Meister Eckhart on Gratitude

If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.

Meister Eckhart

(Meister Eckhart lived in the 13th and 14th centuries.)

Source: goodreads.com

Eckart Tolle on Gratitude

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.

Eckhart Tolle
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Source: goodreads.com

John F. Kennedy on Gratitude

Let Us Be Grateful: Today we give our thanks most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers - for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.

John F. Kennedy

Source: goodreads.com

Anne Morrow Lindbergh on Gratitude

If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Source: goodreads.com

John F. Kennedy on Conscious Living

In whatever area in life one may meet the challenges of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient - they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.

John F. Kennedy
from Profiles in Courage

Source: jfklibrary.org

John F. Kennedy on Self-Determination

For in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, 'holds office'; everyone of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.

John F. Kennedy
from Profiles in Courage

Source: jfklibrary.org

Mike Dillard on Being Alive

When you commit yourself to leading an extraordinary life, the Universe accepts your deal and silently goes to work challenging you so that you're always prepared for bigger challenges and greater rewards.

Mike Dillard

Source: John Edward on facebook

Leo Buscaglia on Simple Pleasures

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.

Leo Buscaglia 

Source: goodreads.com

Richelle E. Goodrich on Gratitude

Happiness isn't complicated. It is a humble state of gratitude for simple pleasures, tender mercies, recognized blessings, and inherent beauty.
 
Richelle E. Goodrich

Source: goodreads.com

Homespun Wisdom

I dream of a better world where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned.

Primitives by Kathy sign

Source: Primitives by Kathy

Ron Jaworski on Comfort Zones

Sooner or later you've got to make that 'stick throw' - the throw where you don't have access to the results.

On NFL Kansas City Chiefs' Quarterback Alex Smith

Ron Jaworksi
on Mike and Mike, ESPN
November 18, 2013

Doris Lessing on The Truth

Do you know what people really want? Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who'd be kind to me. That's what people really want, if they're telling the truth.

Doris Lessing
The Golden Notebook

Source: goodreads.com

Cesar Millan on Lessons

To me dogs are not the students, not the ones that need training. To me a dog is a teacher of life, who teaches us the principles of the most important moral values; honesty, integrity, loyalty, trust, respect and love.

Cesar Millan

Source: Cesar Millan on facebook

Lao Tzu on Love

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

- Lao Tzu

Source: goodreads.com


To honor Barbara Shoemaker-Redmond, a tremendous life filled with love, fully lived. Thank you and farewell.

Dwight D. Eisenhower on Service

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. 

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

With gratitude on this Veterans Day.

Source: nj.com

Henri N. J. Nouwen on Compassion

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

Henri N. J. Nouwen

Source: goodreads.com

Plato on Empathy

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.

Plato

Source: goodreads.com

Song Lyric Wisdom: Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya 
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

Maybe I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew ya
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
And love is not a victory march
It's a cold and its a broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do ya 
And remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

Maybe there's a god above
All I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya 
And it's not a cry you can hear at night
Not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much.
I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch.
I've told the truth, I didn't come all this way to fool ya.
Yeah even though it all went wrong
I'll stand right here before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah....

Leonard Cohen, Various Positions, June 1984
John Lissauer, Producer

Published by Lyrics © EMI Music, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group

Note: There are more than 80 verses to this song, these are what we hear the most.

Learn more about this beautiful song from an exert of the book The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of 'Hallelujah' by Alan Light in Rolling Stone Magazine, December 3, 2012. 

Watch a performance of Hallelujah by Roger Waters and U.S. Armed Services veterans at Stand Up for Veterans, November 6, 2013.

Source: metrolyrics.com and youtube.com

John F. Kennedy on These United States

So let us not be petty when our cause is so great. Let us not quarrel amongst ourselves when our Nation's future is at stake.

Let us stand together with renewed confidence in our cause - united in our heritage of the past and our hopes for the future - and determined that this land we love shall lead all mankind into new frontiers of peace and abundance.

Text of the speech John F. Kennedy was going to give at a dinner in Austin, Texas the day he was assassinated, November 22, 1963 

John F. Kennedy

Source: huffingtonpost.com

Andrew Boyd on Compassion

Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.

Andrew Boyd 
Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe

Source: goodreads.com