Collected Truths - quotations & words of wisdom

John Wooden

2011-12-21T08:36:00.003-05:00

Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation.

H.G. Wells

2011-11-17T14:10:00.002-05:00

We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.

Marcel Proust

2011-07-08T00:00:00.002-04:00

We don't receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

Henry Ellis

2011-05-02T07:50:00.002-04:00

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.

Author Unknown

2011-02-25T09:09:00.005-05:00

Keep your heart open to dreams. For as long as there's a dream, there is hope, and as long as there is hope, there is joy in living.

John Muir

2011-01-21T16:04:00.003-05:00

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.

Seneca

2011-01-08T10:48:00.001-05:00

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

Tom Robbins

2010-12-12T18:17:00.007-05:00

Mockingbirds are the true artists of the bird kingdom. Which is to say, although they're born with a song of their own, an innate riff that happens to be one of the most versatile of all ornithological expressions, mocking birds aren't content to merely play the hand that is dealt them. Like all artists, they are out to rearrange reality. Innovative, willful, daring, not bound by the rules to which others may blindly adhere, the mockingbird collects snatches of birdsong from this tree and that field, appropriates them, places them in new and unexpected contexts, recreates the world from the world. For example, a mockingbird in South Carolina was heard to blend the songs of thirty-two different kinds of birds into a ten-minute performance, a virtuoso display that serve no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

2010-11-09T07:59:00.004-05:00

The soul is indestructible and its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.

Edward Hopper

2010-11-09T07:59:00.003-05:00

More of me comes out when I improvise.

Charlotte Bronte

2010-11-09T07:56:00.001-05:00

Better to be without logic than without feeling.

Louis Nizer

2010-10-29T17:59:00.001-04:00

True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

2010-10-20T07:41:00.002-04:00

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves,and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

Martin Luther King Jr.

2010-09-22T22:33:00.001-04:00

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Hellen Keller

2010-08-27T17:09:00.004-04:00

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope or confidence.

Latin Proverb

2010-05-18T08:06:00.002-04:00

If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2010-05-18T08:03:00.001-04:00

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

2010-05-18T08:01:00.001-04:00

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

Author Unknown

2010-05-18T07:55:00.000-04:00

From every human being there rises a light that reaches straight to heaven. And when two souls that are destined to be together find each other, their streams of light flow together, and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being.

William Cowper

2010-05-18T07:32:00.000-04:00

Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

Robert Collier

2010-03-09T07:28:00.003-05:00

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.

James Boswell

2010-03-08T13:09:00.001-05:00

We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.

Author Unknown

2010-03-03T22:51:00.002-05:00

Some see a hopeless end, while others see an endless hope.

Denis Diderot

2010-02-13T10:42:00.005-05:00

Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.

Author Unknown

2010-02-02T13:31:00.002-05:00

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

2010-01-29T10:03:00.003-05:00

The holiest of all holidays are those
kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
the secret anniversaries of the heart.

Author Unknown

2009-09-24T09:22:00.006-04:00

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

Thomas Moore, Irish Poet

2009-09-15T08:35:00.003-04:00

The ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.

Irish Proverb

2009-09-04T12:58:00.004-04:00

May you always have walls for the winds, a roof for the rain, and tea beside the fire, laughter to cheer you, those you love near you, and all that your heart may desire.

Robert Louis Stevenson

2009-08-23T16:54:00.005-04:00

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.

Henry David Thoreau

2009-08-23T01:17:00.005-04:00

All these expanding leaves and flower buds are much more beautiful in the rain, covered with clear drops. They who do not walk in the rain never behold them in their freshest and most radiant beauty.

Edward Hopper

2009-08-23T01:15:00.001-04:00

More of me comes out when I improvise.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

2009-08-10T23:43:00.002-04:00

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Swedish Proverb

2009-04-01T20:37:00.001-04:00

Those who wish to sing always find a song.

Vincent van Gogh

2009-04-01T20:36:00.001-04:00

The best way to know life is to love many things.

Marcus Aurelius

2009-04-01T20:35:00.001-04:00

Very little is needed to make a happy life - it is all within yourself and in your way of thinking.

Benjamin Mays

2009-04-01T20:33:00.000-04:00

The tragedy in life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2009-04-01T20:32:00.003-04:00

Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success.
When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2009-04-01T20:29:00.002-04:00

The only true gift is a portion of thyself.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

2009-04-01T20:25:00.002-04:00

Pablo Picasso

2007-03-20T23:13:00.001-04:00

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something.

Carl Jung

2006-11-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

Author Unknown

2006-08-31T10:45:00.000-04:00

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Henry David Thoreau

2006-06-05T22:49:00.000-04:00

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

Robert Browning

2006-06-05T22:43:00.000-04:00

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?

Author unknown

2006-06-05T22:33:00.000-04:00

To reach any goal requires that we be unyielding about where we intend to go, but flexible about how to get there.

Vincent Van Gogh

2006-06-05T22:31:00.000-04:00

If you hear a voice within you saying "you are not a painter", then by all means paint...and that voice will be silenced.

HIGH FLIGHT, by Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

2006-06-05T22:26:00.000-04:00

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings:
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up in the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Mark Twain

2006-05-12T19:24:00.000-04:00

Dance like nobody's watching;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Sing like nobody's listening;
Live like it's heaven on earth.

Found inscribed over a doorway at Westminster Abbey

2006-03-24T23:55:00.001-05:00

Of the craftsmen it may be said that
in the handiwork of their craft is their prayer.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2006-03-24T23:55:00.000-05:00

Adopt the pace of nature;
her secret is patience.

Longfellow, Ladder of Saint Augustine, st. 10

2006-03-24T23:49:00.000-05:00

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Marcel Marceau

2006-03-24T23:46:00.000-05:00

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?

Philip Thatcher

2006-03-24T23:45:00.000-05:00

Ask not what the world needs;
ask rather what makes your heart sing,
and go do that -
for what the world needs
is people
with hearts that sing.

Henry van Dyke

2006-03-24T23:44:00.000-05:00

Be glad of life,
for it gives you the chance
to love, and to work, and to play,
and to look up at the stars.

Goethe

2006-03-24T23:42:00.000-05:00

One should, every day at least,
hear a little song, read a good poem,
see a fine picture, and, if possible,
speak a few reasonable words.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2006-03-24T23:38:00.000-05:00

Once you make a decision,
the universe conspires to make it happen.

John Muir

2006-03-24T23:32:00.000-05:00

This grand show is eternal.
It is always sunrise somewhere,
the dew is never all dried at once,
a shower is forever falling,
vapor is ever rising.
Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset,
eternal dawn and gloaming,
on sea, continents, and islands,
each in its turn
as the round earth rolls.

Leonardo da Vinci

2006-03-24T23:30:00.000-05:00

Where the spirit does not work with the hand,
there is no art.

Sign over an old inn, Bray, England

2006-03-24T23:21:00.000-05:00

Fear knocked at the door
Faith answered
There was no one there.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

2006-03-24T23:16:00.000-05:00

I am a part of all that I have met.