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

“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

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

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

~Norman Vincent Peale

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

‎”Life is sunshine and rain, it’s joy and pain,” “We tend to reveal our successes and our highs; we conceal our pain, because people deal with our pain so ruthlessly, until maybe there’s a tipping point.
Rev. Jesse Jackson

While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now because our neighbors are so many.  ~Lady Bird Johnson

It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.

If you see a whole thing – it seems that it’s always beautiful.  Planets, lives… But up close a world’s all dirt and rocks.  And day to day, life’s a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern.  ~Ursula K. Le Guin