“An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity: a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.”

“God gave us memories that we might have roses in December.” J. Barrie

“The love we give away is the only love we keep.” Elbert Hubbard

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Norman MacEwan

“A kiss can be a comma, a question mark or an exclamation point. That’s basic spelling that every woman ought to know.” Mistinguett

“What matters is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” Coach Bear Bryant

“Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.” Bob Hope

“Sometimes when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.” Lamartine

“And this I have learned grown-ups do not know the language of shadows.” Opal Whiteley

“I never met a man I didn’t like.” Will Rogers

“It’s good to have some friends both in Heaven and in Hell.” George Herbert

“If two people who love each other let a single instant wedge itself between them, it grows--it becomes a month, a year, a century, it becomes too late.” Jean Giraudoux

“Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy, you must have somebody to divide it with.” Mark Twain

“Some of my best friends are children. In fact, all of my best friends are children.” J.D. Salinger

“A friend is a present you give yourself.” R.L.S.

“My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.” Colette

“I want everyone else I meet in the whole world to like me, except the people I’ve already met, handled, found inconsequential and forgot about.” Joseph Heller

“Platonic love is love from the neck up.” Thyra Winslow

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

She had this laugh - it bulldozed you. You stood no chance against it.

Wars come and go but my soldiers stay eternal - Tupac

"The fate of the free world is in the hands of a bunch of hustlers and thieves."
--"Why should tonight be any different?"

from the movie "XXX"

To love another person is to see the face of God.

“Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.” John Updike

“We must constantly build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.” M.L.K. Jr.

“The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting in above-average effort.” Colin Powell

“The man who has no imagination has no wings.” Muhammad Ali

“There are those who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind is nothing but a dream. They are right, it is the American Dream.” Archibald MacLeigh

“Love is not a matter of counting the years--it’s making the years count.” Wolfman Jack Smith

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.” Shakespeare

“To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another.” G.W. Lebniz

“What you are becoming is more important than what you are accomplishing.”

“What I can not love, I overlook. Is that real friendship?”

“Visit a school and swing on the swing set.”

“Try to look graceful putting on a sports bra.”

“Try to figure out what makes non-fat cheese taste so bad.”

“The important thing is not what others think of me, but what I think of me.”

“The course of true love never did run smooth.” Shakespeare

“Take hold lightly, let go lightly. This is one of the great secrets of felicity in love.”

“It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.” Agnes Repplier

“May you live all the days of your life.” Jonathan Swift

“You shouldn’t speak unless you can improve upon the silence.”

“Yes’m old friends is always best, less you can catch a new one that’s fit to make an old one out of.” Sarah Jewett

“Why is it so easy to break a heart, but so hard to mend one?”

“Whenever I’m caught between two evils, I take the one I haven’t tried yet.”

“Whenever two good people argue over principles, they are both right.” M. Von Eschenbach

“When you say ‘I love you’, mean it.”

“When fate shuts a door--come in through a window.”

“When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about and that was the beginning of fairies.” J.M. Barrie

“When we constantly look through the windows of the past, we sometimes lock the door to the future.”

“Start making up excuses now for not flossing.”

“Send your mother-in-law flowers on your spouses birthday.”

“Remember this: When somebody is down there kissin’ your butt, they could easily be biting it too.”

“Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risks.”

“Reject and condemn prejudice based on race, gender, religion or age.”

“Regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow are twin thieves who rob us of the moment.”

“People treat me the way I allow them to treat me.”

“Never be ashamed of honest tears.”

“Never sacrifice your integrity for money, power or fame.”

She's a mustang and you just have to let her run...

“Make little decisions with your head and big decisions with your heart.”

“Love is merely a madness.” Shakespeare

“Love will break your heart--but it’s worth it.”

“Keep your bullshit detector in good working order.”

“Judge people from where they stand, not from where you stand.”

“I’ve been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.” Erma Bombeck

“It’s easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble.”

“It’s the good girls who keep diaries; the bad ones never have time.” T. Bankhead

“Don’t compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got.” Janis Joplin

“If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” E.M. Forster

“If you want a persons’ faults, go to those who love him. They will not tell you, but they know.” R.L. Stevenson

“I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.” Walt Whitman

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art...it has no survival value. Rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.” C.S. Lewis

“Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.” Oscar Wilde

“Here at the frontier, there are falling leaves. Although my neighbors are all barbarians, and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are always two cups on my table.” Tang Dynasty

“We have been talking as old friends should talk, about nothing, about everything.” Lillian Hellman

“Never refuse any advance of friendship, for if 9 out of 10 bring you nothing, one alone may repay you.” C. Tencin

“Part of the trouble is that I’ve never properly understood that some disasters accumulate, that they don’t all land like a child out of an apple tree.” J. Burroway

“For years I have endeavored to calm an impetuous tide--laboring to make my feelings take an orderly course--it was striving against the stream.” Mary Wollstonecraft

“My life’s a pool which can only hold one star and a glimpse of blue.” M. Riley Smith

“I look forward to growing old and wise and audacious.” Glenda Jackson

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” E. Roosevelt

“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.” Colette

“The idea of strictly minding our own business is moldy rubbish--Who could be so selfish?” Myrtle Barker

“It is better to die on your feet than life on your knees.”

“There is love that makes sense of your life and love that makes you senseless about life.” Diane Wakski

“Man is the only animal that blushes. OR needs to.” M. Twain

“If you don’t know the ending to a joke---don’t start it.”

“You put the happy in my ness. You put the good times in my fun. They say time will make all this go away – but it’s time that has taken my tomorrows and turned them into yesterdays. And once gain that rising sun is dropping on down – and once again, you my friend, are no where to be found.” – B.Harper

My life is like a stroll on the beach – as near to the edge as I can go – Thoreau

“I was at a party feeling very shy because there were a lot of celebrities around and I was sitting in a corner alone and a very beautiful young man came up to me and offered me some salted peanuts and he said, “I wish they were emeralds” as he handed me the peanuts and that was the end of my heart. I never got it back.” Helen Hayes

This is how we love, Buddha-style: impartial to all, free from excessive attachment or false hope and expectation; accepting, tolerant, and forgiving. Buddhist nonattachment doesn't imply complacence or indifference, or not having committed relationships or being passionately engaged with society, but rather has to do with our effort to defy change and resist the fact of impermanence and our mortality. By holding on to that which in any case is forever slipping through our fingers, we just get rope burn.

You only lose what you cling to

Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something,and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.

Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little

The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes. Pema Chodron

Do not pursue the past.Do not lose yourself in the future.The past no longer is.The future has not yet come.Looking deeply at life as it is.In the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom.We must be diligent today.To wait until tomorrow is too late.Death comes unexpectedly.How can we bargain with it?The sage calls a person who knows how to dwell in mindfulness night and day,'one who knows the better way to live alone.'Bhaddekaratta Sutta

What you eat cannot purify your mind - but is there greed behind your choice of eating? If yes, the mind that eats is not pure - be your choice vegetarian or not.

Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.

The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts. - Dalhi Lama