ANON

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.

ARISTOTLE

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

NADINE STAIR

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

How poor are they that have not patience.
What wound did ever heal but by degrees? (From Othello)

HERBERT HOOVER

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

DOROTHEA BRANDE

To guarantee success, act as if it were impossible to fail.

Chinese Proverb

Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.

FRANCIS BACON

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humour to console him for what he is.


This week at EIGHTY PLUS FOUR (an octogenarian looks back) I look back to the 19th century when many Scots set off for the unknown to begin new lives in America.

http://80plus4.blogspot.com

BUDDHA

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast. A wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present to live better in the future.

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.

ANON

Life lives, life dies,
Life laughs, life cries,
Life gives up and life tries,
But life looks different through everyone’s eyes.

PEARL S. BUCK

The young do not know enough to
be prudent, and therefore they attempt
the impossible - and achieve it,
generation after generation.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.

DOUGLAS ADAMS

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.


My new weekly blog EIGHTY PLUS FOUR (An octogenarian looks back) can now be seen at - http://80plus4.blogspot.com

ROBERT BENCHLEY

You might think that after thousands of years of coming up too soon and getting frozen, the crocus family would have had a little sense knocked into it.

DAG HAMMARSKJOLD

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.

MICHELANGELO

The greater danger for most of us is not
that our aim is too high and we miss it,
but that it is too low and we reach it.

G.K. CHESTERTON

The way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost.

WILLIAM JAMES

The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

JOHANN VON GOETHE

Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.

ROBERT SOUTHEY

I have told you of the Spaniard who always put on his spectacles when about to eat cherries, so that they might look bigger and more tempting. In like manner I make the most of my enjoyments; and though I do not cast my cares away, I pack them in as little compass as I can, and carry them as conveniently as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.

LILY TOMLIN

For fast acting relief try slowing down.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

ISAAC ASIMOV

Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up - well, maybe once!

Latin Proverb

Possessions dwindle and I mourn their loss. But I mourn the loss of time much more, for anyone can save his purse, but none can win back lost time.

VICTOR HUGO

He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day and follows that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life.

HOMER

The charity that is a trifle to us can be precious to others.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.

ADAM GORDON

Life is mostly froth and bubble; two things stand like stone.
Kindness in another’s trouble; courage in our own.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

VIDAL SASSOON

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.

Turkish Proverb

Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.

AESOP

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

HOMER SIMPSON

Three little sentences will get you through life -
1. Cover for me
2. Good idea, boss
3. It was like that when I got here

OPRAH WINFREY

I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint, and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. (from The Merchant of Venice)

GEORGE S. PATTON

Say what you mean and mean what you say.

BUDDHA

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins, not through strength but through persistence.

From a 1920s song

Keep on smiling,
For when you're smiling,
The whole world smiles with you.

NELSON MANDELA

One of the things I learnt when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself I could not change others.

17th century proverb

Who is more busy then he who hath least to do?

EMILY DICKINSON

Saying nothing sometimes says the most.

FRIEDRICH ENGELS

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

DESHAN

All the profound doctrines are but a speck of dust in a vast void.
All the great affairs of the world are but a drop of water cast into a bottomless chasm.

ALBERT CAMUS

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

RUDYARD KIPLING

Take everything you like seriously, except yourself.

Japanese Saying

Fall seven times -
stand up eight.

AGATHA CHRISTIE

Curious things, habits - people themselves never know they have them.

The DALAI LAMA

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

THOMAS EDISON

Many of life's failures are people who
did not realize how close they were
to success when they gave up.

ELBERT HUBBARD

The greatest mistake you can make in
life is to be continually fearing
you will make one.

ANON

I cried because I had no shoes; then I met a man who had no feet.

LOU HOLTZ

Adversity is another way to measure
the greatness of individuals. I never had
a crisis that didn't make me stronger.

CATHERINE de HUECK DOHERTY

Acquire inner peace and a multitude will find their salvation near you.


This week at John’s Quiet Corner -

A painting “Romeo and Juliet”
A Shakespeare sonnet
A popular song from 1955
And Maxim Vengerov playing Kreisler’s Liebesfreud

http://john-quietcorner.blogspot.com

MARIA ROBINSON

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.

MARCUS AURELIUS

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

BUDDHA

Do not believe anything
because it is said by an authority,
or if it is said to come from angels,
or from Gods,
or from an inspired source.
Believe it only if you have explored it
in your own heart
and mind and body
and found it to be true.
Work out your own path,
through diligence.

ROBERT PIRSIG

To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.

HENRY STIMSON

The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.

DALE CARNEGIE

All life is a chance. So take it! The person who goes furthest is the one who is willing to do and dare.

Arabian Proverb

If you have much, give of your wealth.
If you have little, give of your heart.

OPRAH WINFREY

I define joy as a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace - a connection to what matters.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

To laugh often and much,
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children,
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends,
To appreciate beauty,
To find the best in others,
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a redeemed social condition or a job well done -
This is to have succeeded.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees? (from Othello)

WALT WHITMAN

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on, and have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains.

CONFUCIUS

Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself

CATO the Elder

I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue. He approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.

JIM RYUN

Motivation is what gets you started.
Habit is what keeps you going.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes.

An Indian Poem

This day is a special day, it is yours.
Yesterday slipped away, it cannot be filled anymore with meaning.
About tomorrow nothing is known.
But this day, today, is yours, make use of it.
Today you can make someone happy.
Today you can help another.
This day is a special day, it is yours.

MOTHER TERESA

Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.

ANON

The only way to have a friend is to be one.
The only way to get a friend is to be one.

THOMAS a KEMPIS

First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.

CHARLES READER

Sow a thought, and you reap an act.
Sow an act, and you reap a habit.
Sow a habit, and you reap a character.
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

FRIEDRICH von SCHILLER

Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.

from Monty Python "The Meaning of Life"

The meaning of life is nothing very special. Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

HERODOTUS

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

JOHN BERRY

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.

ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS

There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Content makes poor men rich. Discontentment makes rich men poor.

LAO-TZU

Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.

ANATOLE FRANCE

To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.

HENRY MILLER

Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

MARTIN FARQUAR TUPPER

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

Chinese Saying

A hundred men may make an encampment, but it takes a woman to make a home.

ANON

The person who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

G.K. CHESTERTON

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.

ANNE DILLARD

How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives.

PIET HEIN

He that lets the small things bind him
Leaves the great undone behind him.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

This is the miracle that happens every time - to those who really love - the more they give, the more they possess.

DEEPEK CHOPRA

In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside you.

ANON

If at the end of the day you feel dog-tired, maybe it's because you growled all day.

SAMUEL JOHNSON

Resolve not to be poor.
Whatever you have, spend less.

The DALAI LAMA

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

HENRY VAN DYKE

Time is
Too slow for those who wait
Too swift for those who fear
Too long for those who grieve
Too short for those who rejoice
But for those who love
Time is eternity

KATHERINE NORRIS

Life is easier to take than you would think. All that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable and bear the intolerable.

Arabic Saying

Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Every man should be born again on the first day of January.
Start with a fresh page.
Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances.
But on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.