Barack Obama on Change

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Barack Obama

Source: brainyquote.com

Billy Blanks on Real Strength

No matter how you feel, no matter what you know, in the end, it's your will that determines how you put your feelings and that knowledge into action. It's your will that makes it possible for you to put your faith into action, to make what you believe in happen for you. Knowledge is power.

Billy Blanks
The Tae Bo Way
©2000, Random House

Abraham Lincoln on Resolution

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.

Abraham Lincoln

Source: thinkexist.com

Ogden Nash on Awareness

Every new year is the direct descendant, isn't it, of a long line of proven criminals?

Ogden Nash

Source: nonstopenglish.com

Billy Blanks on Success

Don't set yourself up to fail. Before you make your first move, change your thinking. Set yourself up to conquer - your body, your thoughts, your will.

Billy Blanks
The Tae Bo Way
©2000, Random House

Irish Toast Wisdom

In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, but never in want.

Irish Toast

Source: nonstopenglish.com

Billy Blanks on Motivation

Listen to the Angel

On one shoulder, a devil shouts in your ear, telling you how bad you feel, how tired you are, and trying to convince you to just give up and walk off. That's your body.

On the other shoulder, an angel encourages you, reminding you how much better you're going to feel if you just get through the next few reps. That's your spirit.

Your mind is somewhere in the middle, sitting on the fence, listening to both sides of the story, trying to decide which way to go. Now your mind can take either side, depending on what kind of information it has.

You're going to take some action.

Will it be positive or negative? Will you keep going or will you quit?

Billy Blanks
The Tae Bo Way
©2000, Random House

Sydney Smith on Resolution

Resolve to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment.

Sydney Smith, writer, lived in the 18th and 19th centuries

Source: bellaonline.com

William Ellery Channing on Resolution

I will seek elegance rather than luxury, refinement rather than fashion. I will seek to be worthy more than respectable, wealthy and not rich. I will study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly. I will listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with an open heart. I will bear all things cheerfully, do all things bravely await occasions and hurry never. In a word I will let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common.

William Ellery Channing, lived in the 19th century

Source: bellaonline.com

Observational Wisdom

People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.

Author Unknown


Source: bellaonline.com

James Agate on Resolution

New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.

James Agate

Source: bellaonline.com

Observational Wisdom

A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.

Author Unknown


Source: quotegarden.com

Laura Ingalls Wilder on the Spirit of Christmas

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Source: quotegarden.com

George Seaton on the Spirit of Christmas

Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn): Oh, Christmas isn't just a day, it's a frame of mind...

Kris Kringle to the skeptical Doris Walker in Miracle on 34th Street.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Screenplay by George Seaton
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Source: imdb.com

George Seaton on the Spirit of Christmas

Fred Gailey (John Payne): You don't have any faith in me, do you? It's not about faith. It's just common sense. Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to. It's not just Kris that's on trial. It's everything he stands for. It's kindness, joy, love, and all other intangibles.

Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara): Fred, you're talking like a child. You're living in a realistic world! Those lovely intangibles aren't worth much. You don't get ahead that way.

Fred Gailey: ...Yes, I guess I expected too much. Someday, you're going to find out...that your way of facing this realistic world just doesn't work. And when you do, don't overlook those lovely intangibles. You'll discover they're the only things that are worthwhile.

Fred Gailey, Kris Kringle's attorney, to the cynical Doris Walker, Macy's Special Events Director, about the existence of Santa Claus in the touching Miracle on 34th Street.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Screenplay by George Seaton

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Sources: imdb.com and script-o-rama.com

Francis Pharcellus Church on the Spirit of Christmas

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.' Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
VIRGINIA O'HANLON. 115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Francis Pharcellus Church
The New York Sun
September 21, 1897

Source: newseum.com

Greg Lake on the Spirit of Christmas

I wish you a hopeful Christmas
I wish you a brave New Year
All anguish pain and sadness
Leave your heart and let your road be clear
They said there’d be snow at Christmas
They said there’d be peace on Earth
Hallelujah Noel be it Heaven or Hell
The Christmas we get we deserve

Greg Lake

I Believe in Father Christmas (1977)
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
Works Volume 2

Source: greglake.com

Movie Wisdom from The Bishop's Wife

Bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven): Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share, loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shinning gifts that make peace on earth.

The end of the Bishop Henry Brougham's angel-written sermon in The Bishop's Wife. A quiet, exquisite fable in an understated, touching film.

The Bishop's Wife (1948)
Written by Robert Nathan, Leonard Bercovici, Charles Bracket, Robert E. Sherwood, Billy Wilder
The Samuel Goldwyn Company

Source: imdb.com

Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra, and Philip Van Doren Stern on Good Starts

Mary Bailey (Donna Reed): Bread... that this house may never know hunger. Salt... that life may always have flavor.
George Bailey ( Jimmy Stewart): And wine... that joy and prosperity may reign forever.

George and Mary Bailey help the Martini family christen their first home in It's A Wonderful Life... one of the best films ever!

It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
Screenplay by Philip Van Doren Stern, Frances Goodrich, Albert Hacket, and Frank Capra
Liberty Films

Source: imdb.com

Laurence Boldt on Resourcefulness

If the universe is truly for us, there is something for us in the bitter as well as the sweet of life.

Laurence G. Boldt

Source: The Tao of Abundance
by Laurence G. Boldt
©1999 Laurence G. Boldt, p. 101
Penguin Compass

Alfred Austin on Gardening

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul.

Alfred Austin, poet

For photographer Gary Gardiner of Westerville Life and the vendors of the Uptown Westerville Farmers' Market

Order the Westerville Farmers' Market Hand Calendar for 2009

Source: brainyquote.com

Barack Obama on the American Dream

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

President-elect Barack Obama
November 4, 2008

To read Obama's historic and eloquent speech, click here.

Despair, Inc. on Vision

Vision: How can the future be so hard to predict, when all my worst fears are coming true?

Despair, Inc.

Source: despair.com
See image by clicking here.

Keith Olbermann on Introspection

If there is nothing to see in your soul, there is no need to look.

Keith Olbermann

Regarding George W. Bush's comments about his presidency in his interview with Charlie Gibson

Thomas Jefferson on Conflict Resolution

When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

Thomas Jefferson


Source: brainyquote.com

Joseph Addison on Disappointment

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

Joseph Addison

Poet and essayist lived in the late 1600's/early 1700s


Source: nonstopenglish.com