us stronger.  - John Trudell

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

~ William Blake  

"Denial is not a dirty word; it can be a functional coping tool to gently accept a harsh reality." - Dr. Lani Leary

"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein

Our Thoughts Are Not Real

"The thought appears in front of and within only you. Without the juice of your attention, it simply disappears without a trace… If you don't engage with, or entertain that thought, it will literally not exist. The thought appears only within you. Your friend knows nothing of it. And making it even stranger, you did not even have the thought that you are calling "yours." Rather, it appeared to and within your awareness, without your ever choosing it or asking it to show up! If that thought is not fueled with your attention or interest, it will already have disappeared." - Nancy Colier, LCSW, Rev

One-Minute Mystic

• enjoy your work and the changing seasons
• avoid grand plans, just respond to things as they arise
• push your own self to one side as far as you are able so you can see other people
• instead of seeking fulfillment, seek only to be empty - this will create space for true understanding 
• do not value power but do value peace
• it is okay to swing between joy and sadness, glory and failure ... there's no great different between them
• breath slowly and listen for the order in the Universe

From One-Minute Mystic by Simon Parke

Nothing real can be threatened.  Nothing unreal exists.

A Course in Miracles

In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher. ~Dalai Lama

"Stop asking why and just sit back and enjoy the ride." - Tony Parsons

"This is the true joy in life - that being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one - that being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish, little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." - George Bernard Shaw

Friend-to-Friend

"... it is good to keep in mind that nothing stays the same, often there are trade-offs, and for most of us nothing is ever perfect.  We get settled in our ways and I think as we age adjustments become more challenging. I try to be conscious of the need to be flexible for being rigid does not serve me, just like a tree limb survives in a storm by being flexible."