Richard David Bach
"The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's
life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof."
"Learning is finding out what you already know, Doing is demonstrating that you know it, Teaching
is reminding others that they know it as well as you do. We are all learners, doers, and teachers."
"Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't."
"Sometimes when learning comes before experience it doesn't make sense right away."
"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the
caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly."
"You teach best what you most need to learn."
"Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself."
"Every problem has a gift for you in its hands."
"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You
may have to work for it, however."
Richard David Bach (b. 1936), author, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"
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Max Erhman
DESIDERATA (by Max Erhman)
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 ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others you may become vain or bitter,
for always there
will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested
in your 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 let this not blind you to what virtue there is.
Many persons strive
for high ideals
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection.
Neither
be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disappointment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take
kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
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 a right to be here.
And whether it is clear to you or not,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore
be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive him to be,
and whatever your labours and aspirations in the noisy confusion
of life,
keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham and drudgery and broken dreams
it is still a beautiful
world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
by: Max Ehrman (1872-1945), written in 1927. (the copyright
was renewed 1954 by Bertha K. Ehrmann). We are seeking for some biographical material about the author. Please contact us
if you know of any.
Max Ehrmann was born in Terre Haute, Indiana on September 26, 1872. He was the fifth and last child
of Maximilian Ehrmann, Sr. and Margaret Barbara Lutz Ehrmann, both of whom emigrated to the United States in the late 1840s
from Bavaria, Germany.Ehrmann received his early education from the Terre Haute Fourth District School and the German Methodist
Church. Between 1890-94 he attended De Pauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. While at De Pauw, Ehrmann became editor of
the school newspaper, Depauw Weekly.Upon graduation, Ehrmann studied law and philosophy at Harvard and edited The Rainbow,
a national college fraternity magazine.While at Harvard, he also published his first book, A Farrago, in 1898.Returning to
Terre Haute in 1898, Ehrmann practiced law as Deputy States Attorney for two years. He then worked for a number of years as
credit manager and attorney for his brother's manufacturing business.At the age of 40, Ehrmann left the family business and
returned to writing full-time. Throughout his career, he wrote more than 20 books and pamphlets and many essays and poems
that were published separately in newspapers and magazines.His most acclaimed work was "Desiderata" originally published in
1927. This prose-poem brought Ehrmann national attention because of its identification with Adelai Stevenson and because of
the confusion regarding its copyright and authorship. "Desiderata" has been published in numerous magazines, newspapers, and
anthologies and was produced as a single record by Warner Brothers in 1971.
Max Ehrmann died September 9, 1945.
Desiderata
is a copyrighted poem and is not in the public domain as is believed by many distributors. The author is Max Ehrmann, a poet
who lived from 1872 to 1945.
Desiderata was written in 1927, and is printed in a collection of his poems published in
1948.
In 1956, the rector of St. Paul's Church in Baltimore, Maryland, used the poem in a collection
of material he
compiled for his congregation. Someone who printed it later said that it was found in Old St. Paul's Church, dated1692.The
year 1692 is the founding date of the church and is unrelated to the poem, although Desiderata has been widely printed and
distributed with the implication that the poem was dated 1692.
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Maitri Upanishads (c.. BC 800)
"You are what your deep driving desire
is; As your deep driving desire is, so is your will; As your will is so is your deed; As your deed is so is your destiny."
"Where
there is joy there is creation. Where there is no joy there is no creation: know the nature of joy."
"Let a man
strive to purify his thoughts. What a man thinketh, that is he; this is the eternal mystery. Dwelling within himself with
thoughts serene, he will obtain imperishable happiness."
"One's own thought is one's world. What a person thinks is
what he becomes."
"The wise should surrender speech in mind, mind in the knowing self, the knowing self in the Spirit
of the universe, and the Spirit of the universe in the Spirit of peace."
"When the mind is silent, beyond weakness
or non concentration, then it can enter into a world which is far beyond the mind: the highest End."
"The honey from
the flowers of the senses, Ever present within, ruler of time, Goes beyond fear. For this Self is Supreme!"
"As one
acts and conducts himself, so does he become. The doer of good becomes good. The doer of evil becomes evil. One becomes virtuous
by virtuous action, bad by bad action."
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John Keats
A THING OF BEAUTY (John Keats 1795-1821)
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
Its loveliness
increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams,
and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite
of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er -darkened
ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.
Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With
the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the
mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have
imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring
unto us from heaven's brink.
These is the opening lines extracted from:
ENDYMION, BOOK 1 begun in Spring 1817
----------------------------------------------------------------------
William Wordsworth
THESE BEAUTEOUS FORMS by William Wordsworth
....These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence,
have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and
cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And
passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:--feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As
have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of
kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed
mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,--
Until, the breath of this
corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a
living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life
of things......
The actual name of these words is:
COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY,
ON REVISITING
THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR. JULY 13, 1798
This is but a short extract from the 60 lines of the poem
--------------------------------------------------------------
Sir Winston Spencer Churchill
"When I look back on all the worries I remember the story of the old man
who said on his deathbed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened"
"Men occasionally
stumble on the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened"
The heights of
great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upwards
in the night"
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm"
Success
is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts"
"Every day you may make progress. Every
step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You
know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the
climb"
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty"
"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give"
Sir Winston Leonard Spenser Churchill
(historian,
statesman, politician, Prime Minister, painter, war leader: 1874-1965)
----------------------------------------------------------------
pharaoh Akhenaton,
(c.1354bce)
In all thy undertakings, let a reasonable assurance animate thy endeavors; if thou
despairest of success, thou shalt not succeed."
*
"True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often,
and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance."
*
"Contemplate
thy powers, contemplate thy wants and thy connections; so shalt thou discover the duties of life, and be directed in all thy
ways."
*
"As the moon retaineth her nature, though darkness spread itself before her face as a curtain, so the Soul
remaineth perfect even in the bosom of the fool."
"Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who
gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise and thou art happy."
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Chief Black Elk
The First Peace
The first peace,
which is the most important,
is that which comes
within the souls of people
when they realize their relationship,
their oneness with the universe and all its
powers,
and when they realize that at the centre of the universe
dwells the Great Spirit,
and that
this centre is really everywhere,
it is within each of us."
Chief Black Elk, 1863-1950. Holy Man of the Oglala
Sioux
("Black Elk Speaks")
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