Interlude: An Internet Retreat "Thought of the Day"

If someone is too tired to give you a smile, leave one of your own, because no one needs a smile as much as those who have none to give.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch

Things are beautiful if you love them.
Jean Anouilh, Mademoiselle Colombe

Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all–the apathy of human beings.
Helen Keller

The Zen master Ling Chi said that the miracle is not to walk on burning charcoal or in the thin air or on the water; the miracle is just to walk on earth. You breathe in. You become aware of the fact that you are alive. You are still alive and you are walking on this beautiful planet. The greatest of all miracles is to be alive.
Thich Nhat Hanh

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
William Morrow

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.
St. Francis De Sales

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you will help them become what they are capable of becoming.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is an illusion to think that more comfort means more happiness. Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
Storm Jameson

What was once called the objective world is a sort of Rorschach ink blot, into which each culture, each system of science and religion, each type of personality, reads meaning only remotely derived from the shape and color of the blot itself.
Lewis Mumford

If you affirm the positive, the negatives will drop off by themselves.
Ramana Maharishi

Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
Betty Smith

To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.
Stephen Covey

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.
Carl Gustav Jung

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shapes of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience, and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.
Joseph Addison

Our separation from each other is an illusion of consciousness.
Albert Einstein

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear but around in awareness.
James Thurber

Soft sweet speech is the expression of genuine Love. Hate screeches, fear squeals, conceit trumpets, but love sings lullabies; it soothes, it applies balm. Practice the vocabulary of love.
Sathya Sai Baba

We see ourselves as broken, and then set out on a long and frustrating journey to fill our emptiness. But it is not fixing that we require; it is awakening.
Alan Cohen

Spread love everywhere you go; first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor…Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.
Mother Teresa

In-between stimulus and response is a space. In that space lies our power and freedom to choose. How we wield those choices determines our happiness.
Steven R. Covey

You don't create your mission in life. You detect it.
Victor Frankl

Our true nationality is mankind.
H. G. Wells

While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful.
H. G. Wells

You may follow one stream. Know that it leads to the Ocean, but do not mistake the stream for the Ocean.
Jan-Fishan

The witness is always in the here and now and it lives in each instant of living. To be in the witness is to listen with a still heart, with a waiting, open soul, without clinging, without opinions.
Ram Dass

Habit is the best of servants, or the worst of masters.
Nathaniel Emmons

Put from your belief that "I have have been wronged," and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears.
Marcus Aurelius

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
Charles Mayes

To teach another is the best way to learn for yourself.
Tryon Edwards

For as long as every man holdeth this right, of doing anything he liketh, so long are all men in the condition of war.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.
Leo Buscaglia

It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
Mohandas K. Gandhi

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander Time; for that's the stuff Life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin

Past Thoughts of the Day from Interlude: An Internet Retreat

If someone is too tired to give you a smile, leave one of your own, because no one needs a smile as much as those who have none to give.

Things are beautiful if you love them.

Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all–the apathy of human beings.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you will help them become what they are capable of becoming.

It is an illusion to think that more comfort means more happiness. Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

What was once called the objective world is a sort of Rorschach ink blot, into which each culture, each system of science and religion, each type of personality, reads meaning only remotely derived from the shape and color of the blot itself.

If you affirm the positive, the negatives will drop off by themselves.

Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.

To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shapes of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience, and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

Our separation from each other is an illusion of consciousness.

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear but around in awareness.

Soft sweet speech is the expression of genuine Love. Hate screeches, fear squeals, conceit trumpets, but love sings lullabies; it soothes, it applies balm. Practice the vocabulary of love.

We see ourselves as broken, and then set out on a long and frustrating journey to fill our emptiness. But it is not fixing that we require; it is awakening.

Spread love everywhere you go; first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor…Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.

In-between stimulus and response is a space. In that space lies our power and freedom to choose. How we wield those choices determines our happiness.

You don't create your mission in life. You detect it.

Our true nationality is mankind.

While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful.

You may follow one stream. Know that it leads to the Ocean, but do not mistake the stream for the Ocean.

The witness is always in the here and now and it lives in each instant of living. To be in the witness is to listen with a still heart, with a waiting, open soul, without clinging, without opinions.

Habit is the best of servants, or the worst of masters.

Put from your belief that "I have have been wronged," and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears.

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.

To teach another is the best way to learn for yourself.

For as long as every man holdeth this right, of doing anything he liketh, so long are all men in the condition of war.

Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.

It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander Time; for that's the stuff Life is made of.