here are a few of my favorite quotes - June 1, 2009
"but for me, it is like a painter standing in front of a blank canvas and not saying, 'i want to paint something someone will buy,' but instead saying, 'i want to paint something beautiful.'
--wayne kirkpatrick
"it is never too late to be what you might have been."
--george elliot
"whatever you are, be a good one."
--abraham lincoln
"all the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. but if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'here at last is the thing i was made for.'"
--c.s.lewis
"do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
--ralph waldo emerson
"a storyteller has the task of running behind the lines to make sure the stories live, to make sure that those shining moments of our humanity, however brief, are not forgotten."
--ken gire from the book THE REFLECTIVE LIFE
"some people walk in the rain, others just get wet."
--roger miller
"in prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart."
--john bunyan
"you have to have a certain shamelessness to write. you have to be willing to drop your pants in front of anyone that might want to look. and you don't do that because you're proud of it, you do that because you have to write. it's not a choice.....you write because you have no other option."
--rich mullins
"You have a destiny and your destiny is fulfilled by investing in the destinies of others."
--stephen mansfield
"success - to laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and 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 little 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
"i wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."
--henry david thoreau
"you will never know how much it cost my generation to preserve your freedom.
i hope you will make good use of it."
--john quincy adams
6th American President
"except for ending slavery, fascism, nazism &
communism....WAR has never solved anything."
--author unknown
"disturb me, God.
challenge my complacent comfort.
stir me.
shake me from my ambivalence.
storm on me if necessary.
but don't allow me to sit unmoved by life in your presence."
--kim thomas
"gardening forces you to be in the moment, to deal with what is happening in the here and now. plants can't fake it like humans can. they don't tell you everything is fine if it isn't. that's why observation is the single most useful talent to cultivate."
--judith handelsman
"let people feel the weight of who you are.....and let them deal with it."
--john eldredge from the book WILD AT HEART
"if a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away."
--henry david thoreau
"they may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."
--carl w. buechner
"this above all--ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: MUST i write? delve into yourself for a deep answer. and if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple 'i MUST', then build your life according to this necessity;"
--rainer maria rilke
"there is no division into sacred and secular; it is all one great, glorious life."
--oswald chambers
"earth's crammed with heaven.
and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees takes off his shoes;
the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries."
--elizabeth barrett browning
"preach the gospel, and when necessary, use words."
--st. francis of assissi
"i do not want to die....until i have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown."
--kathe kollwitz
"the great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been."
--madeleine l'engle
"if a shovel was created and molded and put together to be a shovel and made to dig into the ground, then it is naturally more than likely going to find a way to dig into the earth....because that's just what it does--that's its purpose....what it was designed for. and if that shovel instead, is forced to try to be a rake, it is just not going to be as effective at trying to do something that it was never created to do."
--anne davis
"how many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book."
--henry david thoreau
"if a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as michelangelo painted, or beethoven composed music, or shakespeare wrote poetry. he should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.' "
--martin luther king, jr.
"the life i touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt."
--fredrick buechner
"what you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."
--pericles (attributed)
"if you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire."
--st. catherine of siena
--wayne kirkpatrick
"it is never too late to be what you might have been."
--george elliot
"whatever you are, be a good one."
--abraham lincoln
"all the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. but if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'here at last is the thing i was made for.'"
--c.s.lewis
"do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
--ralph waldo emerson
"a storyteller has the task of running behind the lines to make sure the stories live, to make sure that those shining moments of our humanity, however brief, are not forgotten."
--ken gire from the book THE REFLECTIVE LIFE
"some people walk in the rain, others just get wet."
--roger miller
"in prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart."
--john bunyan
"you have to have a certain shamelessness to write. you have to be willing to drop your pants in front of anyone that might want to look. and you don't do that because you're proud of it, you do that because you have to write. it's not a choice.....you write because you have no other option."
--rich mullins
"You have a destiny and your destiny is fulfilled by investing in the destinies of others."
--stephen mansfield
"success - to laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and 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 little 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
"i wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."
--henry david thoreau
"you will never know how much it cost my generation to preserve your freedom.
i hope you will make good use of it."
--john quincy adams
6th American President
"except for ending slavery, fascism, nazism &
communism....WAR has never solved anything."
--author unknown
"disturb me, God.
challenge my complacent comfort.
stir me.
shake me from my ambivalence.
storm on me if necessary.
but don't allow me to sit unmoved by life in your presence."
--kim thomas
"gardening forces you to be in the moment, to deal with what is happening in the here and now. plants can't fake it like humans can. they don't tell you everything is fine if it isn't. that's why observation is the single most useful talent to cultivate."
--judith handelsman
"let people feel the weight of who you are.....and let them deal with it."
--john eldredge from the book WILD AT HEART
"if a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away."
--henry david thoreau
"they may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."
--carl w. buechner
"this above all--ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: MUST i write? delve into yourself for a deep answer. and if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple 'i MUST', then build your life according to this necessity;"
--rainer maria rilke
"there is no division into sacred and secular; it is all one great, glorious life."
--oswald chambers
"earth's crammed with heaven.
and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees takes off his shoes;
the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries."
--elizabeth barrett browning
"preach the gospel, and when necessary, use words."
--st. francis of assissi
"i do not want to die....until i have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown."
--kathe kollwitz
"the great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been."
--madeleine l'engle
"if a shovel was created and molded and put together to be a shovel and made to dig into the ground, then it is naturally more than likely going to find a way to dig into the earth....because that's just what it does--that's its purpose....what it was designed for. and if that shovel instead, is forced to try to be a rake, it is just not going to be as effective at trying to do something that it was never created to do."
--anne davis
"how many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book."
--henry david thoreau
"if a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as michelangelo painted, or beethoven composed music, or shakespeare wrote poetry. he should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.' "
--martin luther king, jr.
"the life i touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt."
--fredrick buechner
"what you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."
--pericles (attributed)
"if you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire."
--st. catherine of siena