Inspirations - Mon., Dec. 31, 2012

In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; try to imitate it, and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.

-- John Ruskin (1819-1900) English Art Critic

Inspirations - Fri., Dec. 28, 2012

Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continued process.

-- Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American Bishop
***

Inspirations - Thur., Dec. 27, 2012

Every man has an obscure respect for courage in others, especially if it is moral courage, the rarest and most difficult sort of bravery...It makes the very brute understand that this man is more than a man.

 

-- Passage from Life of Christ

Inspirations - Wed., Dec. 26, 2012

Your imagination is the preview to life's coming attractions.

-- Albert Einstein

Inspirations - Tue., Dec. 25, 2012

Inspirations - Mon., Dec. 24, 2012

Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fibre of a character, but strengthen it. Every conquered temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.

-- James Buckham

Inspirations - Fri., Dec 21, 2012

The work will wait while you show the child the rainbow, but the rainbow won't wait while you finish the work.

-- Pat Clifford

Inspirations - Thur., Dec. 20, 2012

Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. And if you have a friend who makes you laugh, spend lots and lots of time with them.

-- Unknown

Inspirations - Wed., Dec. 19, 2012

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to live the width of it as well.

-- Diane Ackerman

Inspirations - Tue., Dec. 18, 2012

The greatest gift you will ever receive is the gift of loving and believing in yourself. Guard this gift with your life. It is the only thing that will ever truly be yours.

-- Tiffany Loren Rowe

Inspirations - Mon., Dec. 17, 2012

I've seen and met angels wearing the disguise of ordinary people living ordinary lives.

-- Tracy Chapman

Inspirations - Fri., Dec. 14, 2012

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest accomplishment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

-- Leo Buscaglia

Inspirations - Thur., Dec. 13, 2012

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame someone else.

-- John Burroughs

Inspirations - Wed., Dec. 12, 2012

A man who makes no mistakes makes nothing.

-- Winston Churchill

Inspirations - Tue., Dec. 11, 2012

Money is a “way of keeping score in life,” says T. Boone Pickens. But  that is just for those who like playing the game. The real goal is to live with grace and dignity. You can do that with a small amount of money...or not do it with a fortune. 

-- Bill Bonner, financial journalist

Inspirations - Mon., Dec. 10, 2012

Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
-- Carrie Fisher

Inspirations - Fri., Dec. 7, 2012

There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
-- Booker T. Washington

Inspirations - Thur., Dec. 6, 2012

When we are mindful of every nuance of our natural world, we finally get the picture: that we are only given one dazzling moment of life here on Earth, and we must stand before that reality both humbled and elevated, subject to every law of our universe and grateful for our brief but intrinsic participation with it. (From her biography of naturalist Eustace Conway.)

-- Elizabeth Gilbert

Inspirations - Wed., Dec. 5, 2012

Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.

-- Alain De Botton

Inspirations - Tue., Dec. 4, 2012

Nothing lowers the level of conversation more than raising the voice.

-- Stanley Horowitz

Inspirations - Mon., Dec. 2, 2012

Being defeated is often only a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.
-- Marilyn vos Savant
---

Inspirations - Fri., Nov. 30, 2012

Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues.  Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his real self that can dare and do and win out.

-- Eleanor Porter (1868-1920) American Novelist

Inspirations - Thur., Nov. 29, 2012

Man does not live by a turkey in every oven or a color TV set in every home.  Man lives by faith and hope and love, by the star on the horizon, by the trumpet that will not call retreat.

-- E. Merrill Root (1895-1973) American Writer

Inspirations - Wed., Nov. 28, 2012

Personal power is a gift that often goes unopened.

- DeLores Pressley - www.delorespressley.com

Inspiratons - Tue., Nov. 27, 2012

We need a renaissance of wonder. We need to renew, in our hearts and in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that life is miracle and magic.

-- E. Merrill Root (1895-1973) American Writer

Inspirations - Mon., Nov. 26, 2012

Confidence on the outside begins by living with integrity on the inside.

-- Brian Tracy

Inspirations - Fri., Nov. 23, 2012.

Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good.   

-- Calvin Coolidge

Inspirations - Thur., Nov. 22, 2012

People tend to think of happiness as a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weather if you're fortunate. But happiness is the result of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.  You have to participate relentlessly.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Inspirations - Wed., Nov. 21, 2012

Every man has an obscure respect for courage in others, especially if it is moral courage, the rarest and most difficult sort of bravery...It makes the very brute understand that this man is more than a man.

