A Gift to the Center 2/19/05
All men (and women) dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men (and women) for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. -- Thomas Edward Lawrence (of Arabia)
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Community Service
All kids are gifted; some just open their packages earlier than others. -- Michael Carr
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them. -- Dalai Lama
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. -- Elizabeth Kübler-Ross
To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground. -- Stephen Covey
The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn. -- John Lubbock
We worry about what a child will be tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today. -- Stacia Tauscher
They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. -- Carl W. Buechner
Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. -- Henry James
The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own. -- Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another. -- Luciano de Crescenzo
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain. -- Helen Keller
Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people, brings happiness. -- Rabbi Harold Kushner
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
If you have nothing else to do, look about you and see if there isn't something close at hand that you can improve! It may make you wealthy, though it is more likely that it will make you happy. -- George Matthew Adams
If you see people without a smile today, give them one of yours. -- Unknown
In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to who show their good qualities in action. -- Aristotle
Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your in heaven. --Matthew 5:15 (see also v.14- 16)
No man can become rich without himself enriching others. -- Andrew Carnegie
No stranger to trouble myself I am learning to care for the unhappy. – Virgil
One great, strong, unselfish soul in every community could actually redeem the world. -- Elbert Hubbard
Seek to do good, and you will find that happiness will run after you. -- James Freeman Clarke
The entire law is summed up in a single command, "Love your neighbor as yourself." -- Galatians 5:14 (NIV)
The first command is to love God with all your heart and strength and mind. The second command is like unto it: love your neighbor as yourself. -- Jesus
The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality. -- John Quincy Adams29
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. -- Ann Landers
The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to. -- Aristotle
The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves. -- Helen Keller
To ease another's heartache is to forget one's own. -- Abraham Lincoln
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to. -- Kahlil Gibran
Unless we think of others and do something for them, we miss one of the greatest sources of happiness. -- Ray Lyman Wilbur
When I dig another out of trouble, the hole from which I lift him is the place where I bury my own. -- Chinese proverb
When it comes to giving, some people stop at nothing. -- Unknown
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness. -- Seneca
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. -- Kahlil Gibran
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. -- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
The true way to soften one's troubles is to solace those of others. -- Madame De Maintenon
We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own. -- Ben Sweetland
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. -- Winston Churchill
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. --Leo Buscaglia
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Self Development
I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing that what must be done does away with fear. -- Rosa Parks
A ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for. -- Anonymous
Don't be afraid to be amazing. -- Andy Offutt Irwin
Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely.' -- The Land Before Time
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. -- George Bernard Shaw
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. -- Carl Jung
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives. -- Albert Schweitzer
To care for anyone else enough to make their problems one's own, is ever the beginning of one's real ethical development. -- Felix Adler
It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. -- Alan Cohen
Whether you think you can or think you can't - you are right. -- Henry Ford
Within our dreams and aspirations we find our opportunities. -- Sue Ebaugh
We've got to get crankin'! -- Prof. Forbes
Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God. -- Unknown
Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. -- Thomas Carlyle
That which we persist in doing becomes easier - not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased. -- Emerson
Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. -- Albert Einstein
He who wishes to secure the good of others, has already secured his own. -- Confucius
The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own.... -- Eric Hoffer
... he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. -- Samuel Smiles (1816-1904)
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives. -- Albert Schweitzer
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. -- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
A smile is a curve that sets everything straight. -- Unknown
A thing is bigger for being shared. -- Gaelic Proverb
Adversity is the dust of diamonds that heaven polishes its jewels with. -- Leighton
Anything you can do needs to be done, so pick up the tool of your choice and get started. -- Ben Linder
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. -- Helen Keller
Charity is a virtue of the heart and not of the hand. -- American Proverb
Don't go through life, grow through life. -- Eric Butterworth
Behavior is a much better barometer of what you are than words. -- Wayne Dyer
Feed your faith and your fears will starve. -- Unknown
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these. -- George Washington Carver
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -- Unknown
Patience is power. With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes silk. -- Chinese Proverb
Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child. -- Ron Wild
