"LET THERE BE PEACE ON EARTH 
AND LET IT BEGIN WITH ME"

We need some positive thoughts in our lives each day 
and some days more so than others.
I pray that these great words from unique people may find a place in your life.

Let there be peace on earth
 and let it begin with me
 Let There Be Peace on Earth
 The peace that was meant to be

 With God as our Father
 Brothers all are we
 Let me walk with my brother
 In perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me
Let this be the moment now.

 With ev'ry step I take
 Let this be my solemn vow;
To take each moment and live
 Each moment in peace eternally.

Let there be peace on earth
and let it begin with me.

"Use the talents you possess,
 for the woods would be very silent
if no birds sang except the best." ____ Henry Van Dyke

"Go slowly, breathe, and smile." -Thich Nhat Hanh
 

"I know you believe you understand what you think I said,
 but I am not sure you realize that what you heard was not what I meant."
 

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

"We can do no great things - only small things with great love." -Mother Teresa
 

"Past experience should be a guidepost not a hitching post"........ Patti Caldwell Fasy
 

If you would put the world right, Start with your self.
 

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.
 

You are the sum total of your choices.

THINKING

If you think you are beaten, you are.
        If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you'd like to win but you think you can't.
        It's almost a cinch you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost.
        For out of the world we find
Success begins with a fellow's will- -
        It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you're outclassed, you are.
        You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself before
        You can ever win a prize.

Life's battle don't always go
        To stronger or faster man;
But soon or late the man who wins,
        Is the one who thinks he can.

                -- Walter D. Wintle
 

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change.
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference:
-- attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr

The Road Not Taken

 Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
 And sorry I could not travel both
 And be one traveler, long I stood
 And looked down one as far as I could
 To where it bent in the undergrowth

 Then took the other as just as fair
 And having perhaps the better claim
 Because it was grassy and wanted  wear
 Though as for that, the passing there
 Had worn them really about the same

 And both that morning equally lay
 In leaves no step had trodden black
 Oh, I kept the first for another day!
 Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
 I doubted if I should ever come back

 I shall be telling this with a sigh
 Somewhere ages and ages hence
 Two roads diverged in a wood
 And I took the one less traveled by
 And that has made all the difference
 -- Robert Frost
 
 

The really happy person is the one who can enjoy the scenery
 When he has to take a detour.
 

Desiderata
 

     Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
      And remember what peace there may be in silence.
     As far as possible, without surrender,
      Be on good terms with all persons.
 

      Speak your truth quietly and clearly
      And listen to others � even the dull and the ignorant
        they, too, have their story.
 

      If you compare yourself with others,
        you may become vain and bitter,
      For always there will be greater and lesser persons
        than yourself.
 

      Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
      It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
      Exercise caution in your business affairs,
        for the world is full of trickery;
      But do not let this blind you to what virtue there is;
      Many persons strive for high ideals
        and everywhere life is filled with heroism.
 

      Be yourself.  Especially, do not feign affection;
        neither be cynical about love,
      For, in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
        it is perennial as the grass.
 

      Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune,
      But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
      Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
 

      Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
      You are a child of the universe,
        no less than the trees and the stars.
      You have the right to be here.
 

      And, whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt
        the universe is unfolding as it should.
 

      Therefore, be at peace with God � whatever you may
        conceive Him to be �
      And in the noisy confusion of life,
        make peace with your Soul.
 

      With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
       It is still a beautiful world.
       Be careful.
       Strive to be happy.

                                __Max Ehrmann
 
 

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act
 is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

 -Mahatma Gandhi
  (1869-1948)

Prejudice is being down on what we are not up on.

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be
Since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
~~ Emerson

To love the lovely merits No applause for me or you -
To love the difficult to love - Ay - there's faith that's true!
by Helen Lowrie Marshall

"Excellence can be attained if you...
Care more than others think is wise.
Risk more than others think is safe.
Dream more than others think is practical.
Expect more than others think is possible."
To return good for good is Human;
evil for evil is Beast-Like;
but good for evil is Christ-Like.

The world is slowly learning that because two men think differently
Neither need be wicked.

Sow an act, and you reap a habit.
Sow a habit, and you reap a character.
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

Charles Reade

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
An stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold On!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count on you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

by Rudyard Kipling

We will never have true civilization until we have learned
to recognize the rights or others.
Will Rogers

What you think of yourself is much more important than what others think of you

A man should never be ashamed to own
he has been in the wrong, which is
but saying in other words that
he is wiser today than he
was yesterday.

                        __Pope
 

Life is a steep grade,
and we should welcome every opportunity
to give our friends a lift when they need it.

The smile on your face is the light in the window
that tells people that you are at home.

It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

What most people call bad judgement is
judgement which is different from theirs
at a particular monent.
 

                __Winston Churchill
 

A man there was, and they called him mad,
the more he gave, the more he had.

                        ___Bunyan
 

Good nature and good sense must ever join;
To err is human, to forgive divine.

                       Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

We live in deeds, not years;
in thoughts, not breaths;
in feelings, not in figures on a dial.
 

We should count time by heartthrobs.
He most lives who thinks most,
feels the noblest, acts the best.

                __Philip James Bailey
 

Happiness is best attained by learning to live each day by itself.
The worries are mostly about yesterday and tomorrow.

                                __Michael Nolan

It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it.
    - Seneca

Believe in yourself, and what others think won't matter.
__Emerson

Nature imitates herself herself.
A grain thrown into good ground brings forth fruit;
a principle thrown into a good mind brings forth frui.

Everything is created and conducted by the same Master:
the root, the branch, the fruits -- principles, the consequences.

                                        __Blaise Pascal
 

HOW TO OBSERVE THANKSGIVING...

Count your blessings instead of your crosses;
Count your gains instead of your losses.
Count your joys instead of your woes;
Count your friends instead of your foes.
Count your smiles instead of your tears;
Count your courage instead of your fears.
Count your full years instead of your lean;
Count your kind deeds instead of your mean.
Count your health instead of your wealth;
Count on God instead of yourself.
 

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ"

Epistle of Paul, the Apostle to the Romans,  Romans 1:7

What's Essential To Life

There are three material things...essential to life.
These are pure air, water and earth.
There are three immaterial things...essential to life.
These are admiration, hope and love.

Admiration --- the power of discerning and taking delight in
what is beautiful in visible form and lovely in human character;
and , necessarily, striving to produce what is beautiful in form
and to become what is lovely in character.

Hope --- the recognition, by true foresight, of better things to
be reached hereafter, whether by ourselves or others; necess-
arily issuing in the straight-forward and undisappointable effort
to advance, according to our proper power, the gaining of them.

Love --- both of family and neighbor, faithful and satified.
 

                                ___ John Ruskin
 
 

Human Greatness

What is a great man who has made his mark upon history?
Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who looked through
the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue involved;
he is a man who has refused to have his sense of justice distorted;
he has listened to his conscience until conscience becomes a trumpet
call to the like-minded men, so that they gather abut him and together,
with mutual purpose and mutal aid, they make a new period in history.

The lessons of great men are lost unless they reenforce upon our
minds the highest demands which we make upon ourselves; ...
they are lost unless they drive our ...
wills forward in the direction of their highest ideals.
 

                                ___ Jane Addams
 
 

INDIVIDUALITY

Among the works of man which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and beautifying,
the first in importance surely is man himself. Human nature is not a machine to built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which (must) grow and develop itself on all sides. It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in them- selves, but by cultivating it, and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others,
that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation.
It is only the cultivation of individuality which produces,
or can produce, well-developed human beings.

___ John Stuart Mill

"Excellence can be attained if you...
    Care more than others think is wise.
    Risk more than others think is safe.
    Dream more than others think is practical.
    Expect more than others think is possible."

                                        -  Anonymous
 

"To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"My teachers have been life--work--continuous experiment.
Incidentally a great deal of hard thinking.
Any one can build on this experience with means available to all."
-- Alfred Stieglitz

"People are unreasonable, illogical, self-centered.
Love them, anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good, anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do it, anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank, anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build, anyway.
People really need help, but they may attack you if you help them.
Try to help people, anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway."

- Karl A. Menninger, to the United Nations iin 1981.

Namaste -

"I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells.
I honor the place in you which is of  love, and truth, of light, and of peace.
When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me,
        We are One."

Namaste -
'The God in me greets the God in you
The Spirit in me meets the same Spirit in you'

joy (joi) noun

1.      a. Intense and especially ecstatic or exultant happiness.
      b. The expression or manifestation of such feeling.
 

peace (pês) noun
1.      The absence of war or other hostilities.
2.      Freedom from quarrels and disagreement; harmonious relations.
3.      Inner contentment; serenity: peace of mind.
 
 
 

Updated July 15, 2002
Updated July 8, 2010