Inspire yourself

What inspires you? A great book, words of wisdom, a beautiful movie? Please share if you’d like.

These are some of my favorites…mostly quotes, but now and then something else may find its way to this list.

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” ~  Jack London

“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.”
~ C.S. Lewis

When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in
our life, or in the life of another. ~ Helen Keller

Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows
with the ability to say no to oneself. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

“The difference in who you are and who you want to be is what you do.” ~ Marla Cilley

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world it is best to hold hands and stick together. ~ Robert Fulghum

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.”
~ C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces: A Novel of Cupid and Psyche

“Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.” ~ Robert Fulghum

“Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.” ~ Robert Fulghum

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.” ~ Robert Fulghum

“People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.” ~ Audrey Hepburn

“The greatest gift I’ve ever received … is a Mother who is happy to be one.” (from MJ’s blog)

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”  ~ Agatha Christie

“I’m not happy, I’m cheerful. There’s a difference. A happy woman has no cares at all. A cheerful woman has cares but has learned how to deal with them.”  ~ Beverly Sills

“Most of us miss out on life’s big prizes. The Pulitzer. The Nobel. Oscars. Tonys. Emmys. But we’re all eligible for life’s small pleasures. A pat on the back. A kiss behind the ear. A four-pound bass. A full moon. An empty parking space. A crackling fire. A great meal. A glorious sunset. Hot soup. Cold beer.” ~ Anonymous

“Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should never come, the opportunities for good deeds are renewed day by day. The thing for us to long for is the goodness, not the glory.” ~ F.W. Faber

“It is better to say, ‘This one thing I do’ than to say, ‘These forty things I dabble in.’ ” ~ Washington Gladden

“There is in every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.”  ~ Washington Irving

“Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.” ~ Helen Keller

“Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continued process. ” ~ Phillips Brooks

“Sometimes apologizing doesn’t mean that you are wrong and the other is right. Sometimes it means that you value the relationship much more than your ego.” ~ Anonymous

“There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl’s complexion.” ~ Audrey Hepburn

“We come into this world crying while all around us are smiling. May we so live that we go out of this world smiling while everybody around us is weeping.” ~ Persian proverb

“Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr

“Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.” ~ Agatha Christie

“Never confuse motion with action.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. ~ Mary Oliver

“The formula for a happy marriage? It’s the same as the one for living in California; when you find a fault, don’t dwell on it.” ~ Jay Trachman

“It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen.” ~ Brigette Bardot

“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one.” ~ Mother Teresa

“Peace is the first thing the angels sang.” ~ John Keble

“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.”    ~ Fulton Oursler

“Self discipline is remembering what you really want” ~ Marla Cilley

“Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.”  ~ Zen Proverb

“We are sometimes taken into troubled waters not to drown, but to be cleansed.” ~ Anonymous

“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” ~ Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

“There’s no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.” ~ Jill Churchill

“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”  ~ Abraham Lincoln

“Making the decision to have a child – its momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” ~ Elizabeth Stone

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Muriel Strode

“A pint can’t hold a quart – if it holds a pint it is doing all that can be expected of it.”  ~ Margaret Deland

“I strive for the best and I do the possible.”  ~ Lyndon Baines Johnson

“What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” ~ Oscar Wilde

“Character is the governing element of life, and is above genius.” ~ Frederick Saunders

“Getting an idea should be like sitting down on a pin; it should make you jump up and do something.”        ~ E.L. Simpson

“Courage is the thing: All goes if courage goes.” ~ J.M. Barrie

“Don’t be afraid to take a big step. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.”  ~ David Lloyd George

“Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.” ~ Hosea Ballou

“Home, in one form or another, is the great object of life.” ~ Josiah G. Holland

“Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

“I already know an awful lot of people and until one of them dies I couldn’t possibly meet anyone else.” ~ Audrey Hepburn in Charade

“Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.” ~ Clementine Paddleford

“Truth exists; only lies are invented.” ~ Georges Braque

“Keep your fears to yourself but share your courage with others.” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

“There is no real excellence in all this world which can be separated from right living.” ~  David Starr Jordan

“We are human beings, not human doings.” ~ Author unknown

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” ~ John Watson

“It requires wisdom to understand wisdom; the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.” ~ Walter Lippman

“It is only with the heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.”  ~ Julia Child

“I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers – but you learn, my God, do you learn.” ~ C. S. Lewis

“I am easily satisfied with the very best.” ~ Winston Churchill

“Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.” ~ Oswald Chambers

“The impeded stream is the one that sings.” ~ Wendell Berry

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” ~ Winston Churchill

“I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.” ~ Steven Wright

“The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” ~ Chinese proverb

“We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.” ~ Winston Churchill

“Too much indulgence has ruined thousands of children; too much love not one.” ~ Fanny Fern

“You know, you don’t throw a whole life away just ’cause he’s banged up a little.”  ~ from Seabiscuit

“If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” ~ C. S. Lewis