140/365 - The Last Page (Paul Sweeney)

“You know you've read a Good Book 

when you turn the Last Page 

and feel a little as if you have Lost a Friend.” 

- Paul Sweeney

139/365 - The Silence of our Friends (Martin Luther King Jr.)

“In the End, 

we will remember not the words of our enemies, 

but the silence of our friends.” 

Martin Luther King Jr.

138/365 - It's Indifference (Elie Wiesel)

“The opposite of Love is not Hate, 

it's Indifference. 

The opposite of Art is not Ugliness,

it's Indifference.

The opposite of Faith is not Heresy, 

it's Indifference. 

And the opposite of Life is not Death, 

it's Indifference.” 

- Elie Wiesel

(Nobel Peace Prize Winner of 1986)

137/365 - The Karma of your Soul (Gary Zukav)

"You are the product of the Karma of your Soul.

The dispositions, aptitudes and attitudes that you were born with serve the learning of your soul.  As your soul learns the lessons that it must learn to balance its energy, those characteristics become unnecessary, and are replaced by others.  This is how you grow.  As you come to realise, for example, that anger leads nowhere, your anger begins to disappear and you move into a more integrated and mature orientation toward your experiences.  What once angered you now brings forth different responses.

Until you become aware of the effects of your anger, you continue to be an angry person.  If you do not reach this awareness by the time you return home, your soul will continue this lesson through the experiences of another lifetime.  It will incarnate another personality with aspects that are similar to your own.  What is not learned in each lifetime is carried over into other lifetimes, along with new lessons that arise for the soul to learn, new karmic obligations that result from the responses of its personality to the situations that it encounters.  The lessons that the soul has learned also are brought forward into other lifetimes, and this is how the soul evolves.  Personalities mature in time, and the soul evolves in eternity."  - Gary Zukav (The Seat of the Soul)

136/365 - At this Time and this Place (Azar Nafisi)

 

“You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, 

I told him, 

like you'll not only miss the people you love 

but you'll miss the person you are now,

at this time and this place, 

because you'll never be this way ever again.” 

 

Azar Nafisi

(Reading Lolita in Tehran) 

135/365 - Secret Destinations (Martin Buber)

“All Journeys have Secret Destinations 

of which the Traveler is unaware.” 

 

- Martin Buber

134/365 - What we Pretend to Be (Kurt Vonnegut)

“We Are what we Pretend to Be, 

so we must be Careful about what we pretend to be.” 

 

- Kurt Vonnegut

(Mother Night)

133/365 - Love is that Condition (Robert A. Heinlein)

“Love 

is that condition in which the happiness of another person 

is essential to your own.” 

- Robert A. Heinlein

(Stranger in a Strange Land)

132/365 - Because I was Once a Child (Madeleine L'Engle)

“I am still every age that I have been. 

Because I was once a child, 

I am always a child. 

Because I was once a searching adolescent, 

given to moods and ecstasies, 

these are still part of me, and always will be... 

This does not mean that I ought to be trapped 

or enclosed in any of these ages...

the delayed adolescent, 

the childish adult, 

but that they are in me to be drawn on; 

to forget is a form of suicide... 

Far too many people misunderstand 

what *putting away childish things* means,

and think that forgetting what it is like 

to think and feel 

and touch and smell 

and taste and see 

and hear like a three-year-old 

or a thirteen-year-old 

or a twenty-three-year-old 

means being grownup. 

When I'm with these people I, 

like the kids, 

feel that if this is what it means to be a grown-up, 

then I don't ever want to be one. 

Instead of which, 

if I can retain a child's awareness and joy, 

and *be* fifty-one, 

then I will really learn what it means to be grownup.” 

-  Madeleine L'Engle

(A Wrinkle in Time)

131/365 - An Understanding Ear (Stephen King)

“The most Important Things are the Hardest to say. 

They are the things you get Ashamed of, 

because words Diminish them -- 

Words Shrink things that seemed Limitless 

when they were in your head 

to no more than living size when they're brought out. 

But it's more than that, isn't it? 

The most Important Things 

lie too close to wherever your Secret Heart is buried, 

like Landmarks

to a Treasure your Enemies would love to steal away. 

And you may make Revelations 

that cost you dearly 

only to have people look at you in a funny way, 

not understanding what you've said at all, 

or why you thought it was so important 

that you almost cried while you were saying it. 

That's the worst, I think. 

When the Secret stays Locked within

not for want of a Tellar 

but for want of an Understanding Ear.” 

- Stephen King 

(Different Seasons)

130/365 - Let Old Wrinkles Come (William Shakespeare)

“With Mirth and Laughter 

let Old wrinkles come.” 

- William Shakespeare

Happy 34th, my Love!

xxx

129/365 - You have Feet in your Shoes (Dr. Seuss)

“You have brains in your head. 

You have feet in your shoes. 

You can steer yourself any direction you choose. 

You're on your own. 

And you know what you know. 

And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...” 

- Dr. Seuss

(Oh, The Places you'll Go)

128/365 - Shutting them Out (Blaize Clement)

“Protecting people from the Truth 

is another way of Shutting them out.”

― Blaize Clement

127/365 - Once and for All (Paulo Coelho)

“No one should ever ask themselves: 

why am I unhappy? 

The question carries within it the virus that will destroy everything. 

If we ask that question, 

it means we want to find out what makes us happy. 

