Life is lived in the mists -
little is fully visible, less is certain.
Yet rejoice in the unknowing,
and let all of life be a wonderful adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing,
are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.
We have done so much, for so long, with so little,
we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
- Mother Teresa
Know that the greatest fear is fear of the unknown.
Seek to meet the unknown with courage and a sense of adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The unknown is like the darkness of a cave -
it can be illuminated by the brief light
of one adventurer's small candle.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The most painful and debilitating fear is fear of the unknown.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We all have an instinctive fear of the unseen.
Make a conscious effort to discover
and embrace the unfamiliar -
to view the unknown not as a lurking monster,
but as a glorious adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We stand today on the edge of a new frontier ...
a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils -
a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.
- John F. Kennedy
A single event can awaken a stranger totally unknown to us.
To live is to be slowly born.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Today is a day to choose a different path.
Enjoy the unknown way - one step at a time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The challenge before us is to savor the unknown
and delight in the taste of possibility.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past
have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.
- George S. Patton
What if it were only an illusion?
Perhaps life is not as threatening as it appears.
Perhaps the greatest threat to our serenity
is our fear of the future -
our fear of the unknown.
Perhaps, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said,
"The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Fear of the unknown is
the greatest fear of humankind,
and death the greatest unknown.
Acknowledging these doubts and the fears
is a powerful beginning.
It is liberating to say,
"Yes, I don't know, and yes, I am afraid."
Beyond that, the path to happiness
lies in living in the moment -
enjoying what you are doing today.
You don't need a reason to be happy,
just a choice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We fear the unknown,
perhaps more than we fear anything else,
and yet we are, at heart, adventurers.
We seek to expand our realm of knowledge and dominion.
Perhaps we are attempting to overcome and crush the unknown,
but our duel with the unknown is such a one-sided clash
that we must know in our hearts
that our adventure is no more than a child's game.
Perhaps we hope that the unknown
is like the darkness of a cave
and that the brief light of our adventurer's candle
can illuminate the entire cave.
Nonetheless, the path of the adventurer
is a path of joy, while the way of fear is one of suffering.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The greatest battle of all is simply... Life.
This is no child's game. This is the big one -
the Super Bowl - the Game of all games.
The rules of Life are unwritten and unknown.
Perhaps, one could say that there are no rules.
The Judge has ultimate power.
She can call the game at any time - for any reason.
The penalties in the Game are completely arbitrary -
in both timing and severity.
Penalty for what, we ask?
The Judge is silent.
How can I win the Game?
"You can never win," comes the answer,
"So just take pleasure in playing the Game."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Faith:
When you walk to the edge of all the light you have
and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,
you must believe that one of two things will happen:
...
There will be something solid for you to stand upon,
or, you will be taught how to fly
- Patrick Overton - from his book of poems: The Leaning Tree, 1975
[Widely mis-attributed to Barbara J. Winter, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and others]
There is not a truth existing which I fear...
or would wish unknown to the whole world.
- Thomas Jefferson
I honor you, Hero, for you do not play to the crowd.
You play to your own soul.
An audience of one fills the house with its appreciation and applause.
Others follow you, and may attempt to emulate you,
but that is not why you are a hero.
Fame may smile upon you, or it may not.
The world may cheer your name, or you may be the unknown warrior
who rescued comrades in battle,
or taught a young girl how to shed tears of joy.
Whatever you did, you did not do for fame.
If you had, you would not be a Hero.
You are a Hero for your bold courageous inspired action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Great men, unknown to their generation,
have their fame among the great who have preceded them,
and all true worldly fame subsides
from their high estimate beyond the stars.
- Henry David Thoreau
For centuries, theologians have been explaining
the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
- H. L. Mencken
Interesting.
You Earth people glorify organized violence for 40 centuries,
but you imprison those who employ it privately.
- the character Spock in the television series Star Trek
The African is my brother but he is
my younger brother by several centuries.
- Albert Schweitzer
I wanted to see exotic Vietnam, the jewel of Southeast Asia.
I, uh, I wanted to meet interesting
and stimulating people of an ancient culture,
and kill them.