Passage from Life of Christ

Inspirations - Tue., Nov. 20, 2012

If a man be gracious to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of the world, and his heart is no island, cut off from other islands, but a continent that joins them.

Francis Bacon

Inspirations - Mon., Nov. 19, 2012

There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) American Writer

Inspirations - Fri., Nov. 16, 2012

The higher type of man clings to virtue, the lower type of man clings to material comfort.  The higher type of man cherishes justice, the lower type of man cherishes the hope of favors to  be received.

Confucius (551-479 BC) Chinese Philosopher

Inspirations - Thur., Nov. 15, 2012

There is a sense of exhilaration that comes from facing head-on the hard truths and saying, "We will never give up. We will never capitulate. It might take a long time, but we will find a way to prevail."

Jim Collins, from his book, Good to Great

Inspirations - Wed., Nov. 14, 2012

We must understand that upon those critics and cynics around us (and sometimes within us), the best revenge is massive success; or until the success comes, a GREAT BIG SMILE on the face and from the heart!

Henry Ford (No, NOT the automaker!)

Inspirations - Nov. 13, 2012

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.

Robert Brault
---
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.    

Howard W. Newton

Inspirations - Mon., Nov. 12, 2012

As one's fortunes are reduced, one's spirit must expand to fill the void.

Winston Churchill

Inspirations - Fri., Nov. 9, 2012

Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know why I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.

Will Rogers

Inspirations - Thur., Nov. 8, 2012

If successful people have one common trait, it's an utter lack of cynicism. The world owes them nothing. They go out and find what they need without asking for permission; they're driven, talented, and work through negatives by focusing on the positives.

Mike Zimmerman

Inspirations - Wed., Nov. 7, 2012

If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nations.
When there is order in the nations, there will peace in the world.

Sathya Sai Baba

Inspirations - Tue., Nov. 6, 2012

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
--

If you have not yet voted, you may want to link to and read at least the first four paragraphs of what http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act has to say about the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Inspirations - Mon., Nov. 5, 2012

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Inspirations - Fri., Nov. 2, 2012

Inspirations - Fri., Nov. 2, 2012
---
If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light.  Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.  

Glenn Clark
---
Please check out the November-December issue of VISIONS Newsletter at www.visionsnewsletter.blogspot.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/VISIONS-Newsletter/122812744429217?fref=ts

Inspirations - Thur., Nov. 1, 2012

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.  

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) Irish Writer

Inspirations - Wed., Oct. 31, 2012

I realized early on that success was tied to not giving up. Most people in this business gave up and went on to other things. If you simply didn't give up, you would outlast the people who came in on the bus with you.

Harrison Ford

Inspirations - Fri., Oct. 26, 2012

Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx - 1890-1977, Comedian and Film Star

Inspirations - Thur., Oct. 25, 2012

A difficult time can be more readily endured if we retain the conviction that our existence holds a purpose - a cause to pursue, a person to love, a goal to achieve.

John Maxwell
Author and Speaker

Inspirations - Wed., Oct. 24, 2012

Let me remember that each life must follow its own course, and that what happens to other people has absolutely nothing to do with what happens to me. 

Marjorie Holmes

Inspirations - Tue., Oct. 23, 2012

Any fact is better established by two or three good testimonies than by a thousand arguments.

Nathaniel Emmons

Inspirations - Mon., Oct. 22, 2012

Given three requisites--means of existence, reasonable health, and an absorbing interest--those years beyond sixty can be the happiest and most satisfying of a lifetime.

Earnest Elmo Calkins

Inspirations - Fri., Oct. 19, 2012

Do what's right and try to get along with people, in that order.

Ezra Taft Benson

Inspirations - Thur., Oct. 18, 2012

We lift ourselves by our thought. We climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always everywhere.

Orison Swett Marden
1850-1924, Inspirational Writer

Inspirations - Wed., Oct. 17, 2012

Inspirations - Wed., Oct. 17, 2012
---
The first person you are accountable to is yourself. It's imperative that you know what your key values are, because they set the standards for how you will do business."

