Friday, May 25, 2012

Emily Post on Real Manners

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.

Emily Post

Source: goodreads.com

DeMaurice Williams on Authenticity

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but nobody is entitled to their own facts.

DeMaurice Williams
Executive Director, NFL Players Association

To Mike Greenberg on Mike and Mike, ESPN
regarding a NFLPA salary cap lawsuit
Friday, May 25, 2012

Sunday, May 13, 2012

e.e. cummings on Authenticity

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. 

e.e. cummings

Source: quotegarden.com

Mary Oliver on Unconditional Love

To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

Mary Oliver, poet

For the Wendy puppy, thank you and farewell.

Source: wisdomquotes.com

Helen Steiner Rice on True Love

A mother's love is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking, it never fails or falters, even though the heart is breaking.

Helen Steiner Rice

In remembrance of my Mom.

Source: thinkexist.com

Friday, May 11, 2012

Deng Ming-Dao on Struggle

Struggle

Life acquires meaning
When we face that conflict
Between our desires
And reality.

We have differing personalities vying for predominance in our lives. Some come out at just the right moment.  At other times, our aspirations and our fondest hopes find little support in our environment.  Only a few can truly say that they are living their lives exactly according to their desires. For the majority of us, life is a series of conflicts between our inner ideas and our outer constrictions. How will we test ourselves against the flexing of external circumstances?

Goals are important.  Forebearance is also important. But the very process of struggle is equally essential.  Rice must undergo the hardship of pounding in order to become white. Steel must endure the forge to become strong.  Adversity is the tempering of one's mettle. Without it we cannot know any true meaning in our accomplishment.  Of course, when things happen without struggle, it does not mean that we did not deserve it.

A musician may compose a brilliant piece in an afternoon.  An artist will dash off a masterpiece in a single sitting.  A writer will write significant passages as if they were dictated. Each might say, "It happened so fast!"  But in reality it took all of them years of dedication and struggle to come to that moment of climax.  Thus even the virtuoso performance is the tip of a lifetime of struggle, and the gem of meaning is set in the metal of long perseverance.

Deng Ming-Dao
365 Tao
No. 130, Northern Hemisphere, May 10
Copyright 1992

Maurice Sendak on Resilience

Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious — and what is too often overlooked — is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

Maurice Sendak

Thank you and farewell.

Source: goodreads.com

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Change

Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
Tomorrow be today.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Source: quotegarden.com

P.G. Wodehouse on Human Nature

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

P.G. Wodehouse
The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

Source: goodreads.com

Pam Brown on Friendship

In loneliness, in sickness, in confusion-the mere knowledge of friendship makes it possible to endure, even if the friend is powerless to help. It is enough that they exist. Friendship is not diminished by distance or time, by imprisonment or war, by suffering or silence. It is in these things that it roots most deeply. It is from these things that it flowers.

Pam Brown
Poet

Source: goodreads.com

Robert Kiyosaki on Toughness

A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That's where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It's having a backbone.

Robert Kiyosaki

Source: thinkexist.com

Friday, May 4, 2012

Mary Parker Follett on Conflict

There are three ways of dealing with difference: domination, compromise, and integration. By domination only one side gets what it wants; by compromise neither side gets what it wants; by integration we find a way by which both sides may get what they wish.


Mary Parker Follett

Source: wisdomquotes.com


Pema Chodron on Messages

Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we're holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we'd rather collapse and back away. They're like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we're stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we are.

Pema Chodron

Source: wisdomquotes.com


Marshal Rosenberg on Anger

Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need.

Marshall Rosenberg, psychologist

Source:  wisdomquotes.com

Thomas Haliburton on Anger

When a man is wrong and won't admit it, he always gets angry.

Thomas C. Haliburton
Writer, lived 1796 - 1865


Source: wisdomquotes.com