Inspiring Quotes and Stories: 2011

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Story of Two Friends Walking Through the Desert

This story tells of two friends walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone: The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now, you write on a stone. Why?" The other friend replied, "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand, where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. When someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone, where no wind can ever erase it." Learn to write your hurts in sand, and to carve your benefits in stone.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Letter to God

The Most Beautiful People

Monday, December 19, 2011

Strange But True Fact

Sunday, December 18, 2011

A Parent's Love - I Cried After Watching This...

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Reality of Life

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Just for Today

Decide to be happy today, to live with what is yours - your family, your business, your job, your luck.
If you can't have what you like, maybe you can like what you have.
Just for today, be kind, cheerful, agreeable, responsive, caring, and understanding.
Be your best, dress your best, talk softly, look for the bright side of things.
Praise people for what they do and don't criticize them for what they cannot do.
If someone does something stupid, forgive and forget. After all, it's just for one day.
Who knows, it might turn out to be a nice day.

Forgive Them

People are often unreasonable,

irrational, and self-centered;

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind,

people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;

Be kind anyway.

If you are successful,

you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies;

Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere

people may deceive you;

Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating

others could destroy overnight;

Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness,

some may be jealous;

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today.

will often be forgotten;

Do good anyway.

Give the best you have,

and it may never be enough;

Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis,

it is between you and God;

It was never between you and them anyway.

Realize Value of Time

Always Remember

Always remember to forget

The things that made you sad

But never forget to remember

The things that made you glad.

Always remember to forget

The friends that proved untrue.

But don't forget to remember

Those that have stuck by you.

Always remember to forget

The troubles that have passed away.

But never forget to remember

The blessings that come each day.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Breaking the Illusion of Limitation

Inspiring Moments of 2011

Saturday, December 10, 2011

7 Great Quotations

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Change Your Beliefs to Change Your Life

Friday, November 18, 2011

Here I am to Worship

Mighty To Save

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Rumi Quotes

All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
He is like a man using a candle to look for the sun.
I have no more words. Let the soul speak with the silent articulation of a face.
Let the Beauty we love, be what we do.
We come spinning out of nothingness scattering stars like dust.
Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness.
We are tasting the taste of eternity this minute.
Lovers do not finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along.
Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
Burdens are the foundations of ease and bitter things the forerunners of pleasure.
That shadow has been serving you. What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.
We are not a drop in the ocean; we the the ocean in a drop.
Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
I have one small drop of knowing in my soul. Let it dissolve in your ocean.
Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart.
Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Love flows down. The ground submits to the sky and suffers what comes.
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.
Only from the heart Can you touch the sky.
You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?
The way you make love is the way God will be with you.
Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.
Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent.
Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded. Someone sober will worry about events going badly. Let the lover be.
Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still.
Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more - more unseen forms become manifest to him.
We can’t help being thirsty, moving toward the voice of water.
I died a mineral, and became a plant. I died a plant and rose an animal. I died an animal and I was man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
You are quaffing drink from a hundred fountains: whenever any of these hundred yields less, your pleasure is diminished. But when the sublime fountain gushes from within you, no longer need you steal from the other fountains.
To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.
Reason is like an officer when the king appears. The officer then loses his power and hides himself. Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun.
Pilgrimage to the place of the wise is to find escape from the flame of separateness.
In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you.
Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.
One day You will take my heart completely and make it more fiery than a dragon. Your eyelashes will write on my heart the poem that could never come from the pen of a poet.
Who could be so lucky? Who comes to a lake for water and sees the reflection of moon.
Now I am sober and there's only the hangover and the memory of love.
Look at Love... how it tangles with the one fallen in love.
Now give yourself a smile. What is the worth of a diamond if it doesn't smile?

Reading and Books

Some people claim that it is okay to read trashy novels because sometimes you can find something valuable in them. You can also find a crust of bread in a garbage can, if you search long enough, but there is a better way. ~ Jim Rohn

A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas-a place where history comes to life. ~ Norman Cousins

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. ~ Groucho Marx

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read. ~ Abraham Lincoln

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life. ~ Walt Disney

If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians. ~ Warren Buffett

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. ~ Gilbert Highet

Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books. ~ Bell Hooks

Read an hour every day in your chosen field. This works out to about one book per week, 50 books per year, and will guarantee your success. ~ Brian Tracy

Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi. ~ Oprah Winfrey

A room without a book is like a body without a soul. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. ~ Sir Winston Churchill

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Of course inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. ~ Groucho Marx

You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read. ~ Charlie Jones

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. ~ Jim Rohn

Happiness

If you want to be happy, be. ~ Leo Tolstoy
To live with a feeling of fulfillment is the greatest blessings for any human being. Only when gratitude flowers can fulfillment happen. When gratitude becomes your attitude, fulfillment becomes your nature. ~ Paramahamsa Nithyananda
Don’t keep thinking of what happened yesterday and what is going to happen tomorrow. Live in the moment and every situation will seem like the time of your life. ~ Swamiji Paramahamsa Nithyananda
Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it. ~ Jacques Prévert
Being happy does not mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections. ~ Unknown
Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy. ~ Robert Anthony
If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed 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 streetsweeper who did his job well. ~ Martin Luther King Jr
Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted. ~ Deepak Chopra
I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace. ~ Dalai Lama
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. ~ Dalai Lama
Happiness consists not in having much, but in being content with little. ~ Marguerite Gardiner
Happiness for a reason is a form of misery because the reason can be taken away from you at any time. To be happy for no reason is the happiness you want to experience. ~ Vedanta
Do everything with so much love in your heart that you would never want to do it any other way. ~ Yogi Desai
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. ~ John Lennon
Happiness is not a situation to be longed for, or a convergence of lucky happenstance. Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves. ~ Wayne Coyne
Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely, in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting “Holy shit, what a ride!” ~ Mavis Leyrer
If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you did n’t ask me, I’d still have to say it. ~ George F. Burns
I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time. ~ Herbert Bayard Swope
There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. ~ Epitectus
Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness. ~ Chang-Tzu
If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes. ~ Andrew Carnegie
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. ~ Albert Schweitzer
All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you ~ Wayne Dyer
Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. ~ Dale Carnegie
Happiness is a surprise. You can’t buy it, chase it or spring it on yourself and it will only happen when you’re not looking. ~ G (Kallie) Erasmus
Happiness is never stopping to think if you are. ~ Palmer Sondreal
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet. ~ James Oppenheim
If your position is everywhere, your momentum is Zero. ~ Michael Korda
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. ~ John F Kennedy

Success

The door of success swings on the hinges of obstacles. ~ Denis Waitley
I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the  formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody.  ~ Herbert B. Swope
What counts is not the number of hours you put in, but how much you put in the hours.  ~ Unknown
After my spectacular failures, I could not be satisfied with an ordinary success.  ~ Mason Cooley
People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.  ~ Anne Sullivan
Some aspects of success seem rather silly as death approaches. ~ Donald A. Miller
Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. ~ Dale Carnegie
How to succeed: try hard enough. How to fail: try too hard.  ~ Malcolm Forbes
One principal reason why people are so often useless is that they  neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their  attention among a multitude of objects and pursuits.  ~ Nathaniel Emmons
Don’t flaunt your success, but don’t apologize for it either.  ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his  life simply by altering his attitude of mind.  ~ William James
If your belief system has not molded the life you desire, how you  think will need to change. ~ Asha Tyson
I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright
The most difficult part of succeeding is believe you can succeed.
What ever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve. ~ Napolean Hill