Stop searching out the storms in life and enjoy more fully the sunlight. -- Gordon B. Hinkley
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. -- Mark Twain
We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit. -- E.E. Cummings
You will come to know that what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove instead to be the greatest investment that you will ever make. -- Gorden B. Hinkley
It is by spending one's self that one becomes rich. -- Sarah Bernardt
It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
The best insurance policy for tomorrow is to make the most productive use of today. -- Unknown
The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. -- William James
Watch your thoughts; they become your words. Watch your words; they become your actions. Watch your actions; they become your habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character for it will become your destiny. -- Source Unknown
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Learning
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. -- Gandhi
Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war. -- Maria Montessori
Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand. -- Chinese Proverb
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. -- William Arthur Ward
There is a time to let things happen, and a time to make things happen. -- Unknown
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. -- William Butler Yeats
We have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more is our desire; the more we see, the more we are capable of seeing. -- Maria Mitchell
The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education ... (and) the object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth. -- John Dewey
I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform. -- John Dewey
Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.... -- John Dewey
Reason guides our attempt to understand the world about us. Both reason and compassion guide our efforts to apply that knowledge ethically, to understand other people, and have ethical relationships with other people. -- Molleen Matsumura
If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning. -- Carl Rogers
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows. -- Epictetus
Education is the transmission of civilization. -- Ariel and Will Durant
A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations. -- Patricia Neal
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. -- Benjamin Franklin
Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world's work, and the power to appreciate life. -- Brigham Young
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. -- Psalm 32:8
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question. -- Eugene Ionesco
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Minds are like parachutes, they function only when open. -- Unknown
Enthusiasm is contagious. Start an epidemic. -- Don Ward
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Leadership
Each person must live their life as a model for others. -- Rosa Parks
The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. -- Ralph Nader
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. --Henry Ford
Experience is not what happens to a man, it's what a man does with what happens to him. --Aldous Huxley
If you can DREAM it, you can DO it. -- Walt Disney
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. -- Henry David Thoreau
Remember that the ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic was built by professionals. --Anonymous
There is nothing like a dream to create the future. -- Victor Hugo
What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible. -- Theodore Roethke
When the best leader's work is done, the people say, we did it ourselves. -- Lao-Tzu
Strategic leadership requires one other skill. It is a readiness to look personally foolish; a readiness to discuss half-baked ideas; since most fully baked ideas start out in that form; a total honesty, a readiness to admit you got it wrong. -- Sir John Hoskyns
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy (remarks prepared for speech at the Trade Mart in Dallas , November 22, 1963)
Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. -- Vince Lombardi
Action is eloquence. -- William Shakespeare
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is the responsibility of the leadership and the management to give opportunities and put demands on people which enable them to grow as human beings in their work environment. -- Sir John Harvey Jones
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person. -- Mother Teresa
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Civic Engagement
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. -- The 14th Dalai Lama
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. -- Former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is the duty of youth to bring its fresh powers to bear on Social progress. Each generation of young people should be to the world like a vast reserve force to a tired army. They should lift the world forward. That is what they are for. -- Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. -- Margaret Mead
Justice is truth in action -- Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield Disrali
Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We can not learn men from books. -- Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli
Service is the rent we pay to be living. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time. -- Marian Wright Edelman
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The price of the democratic way of life is a growing appreciation of people's differences, not merely as tolerable, but as the essence of a rich and rewarding human experience. -- Jerome Nathanson
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. -- Anne Frank
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. -- Robert F. Kennedy
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. -- Jonathan Kozol
When the fabric of society has become frayed, it is the role of the university to develop weavers. -- E. Gordan Gee
Asked from what country he came, he replied, "I am a citizen of the world." -- Diogenes Laertius (fl. early 3d cent.)
If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it. -- Lucy Larcom
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. -- Martin Luther King Jr.
