"A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows." St. Francis of Assisi August 28, 2008
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Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
  • One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year. He only is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with worry, fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.
  • When the eyes say one thing and the tongue another, the practiced person relies on the language of the first.
  • Thought is the blossom; language is the bud; action the fruit behind it.
  • A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
  • The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
  • A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.
  • What you do speaks so loud I can't hear what you say.
  • The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it's the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship.
  • There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says, "Anywhere but here."
    In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
  • That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased.
  • Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
  • People only see what they are prepared to see.
  • To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men--that is genius.
  • The power which resides in man is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
  • My chief want in life is someone who shall make me do what I can.
  • Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
  • In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.
  • Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and then leave a trail.
  • Go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.
  • Nothing external to you has any power over you.
 
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