"Failure is not the only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others."
-- Jules Renard

"Change your thoughts and change your world!"
-- Norman Vincent Peale

"We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend."
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
-- Robert Frost

"We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it".
-- Abraham Lincoln

"Humor is just another defense against the universe."
-- Mel Brooks

"Those who can, do. Those who can do more, TEACH!"
-- Teacherken on Daily Kos.

"It is far easier to prepare for a storm when the skies are still clear. By the time dark clouds appear on the horizon, your options are drastically more limited and much less effective".
-- Ralph Marston, as quoted by Scott.

"If you're strong enough, there are no precedents."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald,

"Don't accept rides from strange men, and remember that all men are strange".
-- Robin Morgan

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the
mind on the present moment."
-- Buddha

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man be perfected without trials.
-- Danish Proverb, on the chalkboard at Giorgio's Grill this morning.

"The world is a great book; he who never stirs from home, reads only a page".
-- Saint Augustine, as quoted by dAAve.

"If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me"
- Jimmy Buffet

"When it is all too much, when the news is so bad meditation itself feels useless, and a single life feels too small a stone to offer on the altar of peace, find a human sunrise. Find those people who are committed to changing our scary reality. Human sunrises are happening all over the earth, at every moment. People gathering, people working to change the intolerable, people coming in their robes and sandals or in their rags and bare feet, and they are singing, or not, and they are chanting, or not. But they are working to bring peace, light, compassion to the infinitely frightening downhill slide of human life".
-- Alice Walker

"Be loyal to what you love, be true to the earth, fight your enemies with passion and laughter".
-- Edward Abbey

"Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop."
-- Ovid

"Everything I ever touched is gone. Except 'Wheel' and 'Jeopardy!'"
-- Merv Griffin 1925-2007, as told to Phil Rosenthal.

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step".
-- Tao

"Has it ever occurred to you when you see something you don’t like to call it something else? Lately as I use my victim consciousness less and less I seem to recognize things differently in my life.

"It is my new thought that we have “made up” everything in our lives so far. So why not make up something else if we don’t like what we made up already? It may seem illogical and irrational at first, but when you think about it, it makes sense. I think none of this stuff we’re experiencing is real, except that perhaps it is a real experience, and that is why we have called it to us…to experience it.

"Accountability seems to be something lacking in our thought process today. I don’t mean that to justify anyone’s outrage over what has been done to them. This isn’t for you to continue to be upset because someone hurt you and they haven’t owned up to it yet. I’m writing this to give you the opportunity to become accountable for creating your life and all of the events that have taken place in it. I suggested this to someone recently and they asked me why they would do such terrible things to themselves. I told them that “Why?” isn’t important. The only real answer to that is you did it so that you could experience it and you made up everyone who participated in it.

"Here is the reprieve, because you have made up everything so far, you can make up something else and you will find yourself with people who are different and ready to participate in the new experiences with you.

"But we must take accountability for our lives. I don’t call it blame; I call it accountability. When you are accountable for your life, you are in charge of your life. That stuff you have been calling bad, call it an event. That stuff you are afraid of, admit you made up the fear. Every time you feel yourself resisting the future, remember you’ve just left the present. Admit that you are good on a regular basis. Admit that God is good on a regular basis. Admit that your life is good on a regular basis. Why not? It beats calling it something else".

-- Reverend Shawn Moninger

"We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming".
-- Wernher von Braun

"Never be afraid to sit awhile and think."
-- Lorraine Hansberry

“If you want better answers, ask yourself better questions.”
--Tony Robbins

"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it".
-- Michel de Montaigne

"You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose."
-- Gandhi

" Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?"
-- Fortune Cookie

"It is not so important to know everything as to appreciate what we learn."
-- Hannah More

"The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it".
-- William Gibson

"I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something".
-- Jackie Mason

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence."
-- Frederick Douglass

"Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone."
-- C. S. Lewis