Quotes

~Arthur Polotnik

You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. 

~Mohandas Gandhi

A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.

~Cesar Chavez

We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.

~Mohandas Gandhi

Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.

~Max Ehrmann (1872-1945)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.     ~from DESIDERATA

~Nelson Mandela

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

~Hans Margolius

Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.

~Albert Einstein

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

~F.H. Clark

Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots.

~Socrates

The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less. 

 ~William Arthur Ward

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.  

~Martin Luther King Jr.

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

~Dante

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis choose neutrality.

~Michael Yaconelli

Religious people love to hide behind religion. They love the rules of religion more than they love Jesus. With practice, condemners let rules become more important than the spiritual life. 

~ John Muir

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

~Nelson Mandala 

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

~Kerry Washington

We need to be willing to be uncomfortable, to be flawed, to be imperfect, to own our voices. 

~Theodore Roosevelt

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. 

~55 Maxims for Christian Living by Fr. Thomas Hopko

1. Be always with Christ.
2. Pray as you can, not as you want.
3. Have a keepable rule of prayer that you do by discipline.
4. Say the Lord’s Prayer several times a day.
5. Have a short prayer that you constantly repeat when your mind is not occupied with other things.
6. Make some prostrations when you pray.
7. Eat good foods in moderation.
8. Keep the Church’s fasting rules.
9. Spend some time in silence every day.
10. Do acts of mercy in secret.
11. Go to liturgical services regularly
12. Go to confession and communion regularly.
13. Do not engage intrusive thoughts and feelings. Cut them off at the start.
14. Reveal all your thoughts and feelings regularly to a trusted person.
15. Read the scriptures regularly.
16. Read good books a little at a time.
17. Cultivate communion with the saints.
18. Be an ordinary person.
19. Be polite with everyone.
20. Maintain cleanliness and order in your home.
21. Have a healthy, wholesome hobby.
22. Exercise regularly.
23. Live a day, and a part of a day, at a time.
24. Be totally honest, first of all, with yourself.
25. Be faithful in little things.
26. Do your work, and then forget it.
27. Do the most difficult and painful things first.
28. Face reality.
29. Be grateful in all things.
30. Be cheerful.
31. Be simple, hidden, quiet and small.
32. Never bring attention to yourself.
33. Listen when people talk to you.
34. Be awake and be attentive.
35. Think and talk about things no more than necessary.
36. When we speak, speak simply, clearly, firmly and directly.
37. Flee imagination, analysis, figuring things out.
38. Flee carnal, sexual things at their first appearance.
39. Don’t complain, mumble, murmur or whine.
40. Don’t compare yourself with anyone.
41. Don’t seek or expect praise or pity from anyone.
42. We don’t judge anyone for anything.
43. Don’t try to convince anyone of anything.
44. Don’t defend or justify yourself.
45. Be defined and bound by God alone.
46. Accept criticism gratefully but test it critically.
47. Give advice to others only when asked or obligated to do so.
48. Do nothing for anyone that they can and should do for themselves.
49. Have a daily schedule of activities, avoiding whim and caprice.
50. Be merciful with yourself and with others.
51. Have no expectations except to be fiercely tempted to your last breath.
52. Focus exclusively on God and light, not on sin and darkness.
53. Endure the trial of yourself and your own faults and sins peacefully, serenely, because you know that God’s mercy is greater than your wretchedness.
54. When you fall, get up immediately and start over.
55. Get help when you need it, without fear and without shame. 

~Michael Yaconelli

“Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but because we let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives. ”

~ Maya Angelou

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.

~Coretta Scott King

Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.