If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house
with the conscious design of doing me good,
I should run for my life.
- Henry David Thoreau
The more he became truly wise,
the more he distrusted everything he knew.
- Voltaire
Our honorable and worthy ancestors knew that the world was flat,
motionless, and the center of the universe.
They knew the human body could not withstand
the forces of traveling faster than 19 mph.
They knew that the way to salvation was
exorcising witches and slaying non-believers.
They knew that it was a mortal sin to marry
someone of a different skin color.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
A person is smart. People are dumb,
panicky dangerous animals and you know it.
Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew
the Earth was the center of the universe.
Five hundred years ago,
everybody knew the Earth was flat,
and fifteen minutes ago,
you knew that humans were alone on this planet.
Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
- the movie Men in Black
What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
- Robert H. Schuller
We are now at a point where we must educate our children
in what no one knew yesterday,
and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet.
- Margaret Mead
Without music, life would be a mistake...
I would only believe in a God who knew how to dance.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
If we knew what it was we were doing,
it would not be called research, would it?
- Albert Einstein
When I saw you I fell in love,
and you smiled because you knew.
- commonly but falsely attributed to William Shakespeare
Future generations are not going to ask us
what political party were you in.
They are going to ask what did you do about it,
when you knew the glaciers were melting.
- Martin Sheen
I want it said of me by those who knew me best,
that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower
where I thought a flower would grow.
- Abraham Lincoln
Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best
that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower
where I thought a flower would grow.
- Abraham Lincoln
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song -
The song from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When we hate our enemies, we are
giving them power over us:
power over our sleep, our appetites,
our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.
Our enemies would dance with joy if only
they knew how they were worrying us,
lacerating us, and getting even with us!
Our hate is not hurting them at all,
but our hate is turning our own days
and nights into a hellish turmoil.
- Dale Carnegie
Once I knew only darkness and stillness ...
my life was without past or future ...
but a little word from the fingers of another
fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness,
and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.
- Helen Keller
The child in me could not die as it should have died,
because according too legends it must find its father again.
The old legends knew, perhaps, that in absence
the father becomes glorified, deified, eroticized,
and this outrage against God the Father has to be atoned for.
The human father has to be confronted and recognized as human,
as man who created a child and then, by his absence,
left the child fatherless and then Godless.
- Anais Nin
The third certainty of life, after death and taxes,
is that nothing will work out the way you want.
Life is fully as bad as you think it is.
Choose to live joyfully anyway.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
CALM IN CHAOS
In the midst of the flurry - clarity.
In the midst of the storm - calm.
In the midst of divided interests - certainty.
In the many roads - a certain choice.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
There is no certainty; there is only adventure.
- Roberto Assagioli
It is nearly a certainty that some
of your expectations will not be met today -
choose Joy anyway.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
In the midst of the flurry - clarity.
In the midst of the storm - calm.
In the midst of divided interests - certainty.
In the many roads - a certain choice.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
- Voltaire
When prayer removes distrust and doubt
and enters the field of mental certainty,
it becomes faith; and the universe is built on faith.
- Ernest Holmes
How is it that one rails against that
which is nearly a certainty?
- Mary Anne Radmacher
I didn't make it all the way through third grade for nothing.
- the movie The Rescuers Down Under
Greetings, cosmic children of the universe.
Welcome to my serenity circle.
Please leave all bad vibes outside the healing vortex.
- the movie Shrek the Third (2007)
Life is a moderately good play
with a badly written third act.
- Truman Capote
When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln
All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed;
Third, it is accepted as self-evident.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Clarke's Third Law:
Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C. Clarke
If you do something once,
people will call it an accident.
If you do it twice, t
hey call it a coincidence.
But do it a third time, and
you've just proven a natural law.
- Grace Hopper
If you have an important point to make,
don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver.
Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again.
Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
- Winston Churchill
I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
to the third and fourth generations.
- Exodus 20:5
I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize.
The first is gentleness;
the second is frugality;
the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others.
Be gentle and you can be bold;
be frugal and you can be generous;
avoid putting yourself before others
and you can become a leader among men.
- Lao Tzu
My boyfriend and I broke up.
He wanted to get married and I didn't want him to.
- Rita Rudner
Life's like Vegas. You're up, you're down,
but in the end the house always wins.
Doesn't mean you didn't have fun.
- the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer
but wish we didn't.
- Erica Jong
We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past,
but by the love we're not extending in the present.
- Marianne Williamson
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
- widely misattributed to Mark Twain
A politician needs the ability to
foretell what is going to happen
tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year.
And to have the ability afterwards
to explain why it didn't happen.
- Winston Churchill
I didn't want to marry anybody else in town.
I want my baby to look like you.
