Deep Thoughts

I use a Random Quote plugin to generate the Smart Thoughts you see in the sidebar on this blog. Below is the entire list of those:?

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.

Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is happiness because we see joy in people. It is forgetting self and finding time for others. It is discarding the meaningless and stressing the true values.

There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy.

A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live.

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.

“We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.”

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

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.

True generosity is an offering; given freely and out of pure love. No strings attached. No expectations. Time and love are the most valuable possession you can share.

Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.

Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is all right to be different. Racism and all the other ‘isms’ grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents taught you to accept diversity.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly – that is the first law of nature.

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.

The tendency to aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man… it constitutes the powerful obstacle to culture.

You couldn’t relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole–like the world, or the person you loved.

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.

Treat those who are good with goodness, and also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is attained. Be honest to those who are honest, and be also honest to those who are not honest. Thus honesty is attained.

If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men

Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find out.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

When Love is the way, poverty would become history. When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary. When love is the way, we will lay our swords and shields down by the riverside to study war no more. When love is the way, there’s plenty of room for all of God’s children.

Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through you. Always be kinder than necessary.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive.

If you don’t think your anxiety, depression, sadness and stress impact your physical health, think again. All of these emotions trigger chemical reactions in your body, which can lead to inflammation and a weakened immune system. Learn how to cope, sweet friend. There will always be dark days.

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!

Things never go the way you expect them to. That’s both the joy and frustration in life. I’m finding as I get older that I don’t mind, though. It’s the surprises that tickle me the most, the things you don’t see coming.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.

Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone – and, ultimately, hating himself or herself.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.