It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own country its proper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to make your community a better place to live in; it is easier to be a "civic leader" than to treat your own family with loving understanding; for the smaller the focus of attention, the harder the task. -- Sydney J. Harris
It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference. -- Tom Brokaw
It is quite possible to work without results, but never will there be results without work. --unknown
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest person with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest person with the smallest mind. Think big anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People really need help but may attack if you help them. Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you might get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you've got anyway. -- Unknown
The goal of a peaceful world must, today and tomorrow, shape our decisions and inspire our purposes. -- JFK
There's a wonder in the way we're always free / To change the world by changing how we see. --Cyndi Craven
Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained. -- Helen Keller
You really can change the world if you care enough. -- Marion Wright Edelman
The future is a world limited by ourselves; in it we discover only what concerns us and, sometimes, by chance, what interests those whom we love the most. -- Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949)
What is success? To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; that is to have succeeded. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whatever there is of God and goodness in the universe, it must work itself out and express itself through us. We cannot stand aside and let God do it. -- Albert Einstein
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Encouragement
Whatever my individual desires were to be free, I was not alone. There were many others who felt the same way. -- Rosa Parks
Great beginnings are not as important as the way one finishes. -- Dr. James Dobson
Great changes may not happen right away, but with effort even the difficult may become easy. --Bill Blackman
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. -- Thoreau
I take a simple view of life: Keep your eyes open and get on with it. -- Sir Laurence Oliver
Life is like an echo. We get from it what we put in to it and, just like an echo, it often gives us much more. -- Boris Lauer-Leonardi
Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory. -- Norman Vincent Peale
Now is the time. Needs are great but your possibilities are greater. -- Bill Blackman
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -- Sun Tzu
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
People who laugh actually live longer than those who don't laugh. Few persons realize that health actually varies according to the amount of laughter. -- James J. Walsh
The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have. --Norman Vincent Peale
The most beautiful action in the world is to love. The second most beautiful is to give. -- Bertha von Suttner
The only gift is a portion of thyself. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The place to be happy is here, the time to be happy is now. -- Robert Ingersoll
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for. -- Joseph Addison
To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
We can do anything we want as long as we stick to it long enough. -- Helen Keller
Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart. -- Confucius
Yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. -- Unknown
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That's why we call it The Present. -- Babatunde Olatunji
You see things; and you say 'Why?'; But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?' -- George Bernard Shaw
No act of kindness, however small, is wasted. -- Aeso
No individual snowflake ever felt any responsibility for an avalanche. -- Unknown
The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart. -- Helen Keller
In thought, faith / In word, wisdom / In deed, courage / In life, service / -- Unknown
Joy increases as you give it, and diminishes as you try to keep it for yourself. In giving it, you will accumulate a deposit of joy greater than you ever believed possible. -- Norman Vincent Peale
Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. -- Sarah Bernhardt
When you come to a fork in the road, take it. -- Yogi Berra
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men (and women) for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. -- Thomas Edward Lawrence (of Arabia )
Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. -- G.K. Chesterton
Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. -- John Keats
Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way. -- Abraham Lincoln
Give me where to stand, and I will move the earth. -- Archimedes
If you would be loved, love, and be loveable." -- Benjamin Franklin
There is no chance, no fate, no destiny that can circumvent, or hinder, or control a firm resolve of a determined soul. -- Unknown
There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness. -- Han Suyin
Thou must be like a promontory of the sea, against which, though the waves beat continually, yet it both itself stands, and about it are those swelling waves stilled and quieted. -- Marcus Aurelius
Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, it's what you are expected to give -- which is everything. -- Source Unknown
My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me. -- Henry Ford
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Thought-Provoking
He who does not dance does not know what happens. -- Jesus (Gnostic texts)
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry S. Truman
Your current safe boundaries were once unknown frontiers. -- Unknown
When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so regretfully upon the closed door that we don't see the one that has opened for us. -- Alexander Graham Bell
When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die. -- Eleanor Roosevelt
There was never a person who did anything worth doing that did not receive more that he gave. -- Henry Ward Beecher
Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out. -- John Wooden
Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. -- Goethe
Ask yourself this question: "Will this matter a year from now? -- Richard Carlson
Be a life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for. -- David Starr Jordan
Even the longest journey begins with a single step. -- Anonymous
For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been'. -- John Greenleaf Whittier
The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested. -- William Dean Howells
The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack. -- Rudyard Kipling
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. -- John F. Kennedy
The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. -- Lao Tzu
To receive everything, one must first open one's hands and give. -- Taisen Deshimaru
Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows. -- Henry David Thoreau
In all things it is a good idea to hang a question mark now and then on the things we have taken for granted. -- Bertrand Russell
The heart is wiser than the intellect. -- J.G. Holland
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Spiritual
The million little things that drop into your hands / The small opportunities each day brings / He leaves us free to use or abuse / And goes unchanging along His silent way. -- Helen Keller
Lift the stone and you will find me; cleave the wood and I am there.-Jesus (from The Gospel of Thomas)
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything you gave me.” -- Erma Bombeck
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