Words of Wisdom

Here is a collection of some inspirational quotes, thoughts and words that help me keep my bearings in the pell mell of today's life.

"This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind...let it be something good."  - Anonymous

After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box.
                                                                - An Italian Proverb

The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? 

                                                               - An Arabian Proverb

I've seen and met angels wearing the disguise of ordinary people living ordinary lives
                                                               -Tracy Chapman

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.
                                                               - Chico Xavier

“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”
                                                               - Kahlil Gibran

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
                                                                - Ralph Waldo Emerson

There'll be two dates on your tombstone
And all your friends will read 'em
But all that's gonna matter is that little dash between 'em..."
                                                                - Kevin Welch

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.
                                                                - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Use what talent you possess:
the woods would be very silent
if no birds sang except those that sang best.
                                                               - Henry Van Dyke

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well." 

                                                               - Martin Luther King Jr.  

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
                                                               - Albert Einstein

One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
'Tis the set of sails and not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.  

                                                                - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"Come to the edge."
"We can't. We're afraid."
"Come to the edge."
"We can't. We will fall!"
"Come to the edge."
And they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.

                                                                    - Guillaume Apollinaire

The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

                                                                     - Lao Tzu

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

                                                                     - Ayn Rand

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world which is within our reach.

                                                                     -Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes