The way to activate the seeds of your creation is by making choices about the results you want to create. When you make a choice, you activate vast human energies and resources, which otherwise go untapped. All too often people fail to focus their choices upon results and therefore their choices are ineffective. If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.

Progress is what happens when impossibility yields to necessity.

Now scantier limits the proud arch confine, And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine; A small Euphrates thro' the piece is roll'd, And little eagles wave their wings in gold.

He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.

I plucked a honeysuckle where The hedge on high is quick with thorn, And climbing for the prize, was torn, And fouled my feet in quag-water; And by the thorns and by the wind The blossom that I took was thinn'd And yet I found it sweet and fair.

The reputation of a man is like his shadow, gigantic when it precedes him, and pigmy in its proportions when it follows.

There are many different voice and languages; but there is but one voice of the peoples when you are declared to be the true "Father of your country."

Sometimes thou shalt be forsaken of God, sometimes thou shalt be troubled by thy neighbors; and what is more, oftentimes thou shalt be wearisome even to thyself. Neither canst thou be delivered or eased by any remedy or comfort; but so long as it pleaseth God, thou oughtest to bear it. For God will have thee learn to suffer tribulation without comfort, and that thou subject thyself wholly to Him, and by tribulation become more humble. No man hath so cordial a feeling of the Passion of Christ, as he that hath suffered the like himself. The Cross therefore is always ready, and everywhere waits for thee. Thou canst not escape it, whithersoever thou runnest; for wheresoever thou goest, thou carriest thyself with thee, and shalt ever find thyself. Both above and below, without and within, which way so ever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and everywhere of necessity thou must hold fast patience, if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown. ...Thomas à Kempis, Of the Imitation of Christ June 8, 1996 Feast of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath & Wells, Hymnographer, 1711 The charm of the words of great men, those grand sayings which are recognized as true as soon as heard, is this, that you recognize them as wisdom which has passed across your own mind. You feel that they are your own thoughts come back to you, else you would not at once admit them. "All of that has floated across me before, only I could not say it, and did not feel confident enough to assert it: or had not conviction enough to put it into words." Yes, God spoke to you what He did to them: only, they believed it, said it, trusted the Word within them; and you did not. Be sure that often when you say, "It is only my own poor thought, and I am alone," the real correcting thought is this: "Alone, but the Father is with me, and therefore I can live that lonely conviction.".

The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.

Commemoration of William Morris, Artist, Writer, 1896 Commemoration of George Kennedy Bell, Bishop of Chichester, Ecumenist, Peacemaker, 1958 The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves at home here on earth.

Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.

I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.

I xeroxed my watch. Now I can give away free watches.

A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist.

Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannot congeal in winter.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.

Far from our eyes th' Enchanting Objects set, Advantage by the friendly Distance get.

To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Take the first advice of a woman and not the second.

Cease to admire the smoke, wealth, and noise of prosperous Rome.