Change

Adapt, cope, remain flexible and foster a positive attitude amidst life's ups and downs.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Life is Short Quotes



“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” -Albert Einstein





“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so life is amply long for the one who orders it properly.” -Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
(Source of the quote above)





 



“Again and again I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America: Don't aim at success -- the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run -- in the long-run, I say! -- success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”
 -Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning



Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Serenity Parayer Adapted for ADD



God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; 

The insight to prioritize wisely what I want to change; 

The patience to resist trying to control everything I could, had I the energy and time; 

The courage and skill to change the things I have chosen to change; 

And the wisdom to know the differences among all these.

- Dr. Edward Hallowell   








Monday, January 20, 2014

Hopeful Words


Affirmation of life is the spiritual act by which man ceases to live thoughtlessly and begins to devote himself to his life with reverence in order to give it true value.
— Albert Schweitzer 





Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. 

- Albert Einstein


Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. 

- Howard Zinn


Perception:


  If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite.
  For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things throu' narrow chinks of the cavern.
― William Blake



Do Your Best:


"I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says: 'Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest.' I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have - When he gives everything that is in him to do the job he has before him. That is all you can ask of him and that is what I have tried to do."

 - Harry S. Truman 



Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Zorba the Greek and Nikos Kazantzakis quotes



“Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all, in my view, is not to have one.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek



“Let your youth have free reign, it won't come again, so be bold and no repenting.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis



“You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint the paradise, then in you go.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis



“For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek



“When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy—some call him God, others the Devil, seem to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek



“Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

 
“You can knock on a deaf man's door forever.” 
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
 
“This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.” 
― Nikos KazantzakisZorba the Greek


“God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises.” 
― Nikos KazantzakisZorba the Greek



“Free yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an idea, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model the longer the longer the tether of our slavery?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek



“Once more there sounded within me the terrible warning that there is only one life for all men, that there is only one life for all men, that there is no other and that all that can be enjoyed must be enjoyed here. In eternity no other chance will be given to us.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek


“All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! D'you see?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

 

“the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

 

“Look, one day I had gone to a little village. An old grandfather of ninety was busy planting an almond tree. ‘What, grandfather!’ I exclaimed. ‘Planting an almond tree?’ And he, bent as he was, turned around and said: ‘My son, I carry on as if I should never die.’ I replied: ‘And I carry on as if I was going to die any minute.’

Which of us was right, boss?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek



“I was happy, I knew that. While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize - sometimes with astonishment - how happy we had been.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
 

“When shall I at last retire into solitude alone, without companions, without joy and without sorrow, with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream? When, in my rags—without desires—shall I retire contented into the mountains? When, seeing that my body is merely sickness and crime, age and death, shall I—free, fearless, and blissful—retire to the forest? When? When, oh when?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

 

 

“Throughout my life my greatest benefactors have been my travels and my dreams. Very few men, living or dead, have helped me in my struggles.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis




“Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis


“Ideal teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross, then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis


 “Freedom was my first great desire. The second, which remains hidden within me to this day, tormenting me, was the desire for sanctity. Hero together with saint: such is mankind's supreme model.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco






“Discipline is the highest of all virtues. Only so may strength and desire be counterbalanced and the endeavors of man bear fruit.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, The Rock Garden




“My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis



“What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis



“How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness, is a simple, frugal heart.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis



“The canary began to sing again. The sun had struck it, and its throat and tiny breast had filled with song. Francis gazed at it for a long time, not speaking, his mouth hanging half opened, his eyes dimmed with tears.
"The canary is like man's soul," he whispered finally. "It sees bars round it, but instead if despairing, it sings. It sings, and wait and see, Brother Leo: one day its song shall break the bars.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis