Inspiring Words...

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Asimov, Isaac

Auden, W.H.

Buddha

Confucius

Frye, Mary Elizabeth

Gandhi, Mahatma

MacNeice, Louis

Roosevelt, Theodore

Shaw, George Bernard

St. Vincent Millay, Edna

Teresa, Mother

Wallace, David Foster

Watts, Alan

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome."
Isaac Asimov 

"You can shed tears that she has gone
or you can smile because she has lived
You can close your eyes and pray that she will come back
or you can open your eyes and see all that she has left
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her 
or you can be full of the love you shared
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday
You can remember her and only that she’s gone
Or you can cherish her memory and let it live on
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
or you can do what she’d want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on."
Anon
(Read at the funeral of the Queen Mother, April 2002) 

“Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.”
Alan Watts 

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat”
Theodore Roosevelt 

"You are the most powerful person in your universe.
Our deepest fear is not
that we are inadequate
Our deepest fear is not that we are
powerful beyond all measure.
It is our light not our darkness
That frightens us most.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be
brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world
There’s nothing enlightened about
shrinking, so that other people
won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It’s in everyone!
And as we let our light shine,
We unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own
fear, our presence automatically liberates others"
Marianne Williamson, quoted by Nelson Mandela 

"Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan."
Greek proverb 

"Be the change you want to see in the world"
Mahatma Gandhi 

"Do not believe, just because wise men say so
Do not believe because it has always been that way
Do not believe just because others may believe so
Examine and experience yourself"
Buddha 

"I am not a teacher - only a fellow traveller of whom
You asked the way
I pointed ahead - ahead of myself as well as you"
George Bernard Shaw 

"It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness"
Chinese proverb 

"There is no such thing as atheism.
...Everybody worships.
The only choice we get is what to worship."
David Foster Wallace

"It is easy to take words for granted until they slip through your fingers like goldfish." 

"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 will 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."
Mother Teresa

"Tell me - I forget,
Show me - I remember,
Involve me - I understand."
Confucius

Funeral Blues
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W.H. Auden

Sonnet II
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say,
“There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Dirge Without Music
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.
Mary Elizabeth Frye

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.
Louis MacNeice

Snow
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it. 

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes -
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands -
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
Louis MacNeice