Prayer
by Alice Oswald
Here I work in the hollow of God's hand
with Time bent round into my reach. I touch
the circle of the earth, I throw and catch
the sun and moon by turns into my mind.
I sense the length of it from end to end,
I sway me gently in my flesh and each
point of the process changes as I watch;
the flowers come, the rain follows the wind.
And all I ask is this - and you can see
how far the soul, when it goes under flesh,
is not a soul, is small and creaturish -
that every day the sun comes silently
to set my hands to work and that the moon
turns and returns to meet me when it's done.
· From The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile by Alice Oswald, published by Faber
Friday, July 27, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Joy Browne:
Just trying to do something — just being there, showing up — is how we get braver. Self-esteem is about doing.
Joy Browne:
How do you take something and make it special? The answer is a lot of hard work and a great deal of imagination.
Joy Browne:
If we give up the notion that everybody's life but ours is perfect, we would be a lot happier. Nobody's life is perfect.
Joy Browne:
She's an idiot. She's looking at life through a selfish, lusty haze.
Joy Browne:
Take your hurt feelings and channel them into political activism.
Pearl Buck:
A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.
Pearl Buck:
The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.
Pearl Buck:
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word: excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
Eileen Caddy:
Dwell not on the past. Use it to illustrate a point, then leave it behind. Nothing really matters except what you do now in this instant of time. From this moment onwards you can be an entirely different person, filled with love and understanding, ready with an outstretched hand, uplifted and positive in every thought and deed.
Peggy Cahn:
I believe the sign of maturity is accepting deferred gratification.
Marie Chapian:
Lack of discipline leads to frustration and self-loathing.
Collette:
What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.
Tammy Cravit:
When you stop worrying, you free up energy that can be used more productively.
Tammy Cravit:
Worrying is all about the illusion of control. When you worry, you are expending energy, and it it feels like you are doing something.
Dorothea Dix:
In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do.
Dorothy Dix:
Happiness is largely a matter of self-hypnotism. You can think yourself happy or you can think yourself miserable.
Dorothy Dix:
It is a queer thing, but imaginary troubles are harder to bear than actual ones.
Dorothy Dix:
There isn't a single human being who hasn't plenty to cry over, and the trick is to make the laughs outweigh the tears.
Dorothy Dix:
We are never happy until we learn to laugh at ourselves.
Dorothy Dix:
You never saw a very busy person who was unhappy.
Isadora Duncan:
People don't live nowadays — they get about ten percent out of life.
Samantha Dunn:
Sometimes sweat is the best form of therapy.
Shannon Earls:
Our lives are changed by what we do, not by what others do to us.
Nanette Emry:
Nanette's Law: High Emotions + High Expectations = Drama.
Nanette Emry:
It is important to ponder life beyond your own personal needs.
Anne Frank:
Don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains. In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Anne Frank:
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Anna Freud:
Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.
Dory Grade:
Art is the tangible evidence of the human spirit.
Helen Keller:
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Helen Keller:
Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all: the apathy of human beings.
Lauré Kendrick:
An argument for optimism: When you look for good things in life, you are much more likely to find them.
Lauré Kendrick:
Anticipation is 90 percent of life's pleasure or pain. This means that, if you are optimistic, you will be happy 90 percent of the time.
Lauré Kendrick:
Happiness is a state of mind in which you are glad you are alive.
Lauré Kendrick:
Hormones don't cause feelings, they just exaggerate them.
Linda Knight:
I feel better when I eat right.
Linda Knight:
It's important to watch what you put in your mind.
Linda Knight:
Knowledge is a good thing.
Linda Knight:
Nice guys will wait.
Judith M. Knowlton:
I discovered I always have choices, and sometimes it's only a choice of attitude.
Cythina Nelms:
Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy.
Johanna Newell:
When you made a face and your mother said, "Be careful, your face might freeze that way," she was right. It just takes longer than you think.
Anais Nin:
Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.
Anais Nin:
We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are.
Ellen Parr:
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Susan Pierce:
Over the course of your life, there will be several times when you feel that nothing you are doing makes any sense, and you have to start all over again.
Susan Pierce:
The purpose of your life is to find interesting work. Once you realize this, everything becomes much better.
Elinko Pragnell:
All we have is have is this very moment. If we have a burning desire to change, there is always a way.
Elinko Pragnell:
Don't look at the problem. The more you look at problems, the more problems will come. Look for the solution.
Elinko Pragnell:
If you change your thinking, your life changes. But it's work.
Gilda Radner:
I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
Friendship with one's self is all important because, without it, one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiousity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself. You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
Meryl Streep:
You can't get spoiled if you do your own ironing.