Imagination

The man who has no imagination has no wings. ~ Muhammad Ali
When you stop having dreams and ideals - well, you might as well stop altogether. ~ Marian Anderson
The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
Sentiment is the ripened fruit of fantasy. ~ Madame Belazy
What is now proved was only once imagined. ~ William Blake
By going over your day in imagination before you begin it, you can begin acting successfully at any moment. ~ Dorothea Brande
Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blue print, and begin to build. ~ Robert Collier
Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. ~ Albert Einstein
Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our life. ~ Simone Weil
What you see is what you get. ~ Flip Wilson

Gratitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. ~ Melody Beattie
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. ~ William Arthur Ward
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others. ~ Marcus Cicero
"The more you recognize and express gratitude for the things you have, the more things you will have to express gratitude for.." ~ Zig Ziglar
Develop an attitude of gratitude. Say thank you to everyone you meet for everything they do for you. ~ Brian Tracy
Gratitude is a powerful tool. If you will allow yourself to feel grateful, your processing and programming can work immeasurably better. As you feel grateful for what you have, you start having more things about which to feel that gratitude. ~ Lazaris
At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. ~ Albert Schweitzer
The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits. ~ Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld
Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people. ~ Samuel Johnson
When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep? No—here’s to the pilot that weathered the storm. ~ George Canning
What soon grows old? Gratitude. ~ Aristotle
A man’s indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude. ~ Ruth Benedict
Alas, how quickly the gratitude owed to the dead flows off, how quick to be proved a deceiver. ~ Sophocles
Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude. ~ Sallust
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ~ John F. Kennedy
Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. ~ John Milton
Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau

Goals

If you want to get to you goals quickly you have got to get clarity on why you want it. What does it mean to you? Why do you need it in your life? And the stronger and more important the why – the more power you will have to pursue that goal. ~ Douglas Vermeeren

All things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation of all things. You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you’ve thought everything through. Then you put it into bricks and mortar. Each day, you go to the construction shed and pull out the blueprint to get marching orders for the day. You begin with the end in mind. ~ Stephen Covey

Meeting a goal takes dedication, effort and sacrifice, and all that it takes to turn a goal into a dream is Time. ~ Craig Lock

Goals are new, forward-moving objectives. They magnetize you towards them. ~ Mark Victor Hansen

Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass. ~ Paul J. Meyer

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high. ~ Henry David Thoreau

If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us. ~ Jim Rohn

Circumstances may cause interruptions and delays, but never lose sight of your goal. Prepare yourself in every way you can by increasing your knowledge and adding to your experience, so that you can make the most of opportunity when it occurs. ~ Mario Andretti

The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams. ~ Og Mandino

Future

I like men who have a future and a women who have a past. ~ Oscar Wilde

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Stop acting as if life is rehearsal. Live this day as if were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guranteed. ~ Wayne Dyer

I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and love today. ~ William Allen White

My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of life there. ~ Charles Kettering

The trouble with out times is that the future is not what it used to be. ~ Paul Valery

I never think of future. It comes soon enough. ~ Albert Einstein

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened. ~ John M Richardson, jr

Money

Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love, and do what you will. ~ Dan Millman

Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response. ~ Mildred Barthel

Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny. ~ Charles Reade

Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses. ~ Dale Carnegie

Pennies do not come from Heaven. They have to be earned here on earth. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Money is power. Money is force. Money will as well do good as harm. In the hands of good men and women, it can and has accomplished much good. ~ Russell Conwell

Money is like an arm or leg. Use it or lose it. ~ Henry Ford

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men. ~ Annonymous

To be satisfied with a little is the greatest wisdom and he that increaseth his riches increaseth his cares but a contended mind is a hidden treasure and trouble findeth it not. ~ Akhenaton

Money is plentiful for those who understand the simple laws which govern its acquisition. ~ George Clason

Money is neither my God nor my devil. Its is a form of energy that tends to make us more of who we already are whether it's greedy or loving. ~ Dan Millman

Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you food but not appetite medicine but not health acquaintances but not friends servants but not loyalty days of joy but peace or happiness. ~ Hernik Ibsen