True Quotes

The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually to be fearing you will make one.

–Elbert Hubbard

We all make mistakes, and some people take it much harder than others.  I suppose there are some people who just get used to making mistakes.  But the goal is not:  ”never make a mistake again!” but rather to learn from each mistake.

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

–Henry David Thoreau

When you look at something, do you assume that you see the same thing as the next person?  I am here to challenge that assumption.  When most people look at the Grand Canyon, they see majesty on a large scale.  When I look at the gran canyon, I see fine lines of sediment left by the years. I see the color of the rocks at my feet. I see the gnarled scraggly evergreen trees clinging to the canyon walls.

Is what you see better than what I see? No!  Nor is what I see better than your view.  We look at the same thing, but we see different things. One sees the large, overall picture, one sees the minute details. Without one, the other could not exist, for one is the components of the whole.

Look, and see. Whatever you see, it is a discovery to see - even if you have seen it before, and will see it again and again.

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing. 

–Albert Einstein

Do relatives do a favor and then expect repayment in loyalty?  Do people accept a free piano, then pay more than its worth to move it?

Somehow, the stuff we get free ends up costing more than we would have been willing to pay. Interesting, isn’t it. We clean out our home to make space, then we fill it up with free stuff that others are cleaning out!

Does Einstein mean that we pay in money? Not necessarily. We pay in time, patience, and yes, in loyalty.  This isn’t always a bad thing, but it definitely can cost us.

Perhaps this is one of those quotes that just can’t be clarified with words. We just read it and chuckle, and know just what he meant.

You can learn many things from children.  How much patience you have, for instance.  ~Franklin P. Jones

I’m not sure who Franklin P. Jones is or was, but he sure hit the nail on the head. Children, a gift from God, bring much joy. They bring hope for a bright future, they bring fulfillment to a marriage and a family.  But one thing they don’t pack in thier arrival bags is an extra dose of patience for thier parents.

How many times can one count to ten, or even count to five, waiting for results.  How many times can one say “put a jacket on, close the door, stop teasing your sister…finish your homework?” So, apparently this is where we learn one of the many things from chldren - we learn just how many time we can say it.

Thanks, kids, for teaching me….

The simplest and shortest ethical precept is to be served by others as little as possible, and to serve others as much as possible. — Leo Tolstoy

What a goal to work for - service of others.  To some it comes with the job, goes with the territory — mothers, for instance, but also nurses come to mind.  All job, occupations, vocations, are a call to service in some way.  But in daily life, in those little things, the anticipation of the needs of others is often the key.  It does not cost us anything to hand a thing to a person so they might not have to bend and pick it up. It is good for us to be aware of the needs of those around us so as to serve them in small and larger ways.  If all people followed this precept, then we would be on the receiving end as well.

How much is a great waiter or waitress valued?  It can make the difference between a great dining out experience and a lousy one.  Waitresses who serve well are worth their weight in gold, so to speak.  And in each walk of life, there is room for one who serves more, and expects less.

“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” — Andy Warhol

Yes, of course, as we look back, we see that time has changed things.  But really, there are people behind those changes.  Whether they be for good or for bad, from our perspective, people have changed things, not time alone.

Do you see something that needs to change?  Are you unhappy with the way things are going?  You have the power to make changes within your own little world, and each of these changes will have effects further reaching than you might realize.

Shall we resolve to change something that needs to be different?  Let us commit to taking that step today.

Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great.

- Orison Swett Marden

Life is full of everyday events. Sometimes these events turn into great things…discoveries, meetings, decisions.  This happens some by chance and even more by decision.  We are each given 24 hours. We sleep, we eat, we take care of the needs of ourselves and those in our care. The remainder of the time is what we are accountable for.  Does any of us expect to have an extraordinary opportunity today? Probably not, but we do, of course, expect to have some common occassions – some of those everyday moments. These are the chances to make the extraordinary happen. Great things happen in the same minutes, hours and days that each of us is given.  It is how we respond to them that makes them extraordianry.

Obey gravity. It’s the law.  –Unknown

Well, this speaks for itself. doesn’t it. Do we really have much choice but to obey gravity?  My daughter doesn’t want to obey gravity, but then again, she is a high-jumper on her track team and she’s trying to defeat it. Me? Well, I kind of like gravity, it keeps things from moving around on their own, It’s one of those stabilizing factors in life.

Kids learn gravity at an early age — throwing a toy off the high chair.  Eventually it becomes a game, child throws, mom picks up, child throws,….

Efforts to defeat gravity, of course have been successful, but only within the bounds of the laws of science. So one could say, obey nature, it’s the natural law.

A mother who is really a mother is never free.

– Unknown

Some may say this isn’t true, but it would never be a mother who claims it untrue. A mother, from the moment of the birth of her child, and often long before that, loves her child and knows it is forever.  She knows that her child’s entire life, whether it is the happy times or the trials, will be shared deeply in her heart.

Even in the animal world, a mother knows it is forever.  Maybe it only is the very beginning of life that the animal mother is present to her child in a physical sense. But getting that child off to a good start is the mother’s way of being there forever.

“That’s the best thing about friendship: you don’t have to have words, you feel safe in silence.” -Elizabeth Yates

In our society true silence is rather rare.  And with technology, and very portable music and cell phones, it is becoming even more rare. There are times when silence is the only thing that will heal our weary souls. For this, the greatest place is a stop in the Church.  Sometimes a library will work, too.

Elizabeth Yates suggests to us a different kind of silence. Here true friendship, in which no words are needed, the presence of a friend becomes the place to rest peacefully for a bit. With or without talking.

Friendship is a rare jewel, sparkling but not necessarily speaking.