Please
scroll down to locate the following categories:
Action, Affirmation, Character, Communication, Compassion, Creativity, Debt, Dreams, Equality, Faith, Government, Imperfection, Integrity, Intimidation, House and Home, Learning, Life and Death, Love, Management, Materialism, Mothers, Opportunity, Passion, Personal Attacks, Relationships, Sex, Time, Women
Action “Somebody has to do something and it is incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.” – Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead “My body is my ballot, and I try to cast it on behalf of the people around me every day of my life. I don’t assign responsibility to do things to other people; I accept the responsibility to make sure that things get done.” – Utah Phillips from Acoustic Guitar magazine, 8/97, pg 70 Affirmation “You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, ‘. . .you’re right! I never would’ve thought of that!’” – DaveBarry Character "One can acquire everything in solitude except character"- Stendhal Communication “People feel you more than they hear you.” – Rev Al Sharpton from Esquire Magazine, pg 80, Jan 05 “He speaketh not;
And yet there lies
A conversation
In his eyes.” – Longfellow “You’ve got to get people laughing so their throats open up wide enough to be able to swallow something bigger.” – Ani DiFranco from Acoustic Guitar magazine, 8/97, pg 64 "News is what somebody somewhere doesn't want you to know. All the rest is advertising." - unknown author quoted by Dan Rather in an interview by Cal Fussman, Esquire, 8/05, pg 120 "The press is a watchdog. Not an attack dog. Not a lapdog. A watchdog. Now, a watchdog can't be right all the time. He doesn't bark only when he sees or smells something that's dangerous. A good watchdog barks at things that are suspicious." - Dan Rather from an interview by Cal Fussman, Esquire, 8/05, pg 120 Compassion “. . .we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.” – President John F. Kennedy "It's hard to help the poor if you're one of them." -Russell Simmons, black entrepreneur Creativity “Creativity isn’t the conclusions you have drawn but how you pry them back open.” – David Crismon, Esquire, pg 87, Jan 05 Debt “If you want to get to know someone, loan him some money.” – Rick Franks, Esquire, pg 87, Jan 05 “Then I say the earth belongs to each. . . generation during it’s course, fully and in its own right, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of it’s own existence.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1789 Dreams “All men dream: but not equally.” – T.E. Lawrence “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. “– Helen Keller "To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to to be given the chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy. As everyone else, I love to dunk my crust in it. But alone, it is not a diet designed to keep body and soul together." Bette Davis Excerpt from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho: (this is rather long but I hope you think it worthwhile)
‘“Why do we have to listen to our hearts?”
“Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure.”
“But my heart is agitated,”. . .”It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and it’s become passionate over a woman of the desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I’m thinking about her.”
“Well, that’s good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say.”
“My heart is a traitor,” the boy said to the alchemist, when they had paused to rest the horses. “It doesn’t want me to go on.”
“That makes sense,” the alchemist answered. “Naturally it’s afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.”
. . .his heart told him that it was happy. “Even though I complain sometimes,” it said, “it’s because I’m the heart of a person, and people’s hearts are that way. People oare afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.”
“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
“. . .We, people’s hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them - the path to their destinies, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.
So, we, their hearts, speak more and more softly. We never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won’t be heard: we don’t want people to suffer because they don’t follow their hearts.”
“Why don’t people’s hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?” the boy asked the alchemist.
“Because that’s what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don’t like to suffer.” Equality “Light came to me when I realized that I did not have to consider any racial group as a whole. God made them duck by duck and that was the only way I could see them.” – Zora Neale Hurston in Dust Tracks on a Road “A man of quality is never threatened by a woman of equality” – Jill Briscoe "I hate prejudice of any kind, whether it be color or sexual preference. I don't give a shit if you had a goat. If it's a happy goat, and you're happy, I'm happy for you. However, I may not want to have dinner with the both of you." - Burt Reynolds, Esquire, pg 112, June 2005 Faith “Faith untested is just a hunch.” – Rev Al Sharpton from Esquire Magazine, pg 80, Jan 05 “I don’t disbelieve in God, just in the likelihood that anything we’ve come up with is even close.” - Daniel Mickelsen, Esquire, pg 86, Jan 05 “One of the stubbornly enduring habits of the human race is to insist on domesticating God. We are determined to tame him. We figure out ways to harness God to our projects. We try to reduce God to a size that conveniently fits our plans and ambitions and tastes.” – The Message, pg 174, Introduction to Leviticus "God has dealt to each one a measure of faith." Romans 12:3 Government "Government is like a big baby - an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other." - Ronald Reagan Imperfection “Ring the bells that still can ring,
forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen "Nowadays, instead of saying, '"He's a prick,"' I'll say, '"He's complicated."' - Burt Reynolds, Esquire, pg 112, June 2005 ". . . I don't take good pictures cuz I have the kind of beauty that moves." - lyrics by Ani DiFranco, evolve Integrity “I always go by instinct and then wrestle with where my instinct brought me.” – Rev Al Sharpton from Esquire Magazine, pg 80, Jan 05 “When you grow up glib, you know what to say to get you in the papers. You know what’s gonna get you quoted. But I gave that up. I stopped doing a lot of name-calling, I stopped just saying things that were quotable and started really weighing my actions, weighing my words, weighing my deeds.” – Rev Al Sharpton from Esquire Magazine, pg 80, Jan 05 ‘”unfaithfulness in public stations is deeply criminal. But there is no encouragement to be faithful. Neither profit, nor honor, nor applause is acquired by fathfulness. . .There is too much corruption, even in this infant age of our Republic. Virtue is not in fashion. Vice is not infamous.”’ - letter from Abigail in the book John Adams by David McCullough, pg160 “’If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless men are at the tail and the middle.”’ John Adams by David McCullough, pg 591 Intimidation “The basic rule of human nature is that powerful people speak slowly and subservient people quickly – because if they don’t speak fast nobody will listen to them.” – Michael Caine “He wants facts, not guesses, and he can pin you down so expertly that you soon lose the habit of talking all over your face.” –Zora Neale Hurston in Dust Tracks on a Road House and Home “A house means a family house, a place specially meant for putting children and men in so as to restrict their waywardness and distract them from the longing for adventure and escape they’ve had since time begun.” – Marguerite Duras “It is the personality of the mistress that the home expresses. Men are forever guests in our homes, no matter how much happiness they may find there.” – Elsie De Wolfe “I was a Southerner, and had the map of Dixie on my tongue.” – Zora Neale Hurston in Dust Tracks on a Road Learning “When I get a little money, I buy books, and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” - Erasmus Life, and Death “The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.” – Albert Sweitzer “If you look down, you’re sure to find dirt.” – anonymous “When the sun rises, I go to work,
When the sun goes down, I take my rest,
I dig the well from which I drink,
I farm the soil that yields my food,
I share creation, Kings can do no more.” – Ancient Chinese, 2500 BC “God does not care. . . whether I am happy or not. What God cares about, with all the power of God’s holy being, is the quality of my life. . . not just the continuation of my breath and the health of my cells – but the quality of my life, the heft and zest of my life. . . fear of death always turns into fear of life, into a stingy, cautious way of living that is not really living at all. . .to follow Jesus means going beyond the limits of our own comfort and safety. It means receiving our lives as gifts instead of guarding them as. . .possessions.” – Rev. Barbara Taylor Brown “None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” – Henry Thoreau "If you keep ordering truckloads of manure, they'll keep delivering them." - unknown "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?" - Satchel Paige, quoted in USA Today "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly
proclaiming...'Wow! What a ride!'" - unknown Love "Great love and great achievement involve great risk." - anonymous "The best relationship is one is which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other." - anonymous Management “You can tell a lot about a place by how well its Wal-Mart is run.” – Thomas Root, Esquire, pg 87, Jan 05 Materialism “Consumption clearly contributes to human development when it enlarges the capabilities and enriches the lives of people without adversely affecting the well-being of others, when it is as fair to future generations as it is to the present ones, when it respects the carrying capacities of the planet, and when it encourages lively, creative individuals and communities.” 1998 United Nations Human Development Report on Consumption
Mothers
Seen on a BBQ restaurant sign just before Mother's Day: "Buy yo Momma BBQ, she cain't eat no flowers"
Opportunity
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison Passion “’Reason holds the helm, but passions are the gales.”’ - from the book John Adams by David McCullough "Like millions of Americans, I was dealt a hand of intense emotions and volatile moods. I have had manic-depressive illness, also known as bipolar disorder, since I was 18 years old. It is an illness that ensures that those who have it will experience a frightening, chaotic and emotional ride. It is not a gentle or easy disease. And, yet, from it I have come to see how important a certain restlessness and discontent can be in one's life; how important the jagged edges and pain can be in determining the course and force of one's life.
I have often longed for peace and tranquility - looked into the lives of others and envied a kind of calmness - and yet I don't know if this tranquility is what I truly would have wished for myself. One is, after all, only really acquainted with one's own termperament and way of going through life. It is best to acknowledge this, to accept it and to admire the diversity of temperaments Nature has dealt us." - Kay Redfield Jamison, author and professor of psychiatry, from Morning Edition, This I Believe essays, June 6, 2005 Personal Attacks “I don’t take attacks personally. Ed Koch and I used to condemn each other from morning to night, and now we work together on the Second Chance program. And I went and spoke at his birthday dinner. ‘Cause it’s not personal. We represent points of view. The minute you start thinking everything is personal, you need to get into another business.” – Rev Al Sharpton from Esquire Magazine, pg 80, Jan 05 Relationships “When you love someone, you’ll find that they have two kinds of qualities. Good ones and amusing ones. If you manage to maintain that attitude with the person you marry, you’ll have a happy life. . . “ – Ethan Black, All the Dead Were Strangers "She did the worse thing a woman can do to a man. She quit believing in me." Ike Turner in the movie "What's Love Got To Do With It?" Sex “You can’t live off of yesterday’s orgasms.” - Miggs Burroughs, Esquire, pg 86, Jan 05 “Love, I find is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.” – Zora Neale Hurston from Dust Tracks on a Road "Women might be able to fake orgasms, but men can fake whole relationships." - Sharon Stone, quoted in the London Times "The difference between love and sex is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." - Dan Rather from an interview by Cal Fullman, Esquire, 8/05, pg 120. Time “Chew. It’s fast food but it’s not going anywhere.” – Dan Chodrow, Esquire, pg 87, Jan 05 Women “The naked woman’s body is a portion of eternity too great for the eye of man.” – William Blake “White, yellow and brown girls dreamed about roses and perfume and kisses. Black gals dreamed about guns, razors, ice-picks, hatchets and hot lye.” – Zora Neale Hurston from Dust Tracks on a Road “A man of quality is never threatened by a woman of equality” – Jill Briscoe "When a diplomat says yes, he means perhaps, when he says perhaps he means no. When he says no, he is not a diplomat. When a lady says no, she means perhaps, when she says perhaps, she means yes. But when she says yes, she is no lady." - Lord Denning "Young women are like refined sugar. . .a delight to the senses, but no real substance." - Gerald Drumwright "All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner." - Red Skelton
|
|