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946 movie)
I have found out in later years that we were very poor,
but the glory of America is that we didn't know it then.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If I hadn't met you, I wouldn't like you.
If I didn't like you, I wouldn't love you.
If I didn't love you, I wouldn't miss you.
But I did, I do, and I will.
- Anonymous
Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had
because they didn't have the talent
or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?
- Nelson Mandela
The most important thing about Spaceship Earth -
an instruction book didn't come with it.
- R. Buckminster Fuller
The earth is like a spaceship
that didn't come with an operating manual.
- R. Buckminster Fuller
What if happiness were found in the serenity of simple pleasures.
What if we didn't need the newest gizmo... the highest high?
What if happiness is in the air we breathe...
slowly, deeply, and consciously?
What if happiness is one fresh grape, savored with gratitude?
What if happiness is in our oneness with all creation?
What if happiness is about enjoying life exactly as it comes to us -
without chasing after it?
What if happiness is something we CHOOSE...
regardless of our circumstances?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
He didn't come out of my belly, but my God,
I've made his bones, because I've attended to every meal,
and how he sleeps,
and the fact that he swims like a fish
because I took him to the ocean.
I'm so proud of all those things.
But he is my biggest pride.
- John Lennon
I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.
I just wish he didn't trust me so much.
- Mother Teresa
Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago?
Didn't you waste a lot of fruitless energy
on account of most of them?
Didn't most of them turn out all right after all?
- Dale Carnegie
Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today,
at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little,
at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick,
at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.
- The Buddha
I have never written a book that didn't teach me
far more than it taught any reader.
- Isaac Asimov
Choose love. Choose to release all resentments.
Forgive everyone. Choose to release all regrets.
Forgive yourself for all decisions that you have ever made
that didn't work out as you hoped.
Forgive yourself for any financial decisions
that didn't meet your expectations.
Release your regrets if you choose
the "wrong" spouse or the "wrong" career.
Today, choose love.
Choose to love yourself.
Choose to love your life.
Choose to love all the friends, family, co-workers,
acquaintances, and others who share your life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
- Elizabeth Warren
When you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you,
and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living.
When you can see that, you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid,
and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.
- Joseph Campbell
From one point of view, one individual's vote
doesn't make any difference whatsoever.
The probability of an election swinging
by a single vote is infinitesimal.
On the other hand, if everybody took the attitude
that voting didn't matter, there could never
be a democratically elected government - at all.
So, does your vote matter? You bet your vote matters.
And, at least as much as your vote matters,
your intention for the future of the world matters.
That's so important, it's worth saying again.
At Least As Much As Your Vote Matters,
Your Intention For The Future Of The Entire World Matters.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Most of us seldom let the outrageous
part of ourselves out to play.
Notice that I didn't say "never," I said "seldom."
Halloween is one of those exceptions.
While there are certainly many "bah humbug" houses on our street,
more than half the houses wear an acknowledgement of Halloween -
and nothing about Halloween is NOT outrageous.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Save a boyfriend for a rainy day -
and another, in case it doesn't rain.
- Mae West
A friend will tell you she saw your old boyfriend -
and he's a priest.
- Erma Bombeck
The urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- H. L. Mencken
God has cared for these trees,
saved them from drought, disease, avalanches,
and a thousand tempests and floods.
But he cannot save them from fools.
- John Muir
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything
save our modes of thinking
and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
- Albert Einstein
Do not save your loving speeches
For your friends till they are dead;
Do not write them on their tombstones,
Speak them rather now instead.
- Anna Cummins
Farewell My Friend
It was beautiful as long as it lasted
The journey of my life.
I have no regrets whatsoever
save the pain I'll leave behind.
Those dear hearts who love and care...
And the strings pulling at the heart and soul...
The strong arms that held me up
When my own strength let me down.
At every turning of my life
I came across good friends,
Friends who stood by me,
Even when the time raced me by.
Farewell, farewell my friends
I smile and bid you goodbye.
No, shed no tears for I need them not
All I need is your smile.
If you feel sad do think of me
for that's what I'll like
when you live in the hearts
of those you love, remember then
you never die.
- Gitanjali Ghei
Who never walks save where he sees
men's tracks, makes no discoveries.
- J. G. Holland
Anxiety is love's greatest killer.
It makes one feel as you might
when a drowning man holds unto you.
You want to save him, but you know
he will strangle you with his panic.
- Anais Nin
Let there be no purpose in friendship
save the deepening of the spirit.
- Khalil Gibran
Who will save your soul if you won't save you own?
- Jewel
It is incumbent on every generation
to pay its own debts as it goes.
A principle which if acted on would
save one-half the wars of the world.
- Thomas Jefferson
There is nothing good or evil save in the will.
- Epictetus
The people will save their government,
if the government itself will allow them.
- Abraham Lincoln
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.