reflecting life…

 

The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.

~Francis Bacon

where there is smoke there is fire…

Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire.

~François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

 

mysterious ways…

 

What a strange narrowness of mind now is that, to think the things we have not known are better than the things we have known.  ~Samuel Johnson

keep out or keep in…

Fear is the highest fence.

~Dudley Nichols

succumbed

 

Humankind has not woven the web of life.  We are but one thread within it.

Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.  All things are bound together.

All things connect.

~Chief Seattle, 1855

birds of a feather…

 

Each of us is a being in himself and a being in society,

each of us needs to understand himself and understand others,

take care of others and be taken care of himself.
– Haniel Long

live everything…

 

“I beg you… to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without ever noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

-Rainer Maria Rilke

go placidly…

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.

© Max Ehrmann 1927

peaceful calm

The cyclone derives its powers from a calm center.  So does a person.

~Norman Vincent Peale

 

home is where the heart is…

 

Home is a shelter from storms – all sorts of storms.  ~William J. Bennett