“Independence?   That's middle class blasphemy.   We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.”   --George Bernard Shaw

“Make no judgements where you have no compassion.”   --Anne McCaffrey

“Suspiciousness and distrust often erode the very relationships they are trying to protect.”   --Eileen Walkenstein

“It is not possible to give a young person a just view of life; he must have struggled with his own passions before he can estimate the force of temptation which betrayed his brother into vice.”   --Mary Wollstonecraft

“[A]s optimystics, we offer a presence that can life the spirits and change the perspective of others.   We do not have to do so much as be, radiating a peaceful awareness that can alter the vibrations of the universe and turn others toward the light—their own light. “   --Taylor & Crain, Optimystics Handbook

“Believe in magnetism, not in needles.”   --Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Society is a wave.   The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not.”   --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot but help but to bring some into their own lives as well.

“Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.”   --St. Francis of Assisi

“You may ask, ‘Who am I to forgive another person… for wrongs committed in the past?   What gives me the right?' The right to forgive is merely the flip side of the right you have to be angry.   One can just as easily ask, ‘What right do I have to be angry?'   It's your choice!”   --Matthew Flickstein, Journey to the Center

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”   --Albert Einstein

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”   --Henry Ford

“Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood.”   --Louise Beal

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”   --George S. Patton

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.

“Typically we see things through the filter of our former experience.   The way we perceive the world is dependent upon past impression, influence, and habit.   And as we perceive the world through past experience, we form expectations of the future based on past experience.   Some of these expectations may be reasonable and scientifically sound; others, however, may be limited because they are the result of faulty thinking or false impressions.   Making imagination shifts, allowing for new perceptions and possibilities, is a way out of the trap of prejudice and negative thinking that so often prevents humans from achieving a higher consciousness of universal love and compassion.”   --Taylor & Crain, Optimystics Handbook

“Our hatred of someone does not affect their peace of mind, but it certainly can ruin ours.”   --W. A. Nance

“Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.” --Margaret Millar

“Criticism is something we can avoid easily-- by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”   --Aristotle

“Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have of trying to change others.”   --Jacob M. Braude

“During the day, thoughts enter our mind about people who have hurt us.   Be aware of them.   Do not feed them energy.   Instead, offer the thoughts and then offer a blessing for those who have hurt you: ‘May they be well.'   This slowly begins to dry up our resevoirs of pain.   If the negative feeling is particularly strong, we use a special blessing... ‘May God bless him and keep him far from us.'   Such a blessing is miles better than a curse.”   --James Thornton, A Field Guide to the Soul

“A house divided amongst itself cannot stand.”   --Abraham Lincoln

“The surest way to be happy is to make sure someone else is happy.”   --Mark Twain

“It is not the critic that counts.   The credit belongs to the one who is actually in the arena; who strives valiantly.”   --Theodore Roosevelt

“The confidence we have in others stems directly from our confidence in ourselves.”   --Francois, Duc de la Rochefoucald

“When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.”   --Keller

“To exist is to change; to change is to mature; to mature is to create oneself endlessly.”   --Henri Bergson

“There is another key point regarding forgiveness.   We usually think of people in terms of their bodies, their speech, actions, mental processes, or as a combination of these factors.   If we look closely we discover that bodies constantly change, words disappear the moment they are spoken, actions end the instant they are committed, and mental processes incessantly rise and fall away.   The people with whom you were angry no longer exist as they were.   You are angry only with a memory of how they looked, what they said, what they did, or how they thought.   These individuals may still exhibit similar traits, but they are not exactly the same.   It is the illusion that nothing has changed that keeps us trapped in the past.”   --Matthew Flickstein, Journey to the Center

“The aim of an argument or discussion should be progress, not victory.” --Joseph Joubert

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”   --Philo

“Generosity gives assistance, rather than advice.”   --Vauvenargues

“We come together this morning to remind one another to rest for a moment on the forming edge of our lives, to resist the headlong tumble into the next moment, until we claim for ourselves awareness and gratitude, taking time to look into one another's faces and see there communion; the reflection of our own eyes.   This house of laughter and silence, memory and hope, is hallowed by our presence together.”

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” --Mother Theresa

“Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.”   --William Makepeace Thackeray

“To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give.” –Taisen Deshimaru

“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your own riches, but to reveal to him his own.”   --Benjamin Disraeli

We could learn a lot from crayons;   some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors… but they have to live in the same box.

“”Forgive us that often we forgive ourselves so easily and others so hardly; forgive us that we expect perfection from those to whom we show none; forgive us for repelling people by the way we set a good example; forgive us the folly of trying to improve a friend; forbid that we should use our little idea of goodness as a spear to wound those who are indifferent, forbid that we should feel superior to others when we are only more shielded; and may we encourage the secret struggle of every person.” -- Vivian Pomeroy

“If it is language that makes us human, one half of language is to listen.   Silence can exist without speech, but speech cannot live without silence.   Listen to the speech of others.   Listen even more to their silence.”   --Jacob Trapp

“I am a single cell in the body of four billion cells.   The body is humankind.   I am a single cell.   My needs are individual but they are not unique.   I am interlocked with other human beings in the consequences of our actions, thoughts, and feelings.   I will work for human unity and human peace; for a moral order in harmony with the order of the universe.   Together we share the quest for a society of the whole equal to our needs, a society in which we need not live beneath our moral capacity, and in which justice has a life of its own.   We are single cells in a body of four billion cells.   The body is humankind.”   --Norman Cousins, Human Options: An Autobiographical Notebook, 1981

“Because of those who came before, we are; in spite of their failings, we believe; because of and in spite of the horizons of their vision, we too dream. Let us go remembering to praise, to live in the moment, to love mightily, to bow to the mystery.”   --Barbara Pescan

“To live in this world you must be able to do three things: To love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.”   --Mary Oliver, American Primitive, 1983

“Your children are not your children.   They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.   They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.   You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts.   You may house their bodies, but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.   You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.” --Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge.

“Getting people to like you is simply the other side of liking other people.”   --Norman Vincent Peale

“You can't shake hands with a clenched fist.”   --Golda Meir

“Pride is tasteless, colorless and sizeless.   Yet it is the hardest thing to swallow.”   --August B. Black

God gave us two ears but only one mouth.   Some people say that's because he wanted us to spend twice as much time listening as talking.   Others claim it's because he knew that listening was twice as hard.

“The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”   --Dorothy Nevill

“One of the most beautiful ways the soul is present is through thought.   Thoughts are the forms of the soul's inner swiftness. In a certain sense, there is nothing in the world as swift as a thought.   It can fly anywhere and be with anyone.   Our feelings too can move swiftly; yet even though they are precious to our own identity, thoughts and feelings still remain largely invisible.   In order to feel real, we need to bring that inner invisible world to expression.   Every life needs the possibility of expression.”   -- John O'Donahue, Anam Cara

“[Thou hath] not so much brain as ear wax.”   --Shakespeare, Troilus & Cressida

Do not point your finger at another, for it leaves 3 more pointing back at you.

“Your ignorance cramps my conversation.”   --Anthony Hope