Marilyn Strong
Author of Getting Paid to Pay Attention
---
Our blog at http://successisyoubooks.blogspot.com/ now includes Amazon's Deal of The Day

Inspirations - Tue., Oct. 16, 2012

You've got to walk right into what you want and not look at what you don't want. Stay focused on the goal.

Calvin LeHew
From Flying High: A True Story of Shared Inspiration

Inspirations - Mon., Oct. 15, 2012

Let's choose today to quench our thirst for the 'good life' we think others lead by acknowledging the good that already exists in our lives. We can then offer the universe the gift of our grateful hearts.

Sarah Ban Breathnach
Author of Simple Abundance
---
Please visit us at http://successisyoubooks.blogspot.com/

Inspirations - Fri., Oct. 12, 2012

Life is too short to waste. Dreams are fulfilled only through action, not through endless planning to take action.

David J. Schwartz
Trainer and Author

Inspirations - Thur., Oct. 11, 2012

The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.

Napoleon Hill
1883-1970, Author of Think and Grow Rich

Inspirations - Wed., Oct. 10, 2012

Heroes come in all sizes, and you don't have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It's just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people, these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.

George Lucas

Inspirations - Tue., Oct. 9, 2012

Inspirations - Tue., Oct. 9, 2012
---
I got a fortune cookie that said, 'To remember is to understand.' I have never forgotten it. A good judge remembers what it was like to be a lawyer. A good editor remembers being a writer. A good parent remembers what it was like to be a child.

Anna Quindlen
Author and Journalist
---
Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

Gloria Steinem
Writer and Journalist

Inspirations - Mon., Oct. 8, 2012

Inspirations - Mon., Oct. 8, 2012
---
Many a man with no family tree has succeeded because he branched out for himself.

Leo Aikman
---
Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself. You may be surprised at how easily this happens. Your doubts are not as powerful as your desires, unless you make them so.

Marcia Wieder
Speaker and Author

Inspirations - Fri., Oct. 5, 2012

Inspirations - Fril., Oct. 5, 2012

To wait for someone else, or to expect someone else to make my life richer, or fuller, or more satisfying, puts me in a constant state of suspension.

Kathleen Tierney Andrus
---
Whatever you do, make a difference. Earn the right to look back at something and say, 'I did that.

Michael Josephson
Law Professor and Speaker

Inspirations - Thur., Oct. 4, 2012

Inspirations - Thur., Oct. 4, 2012

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.

Albert Ellis
1913-2007, Psychologist

--

True wisdom consists in tracing effects to their causes.

Oliver Goldsmith

Inspirations - Wed., Oct. 3, 2012

Few people take objectives really seriously. They put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined.

Richard Koch
Author of The 80/20 Principle

---

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.

Jim Rohn
1930-2009, Author and Speaker

Inspirations - Tue., Oct. 2, 2012

Inspirations - Tue., Oct. 2, 2012
---
There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

Nelson Mandela
11th President of South Africa
---
It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

George Eliot
---
The wealth of a man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by.

Thomas Carlyle

Inspirations - Mon., Oct. 1, 2012

Inspirations - Mon., Oct. 1, 2012

--

When the archer misses the mark, he turns and looks for the fault within himself. Failure to hit the bull's eye is never the fault of the target. To improve your aim - improve yourself.

Gilbert Arland
Writer

--

Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets.

Nido Qubein
Author and Speaker

Inspirations - Fri., Sep. 28, 2012

Inspirations - Fri., Sep. 28, 2012

---

Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral, and subject to chance.

Arthur Schopenhauer

---

Humility leads to strength and not weakness. It is the highest form of self-respect to admit mistakes and to make amends for them.

John J. McCloy

Inspirations - Thur., Sep. 27, 2012

Just as education without humanity is the most dangerous thing in the world, so education in love, human understanding and cooperation is the greatest hope in the world.
Joy Elmer Morgan
---
The wealth of a man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by.
Thomas Carlyle
---
What is needed is to learn afresh, to observe, and to discover for ourselves, the meaning of wholeness.
David Bohm

Inspirations - Wed., Sep. 26, 2012

A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.
---
Elbert Hubbard
---

Inspirations - Tue., Sep. 25, 2012

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

- Aristotle

---

When you have talked yourself into what you want, right there is the place to stop talking and begin saying it with deeds.

Napoleon Hill
1883-1970, Author

---

The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.

- Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French Philosopher

Inspirations - Mon., Sep. 24, 2012

In health we should continue to be the men we vowed to become when sickness prompted our words.

Pliny the younger
---
Reputation is a bubble which bursts when a man tries to blow it up for himself.

Emma Carleton
---
For only as we ourselves, as adults, actually move and have our being in the state of love, can we be appropriate models and guides for our children. What we are teaches the child far more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become.

Joseph Chilton Pearce

Inspirations - Fri., Sep. 21, 2012

We are all here for some special reason. Stop being a prisoner of your past. Become the architect of your future."

Robin Sharma

---

"To be a champ, you have to believe in yourself when nobody else will."

Sugar Ray Robinson
1921-1989, Professional Boxer

Inspirations - Thur., Sep. 20, 2012

Sorry for the missed Inspirations since Monday.  We are just back from an out of town trip with NO INTERNET ACCESS:

"Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory."
Arthur Ashe
1943-1993, Professional Tennis Player

Inspirations - Fri., Sep. 14, 2012

"The time is always right to do what is right."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
1929-1968, Civil Rights Leader

---

"Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable."
Wendy Wasserstein
1950-2006, Playwright

---

"Those who are lifting the world upward and onward are those who encourage more than criticize."
Elizabeth Harrison
1849-1927, Educator

Inspirations - Thur., Sep. 13, 2012

A BIG THANK YOU for the following from Something to Think About at https://www.facebook.com/ricathinkspositive
---
What are you hiding behind? Your hair, your looks, your fears, your prior accomplishments, the dreams and talents of others?
It's time to stop fading to the background and step forward and announce that YOU have arrived!! You'd be surprised at the applause that you'll receive by standing up and being YOU...
---
For more inspirational thoughts, please visit https://www.facebook.com/ricathinkspositive and remember to LIKE the page.

Inspirations - Wed., Sep. 12, 2012

Inspirations - Tue., Sep. 11, 2012

Inspirations - Mon., Sep. 10, 2012

Inspirations - Fri., Sep. 7, 2012

Inspirations - Thur., Sep. 6, 2012

For more  from Delrica visit her at http://www.delricamartin.blogspot.com/
and “LIKE” her on FACEBOOK at http://www.facebook.com/ricathinkspositive

Inspirations for Wed., Sep. 5, 2012

Inspirations - Tue., Sep. 4, 2012

Inspirations - Mon., Sep. 3, 2012

Inspirations - Fri., Aug. 31, 2012

Inspirationns - Thur., Aug. 30, 2012

Inspirations - Wed., Aug. 29, 2012

Inspirations - Tues., Aug. 28, 2012

Inspirations - Mon., Aug. 27, 2012

 

Inspirations for Fri., Aug. 24, 2012

Inspirations,Thur., Aug. 23, 2012

Inspirations for Wed., Aug. 22, 2012

Inspirations for Tue., Aug. 21, 2012

Inspirations for Mon., Aug. 20, 2012

Inspirations for Fri., Aug. 17, 2012

Inspirations for Thur., Aug. 16, 2012

Inspirations for Wed., Aug. 15, 2012

Inspirations for Tue., Aug. 14, 2012

Inspirations for Mon., Aug. 13, 2012

Inspirations for Fri., Aug. 10, 2012

Inspirations for Thur., Aug. 9, 2012

Inspirations for Wed., Aug. 7, 2012

Inspirations for Mon., Aug. 6, 2012

Inspirations for Fri., Aug. 3, 2012

Inspirations for Thur., Aug. 2, 2012

Inspirations for Tue., July 31, 2012

Inspirations for Mon., July 30, 2012

Inspirations for Fri., July 27, 2012

Inspirations for Thur., July 26, 2012

Inspirations for Wed., July 25, 2012

Inspirations for Tue., July 24, 2012

Inspirations for Mon., July 23, 2012

Inspirations for Fri., July 20, 2012

Inspirations for Thur., July 19, 2012

Inspirations for Wed., July 18, 2012

Inspirations for Tue., July 17, 2012

Inspirations for Mon., July 16, 2012

Inspirations for Fri., July 13, 2012

Inspirations for Thur., July 12, 2012

Inspirations for Wed., July 11, 2012

Inspirations for Tues., July 10, 2012

Inspirations for Mon., July 9, 2012

Inspirations for Fri., July 6, 2012

Inspirations for Thur., July 5, 2012