- the movie Full Metal Jacket
It is an interesting question how far men
would retain their relative rank
if they were divested of their clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau
A lot of presidential memoirs, they say, are dull and self-serving.
I hope mine is interesting and self-serving.
- William J. Clinton
Success is never so interesting as struggle
- Willa Cather
The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.
- Susan Sontag
The most interesting information comes from children,
for they tell all they know and then stop.
- Mark Twain
My boyfriend and I broke up.
He wanted to get married and I didn't want him to.
- Rita Rudner
I have often wanted to drown my troubles,
but I can't get my wife to go swimming.
- Anonymous
After fifteen minutes I wanted to marry her,
and after half an hour
I completely gave up the idea of stealing her purse.
- the movie Take the Money and Run (1969)
Some people wanted champagne and caviar
when they should have had beer and hot dogs.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Sometimes you get the results you wanted,
sometimes you don't.
What matters is that you did your best.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
In my prayers I never said I needed a home.
I said I wanted a sanctuary.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
In all our contacts, it is probably the sense
of being really needed and wanted
which gives us the greatest satisfaction
and creates the most lasting bond.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Today is the right day to do
what you have long wanted to do.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.
- John Burroughs
Even the rich are hungry for love,
for being cared for, for being wanted,
for having someone to call their own.
- Mother Teresa
Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh?" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand.
"I just wanted to be sure of you."
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)
I wanted to know the name of every stone
and flower and insect and bird and beast.
I wanted to know where it got its color, where it got its life -
but there was no one to tell me.
- George Washington Carver
I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work
without having to talk
because for years I had been giving myself out in words.
- Albert Schweitzer
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
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
The urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- H. L. Mencken
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
Who never walks save where he sees
men's tracks, makes no discoveries.
- J. G. Holland
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
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
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 no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
- George Santayana
Personal transformation can and does have global effects.
As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us.
The revolution that will save the world
is ultimately a personal one.
- Marianne Williamson
Let there be no purpose in friendship
save the deepening of the spirit.
- Khalil Gibran
Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.
You have only to persevere to save yourselves.
- Winston Churchill
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
It is any day better to stand erect
with a broken and bandaged head
then to crawl on one's belly,
in order to be able to save one's head.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
Who will save your soul if you won't save you own?
- Jewel
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor,
it cannot save the few who are rich.
- John F. Kennedy
What does it profit, my brethren,
if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
Can faith save him?
- James 2:14
Choose! If it's worth doing, do it today.
If it's not worth doing today, save yourself a lot
of worry and regret by choosing to permanently
erase it from your to-do list.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil;
but it needs a little much of letters and phone calls
and small, silly presents every so often -
just to save it from drying out completely.
- Pam Brown
Training - training is everything; training is all there is to a person.
We speak of nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature;
what we call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training.
We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own;
they are transmitted to us, trained into us.
All that is original in us, and therefore fairly creditable
or discreditable to us, can be covered up and hidden
by the point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms
contributed by, and inherited from, a procession of ancestors
that stretches back a billion years to the Adam-clam
or grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been
so tediously and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed.
And as for me, all that I think about in this plodding sad pilgrimage,
this pathetic drift between the eternities,
is to look out and humbly live a pure and high and blameless life,
and save that one microscopic atom in me that is truly me:
the rest may land in Sheol and welcome for all I care.
- Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
I am prepared to meet my Maker.
Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal
of meeting me is another matter.
- Winston Churchill
To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
- the Woody Allen movie Stardust Memories
Oh, if only God would give me some sign.
If He would just speak to me once. Anything.
One sentence. Two words. If He would just cough.
- the movie Love and Death
God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is,
he's stuck with so many bad actors
who don't know how to play funny.
- Garrison Keillor
You may call God love, you may call God goodness.
But the best name for God is compassion.
- Meister Eckhart
We are all atheists about most of the gods
that societies have ever believed in.
Some of us just go one god further.
- Richard Dawkins
If God listened to the prayers of men,
all men would quickly have perished:
for they are forever praying for evil against one another.
- Epicurus
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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.