If what makes us happy is different from what we have now, 

then we must either change once and for all 

or stay as we are, 

feeling even more unhappy.” 

- Paulo Coelho

(The Zahir)

126/365 - In the Very Same Proportion (Henry James)

“My idea is this,

that when you only love a little 

you’re naturally not jealous -

or are only jealous also a little, 

so that it doesn’t matter. 

But when you love in a deeper and intenser way, 

then you’re in the very same proportion jealous; 

your jealousy has intensity and, 

no doubt, ferocity. 

When however you love 

in the most abysmal and unutterable way of all – 

whey then you’re beyond everything,

and nothing can pull you down.” 

― Henry James

(The Golden Bowl)

125/365 - Rarest Thing I know (Ernest Hemingway)

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” 

- Ernest Hemingway

124/365 - Every Child (Pablo Picasso)

“Every child is an artist. 

The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” 

- Pablo Picasso

123/365 - A Single Moment (Anne Frank)

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment

before starting to improve the world.” 

- Anne Frank

122/365 - Believe you Will Receive (Rhonda Byrne)

"If you are seeking an Answer

or Guidance on something in your Life,

Ask the Question,

Believe you will receive,(...)

Be Aware of everything around you,

because you are receiving the answers to your Questions

in every moment of the day.

The Channels those answers can come through

are Unlimited.

The could be delivered in the form of a newspaper headline 

that attracts your attention,

or overhearing someone speaking,

or a song on the radio,

or signage on a truck passing by,

or receiving a sudden inspiration.

Remember to Remember,

and Become Aware."

- Rhonda Byrne

(The Secret)

121/365 - To Feed the Children (Oriah Mountain Dreamer)

“It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. 

I want to know what you ache for, 

and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. 

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, 

for your dream, 

for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. 

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow,

if you have been opened by life's betrayals 

or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain!

I want to know if you can sit with pain, 

mine or your own, 

without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, 

mine or your own, 

if you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes 

without cautioning us to be careful, 

to be realistic, 

to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. 

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; 

if you can bear the accusation of betrayal 

and not betray your own soul; 

if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty,

even when it's not pretty, 

every day, 

and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, 

yours and mine, 

and still stand on the edge of the lake 

and shout to the silver of the full moon, 

“Yes!”

It doesn't interest me to know where you live

or how much money you have. 

I want to know if you can get up, 

after the night of grief and despair, 

weary and bruised to the bone, 

and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know 

or how you came to be here. 

I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me 

and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. 

I want to know what sustains you, 

from the inside, 

when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone 

with yourself 

and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.” 

-  Oriah Mountain Dreamer

120/365 - Coincidences (Albert Einstein)

“Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.” 

- Albert Einstein

119/365 - I don't want to go to Heaven (Oscar Wilde)

“I don't want to go to heaven. 

None of my friends are there.” 

- Oscar Wilde

118/365 - Give him a Mask (Oscar Wilde)

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. 

Give him a Mask, 

and he will tell you the Truth.” 

- Oscar Wilde

117/365 - Your Story

"You are living 

your Story."

- Unknown

116/365 - Time is a Game (Heraclitus)

“Time is a game played beautifully by children.” 

-  Heraclitus

 (Fragments)

115/365 - I'm not Young Enough (J.M. Barrie)

“I'm not young enough to know everything.” 

-  J.M. Barrie
(Peter Pan)

114/365 - Over and Over Again (Albert Einstein)

“Insanity is doing the same thing, 

over and over again, 

but expecting different results.” 

- Albert Einstein

113/365 - Never Put Off (Mark Twain)

“Never put off until tomorrow 

what you can do the day after tomorrow.” 

- Mark Twain

112/365 - Never too Late (George Eliot)

 “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” 

- George Eliot

111/365 - Learn from the Leaf (Anais Nin)

“In art, in history 

man fights his fears, 

he wants to live forever, 

he is afraid of death, 

he wants to work with other men, 

he wants to live forever. 

He is like a child afraid of death. 

 The child is afraid of death, of darkness, of solitude. 

Such simple fears 

behind all the elaborate constructions.

Such simple fears 

as hunger for light, warmth, love. 

Such simple fears 

behind the elaborate constructions of art. 

Examine them all gently and quietly 

through the eyes of a boy. 

There is always a human being lonely, 

a human being afraid,

a human being lost,

a human being confused.

Concealing and disguising his dependence, his needs,

ashamed to say: 

I am a simple human being 

in a too vast and complex world. 

Because of all we have discovered about a leaf...

it is still a leaf.

Can we relate to a leaf, 

on a tree, in a park, a simple leaf:

green, glistening, sun-bathed or wet, 

or turning white because the storm is coming. 

Like the savage,

let us look at the leaf wet or shining with sun, 

or white with fear of the storm, 

or silvery in the fog, 

or listless in too great heat, 

or falling in autumn, dying, 

reborn each year anew. 

Learn from the leaf: simplicity. 

In spite of all we know about the leaf: 

its nerve structure

phyllome cellular papilla parenchyma stomata venation. 

Keep a human relation -- 

leaf, man, woman, child. 

In tenderness. 

No matter how immense the world, 

how elaborate, how contradictory, 

there is always man, woman, child, 

and the leaf."

- Anais Nin

(Children of the Albatross)

110/365 - A New Year (Taylor Swift)

“This is a new year. A new beginning. 

And things will change.”

- Taylor Swift