Great Quotations

Sometimes, there is no need to expand on quotations because the quotation does all the work for you.  I found all these quotations when I searched for quotations on "fulfillment" on the internet.  The internet is an amazing place, really.  We should all make an effort to gather all the best resources of the internet and save it in places, like a squirrel burying all his nuts for winter.  An apt analogy, I hope you'll agree.  Here they are... please enjoy! 

And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
       - Abraham Lincoln 

There's nothing as beautiful as the happiness of a child

The true way to soften one's troubles is to solace those of others.   
       - Madame De Maintenon

One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people. 
       - Dick Gregory

The secret to happiness is not in doing what one likes to do, but in liking what one has to do.
       - Anonymous

Who is blind? He who can see no other world. Who is dumb? He who can say nothing pleasant about his lot. Who is poor? He who is troubled with too many desires. Who is rich? He who is happy with his lot.
       - Indian Proverb  

You can never be happy at the expense of the happiness of others.
       - Chinese Proverb

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.
       - Hasidic Proverb 

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.
       - James Oppenheim

Happiness itself does not stay -- only moments of happiness do.
       - Spanish Proverb 

Discontent is the source of all trouble, but also of all progress, in individuals and nations.
       - Berthold Auerbach
 
The purpose of life is not to be happy – but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.
       - Leo Rosten, American teacher and humorist

Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life.
       - Burton Hills

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
       - Storm Jameson 

Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
       - Margaret B. Runbeck

It is not length of life, but depth of life.
       - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.
      - Anonymous

Unless we think of others and do something for them, we miss one of the greatest sources of happiness.
       - Ray Lyman Wilbur

 The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
      - Allan K. Chalmers 

 

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

Happiness is a state of activity.
       - Aristotle

The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.
       - Helen Keller

A man is not old until regrets start taking place of dreams.
       - Anonymous

The Great Lesson

"The great lesson is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's backyard" - Abraham Maslow

Searching for the sacred almost seems like a paradox.  It sometimes seems that the more you search for it, the more quickly it disappears.  Searching for It brings you back to the ordinary, or that which seems ordinary.  Is it only that we search for such superlatives, or that we search for such extraordinariness that we don't notice what's in front of our face?

There are so many people who are in our court, who are on our side.  There are so many people just waiting for us to do something with them.  So many people right in front of our faces who are there, who are willing, who like us.  Yet we want something greater.

What is this... greater?  There is no greater.  Sometimes even the fan blowing on you is sacred.  If something so small can be sacred, imagine all the small things that are there.  There are so many.  It seems absurd to count them, it seems absurd to list them because there are so many.

Just looking at my dog can make me happy.  But my mind brings forward something that doesn't make me happy, something that irritates me.  Or it brings forward times when things aren't so right.  Just because there are times when things aren't so right doesn't mean that there aren't times when things ARE right.

It's OK for things to NOT be OK, but we mustn't make that huge generalization that things are always one way or the other, because they aren't.  They simply aren't.

Things are OK much of the time and sometimes that just isn't good enough for us.  Our striving for something better doesn't let us appreciate how good OK is.

OK stands for all correct.  If things are OK they really are all correct.  And what's wrong with that?

What's wrong with OK?

When things go very badly, when we face some huge crisis in our lives, only then do we realize how good OK can be.  The only reason we don't always realize how good OK is, is because we are always searching for the superlative.

Let us look at what we have.  Let us enjoy what is.  Let us realize that the ordinary is packed with goodness, and where there is goodness, there is not badness, and in that we can rejoice.

"refuse the evil and choose the good" - Isaiah 7:15

All labels such as Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Taoist, Confuciousist.... etc.... seem to be useless in the face of a powerful verse.

A powerful verse is like a beautifully cut huge diamond in front of a jeweler.  It doesn't matter who brought it, the jeweler will still admire it and want to make use of it.

This is such a simple verse from the Bible but very powerful, and gives you great possibility.  Not only that, it gives you a stark command, a stern command.

Sometimes you need to hear something stern to follow, and something simple.  It does not say to decry evil, or to denounce evil... NO.... it says to refuse evil.  Just refuse it, plain and simple.  And choose good.

Do you see the power in that? 

We should all reflect on such a statement and see how we can incorporate that into our day.