Amy Tan:
If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.
Jane Wagner:
A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?
Alice Walker:
Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on Earth is it for.
Alice Walker:
No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.
Meredith West:
If you want to stand out, don't be different, be outstanding.
Harriet Woods:
You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims.
Just trying to do something — just being there, showing up — is how we get braver. Self-esteem is about doing.
Joy Browne:
How do you take something and make it special? The answer is a lot of hard work and a great deal of imagination.
Joy Browne:
If we give up the notion that everybody's life but ours is perfect, we would be a lot happier. Nobody's life is perfect.
Joy Browne:
She's an idiot. She's looking at life through a selfish, lusty haze.
Joy Browne:
Take your hurt feelings and channel them into political activism.
Pearl Buck:
A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.
Pearl Buck:
The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.
Pearl Buck:
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word: excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
Eileen Caddy:
Dwell not on the past. Use it to illustrate a point, then leave it behind. Nothing really matters except what you do now in this instant of time. From this moment onwards you can be an entirely different person, filled with love and understanding, ready with an outstretched hand, uplifted and positive in every thought and deed.
Peggy Cahn:
I believe the sign of maturity is accepting deferred gratification.
Marie Chapian:
Lack of discipline leads to frustration and self-loathing.
Collette:
What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.
Tammy Cravit:
When you stop worrying, you free up energy that can be used more productively.
Tammy Cravit:
Worrying is all about the illusion of control. When you worry, you are expending energy, and it it feels like you are doing something.
Dorothea Dix:
In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do.
Dorothy Dix:
Happiness is largely a matter of self-hypnotism. You can think yourself happy or you can think yourself miserable.
Dorothy Dix:
It is a queer thing, but imaginary troubles are harder to bear than actual ones.
Dorothy Dix:
There isn't a single human being who hasn't plenty to cry over, and the trick is to make the laughs outweigh the tears.
Dorothy Dix:
We are never happy until we learn to laugh at ourselves.
Dorothy Dix:
You never saw a very busy person who was unhappy.
Isadora Duncan:
People don't live nowadays — they get about ten percent out of life.
Samantha Dunn:
Sometimes sweat is the best form of therapy.
Shannon Earls:
Our lives are changed by what we do, not by what others do to us.
Nanette Emry:
Nanette's Law: High Emotions + High Expectations = Drama.
Nanette Emry:
It is important to ponder life beyond your own personal needs.
Anne Frank:
Don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains. In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Anne Frank:
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Anna Freud:
Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.
Dory Grade:
Art is the tangible evidence of the human spirit.
Helen Keller:
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Helen Keller:
Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all: the apathy of human beings.
Lauré Kendrick:
An argument for optimism: When you look for good things in life, you are much more likely to find them.
Lauré Kendrick:
Anticipation is 90 percent of life's pleasure or pain. This means that, if you are optimistic, you will be happy 90 percent of the time.
Lauré Kendrick:
Happiness is a state of mind in which you are glad you are alive.
Lauré Kendrick:
Hormones don't cause feelings, they just exaggerate them.
Linda Knight:
I feel better when I eat right.
Linda Knight:
It's important to watch what you put in your mind.
Linda Knight:
Knowledge is a good thing.
Linda Knight:
Nice guys will wait.
Judith M. Knowlton:
I discovered I always have choices, and sometimes it's only a choice of attitude.
Cythina Nelms:
Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy.
Johanna Newell:
When you made a face and your mother said, "Be careful, your face might freeze that way," she was right. It just takes longer than you think.
Anais Nin:
Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.
Anais Nin:
We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are.
Ellen Parr:
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Susan Pierce:
Over the course of your life, there will be several times when you feel that nothing you are doing makes any sense, and you have to start all over again.
Susan Pierce:
The purpose of your life is to find interesting work. Once you realize this, everything becomes much better.
Elinko Pragnell:
All we have is have is this very moment. If we have a burning desire to change, there is always a way.
Elinko Pragnell:
Don't look at the problem. The more you look at problems, the more problems will come. Look for the solution.
Elinko Pragnell:
If you change your thinking, your life changes. But it's work.
Gilda Radner:
I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
Friendship with one's self is all important because, without it, one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiousity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself. You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
Meryl Streep:
You can't get spoiled if you do your own ironing.
Amy Tan:
If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.
Jane Wagner:
A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?
Alice Walker:
Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on Earth is it for.
Alice Walker:
No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.
Meredith West:
If you want to stand out, don't be different, be outstanding.
Harriet Woods:
You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)