Welcome to my Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote. See today's daily inspirational quotes below.
May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself. - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Sunday, February 28, 2021

The Vice of Hypocrisy

 


Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye;
and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
- Matthew 7:5

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy.
- William Hazlitt

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are all hypocrites.
We cannot see ourselves or judge ourselves the way we see and judge others.
- José Emilio Pacheco

Judge not, that ye be not judged.
- Matthew 7:1

He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.
- Jesus of Nazareth (John 8:7)

Further reading: The Essence of Jesus' Teaching

Grant That I May Radiate
      

Saturday, February 27, 2021

The Illusion of Knowledge

 


Beware of false knowledge;
it is more dangerous than ignorance.
- George Bernard Shaw

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -
it is the illusion of knowledge.
- Daniel J. Boorstin

When you have a very strong FEELING that something is true, often it isn't.
WANTING something to be true doesn't make it true.
Likewise, being AFRAID that something is true doesn't make it true either.

Truth is not defined by
how many people believe something.
Ask. Question. Think.
Decide - for yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We want the facts to fit the preconceptions.
When they don't, it is easier to ignore the facts
than to change the preconceptions.
- Jessamyn West

Further reading: Perspective on Tradition: An Open Mind

The Danger of Assumptions

Truth isn't True. Reality isn't Real.
    

Friday, February 26, 2021

Practice Excellence

 


We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.
- Will Durant (commonly attributed to Aristotle)

Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise,
risking more than others think is safe,
dreaming more than others think is practical,
and expecting more than others think is possible.
- Anonymous

Excellence is not a destination to be arrived at,
but a path of continual attention and improvement.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's affirmation:
While I choose never to be dissatisfied or unhappy
with my current level of knowledge or accomplishment,
I constantly seek excellence in all domains that truly matter to me.

Further reading: Creating Your Future

Choose Your Habits, Choose Your Life - 5 Secrets For Breaking Your Bad Habits

Choice

Play to win, but be a good loser
     

Thursday, February 25, 2021

How to Measure a Life

 


The true measure of a man is how he treats someone
who can do him absolutely no good.
- Samuel Johnson

To measure the man, measure his heart.
- Malcolm S. Forbes

Don't let anyone else take the measure
of your worth and capabilities.
Always stand proud in who you are.
- Margaret Spellings

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.
- Anonymous

Further reading: This Above All, to Thine Own Self Be True

The Paradox Of Living In The Moment

Fear of the Unknown

My thoughts on "safety" versus living full-out
     

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Choose Lifelong Learning and Growth

 


Education is not the filling of a pail,
but the lighting of a fire.
- William Butler Yeats

Intellectual growth should commence at birth
and cease only at death.
- Albert Einstein

We are not afraid to follow truth
wherever it may lead,
nor to tolerate any error
so long as reason is left free to combat it.
- Thomas Jefferson

The mind is not a vessel to be filled,
but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch

Develop a passion for learning.
If you do, you will never cease to grow.
- Anthony J. D'Angelo

Further reading: Lifelong Learning

Knowledge is Soon Changed

Open Minds

Reason
    

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

The Value of a Thing

 


Don't compromise yourself.
You are all you've got.
- Janis Joplin

It all depends on how we look at things,
and not on how things are in themselves.
The least of things with a meaning
is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.
- Carl Jung

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
- Henry David Thoreau

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable,
you disconnect yourself from what you truly want,
and all that is left is compromise.
- Robert Fritz

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
- Steve Jobs

In matters of style, swim with the current;
in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
- attributed to Thomas Jefferson

The Meaning of a Thing is Not Measured by its Size.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Your To-Do List

Question Your Questions

Choose Your Priorities

Your Relationship with Time

The Main Thing
     

Monday, February 22, 2021

Circumstances Mark the Beginning, Not the End, of Our Battle with Life

 


Our circumstances define the playing field, not the outcome.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life consists not in holding good cards
but in playing those you hold well.
- Josh Billings

Customs form us all.
Our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed beliefs,
are consequences of our place of birth.
- Aaron Hill
Yet within these quite extreme constraints, progress, success, and happiness are still possible.

You play the hand you're dealt.
I think the game's worthwhile.
- Christopher Reeve

All men and women are born, live, suffer and die;
what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams,
whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things,
and what we do to make them come about.
We do not choose to be born.
We do not choose our parents.
We do not choose our historical epoch,
the country of our birth,
or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing.
We do not, most of us, choose to die;
nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death.
But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.
- Joseph Epstein

We all have free will, but only within the harsh constraints of predestination.
Within the limits placed upon our lives by the circumstances of our genes,
our place and condition of birth, the parenting we receive,
and other events beyond our control,
we are defined by the free will we can still exercise.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Make Your Dreams Come True

Do What You Can Do

Choose to Soar
      

Sunday, February 21, 2021

Spirit is IN Everything, Spirit IS Everything


Everything is God
- don Miguel Ruiz

To be at one with God is to be at peace...
peace is to be found only within,
and unless one finds it there,
he will never find it at all.
Peace lies not in the external world.
It lies within one's own soul.
- Ralph W. Trine

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself,
and know that everything in life has purpose.
There are no mistakes, no coincidences,
all events are blessings given to us to learn from.
- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Don't seek God in temples.
He is close to you.
He is within you.
Only you should surrender to Him
and you will rise above happiness and unhappiness.
- Leo Tolstoy

You don't look out there for God, something in the sky,
you look in you.
- Alan Watts

Surrender to a Higher Power is a central tenet of 12-step programs,
and is the key to recovering from depression, worry, and fear as well.

Today's affirmation:
When I see Spirit in everything, Peace is at hand.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Breath by Breath

How to Cope With Life

How to Forgive and Move On

Alcoholism in a Relationship - When to Stay, When to Leave
      

Saturday, February 20, 2021

The Unimagined Future

 


There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you
it's going to be a butterfly.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

Vision stands on the shoulders of what is actual
to get a better view of what is possible.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

There are all kinds of futures.
There is a hoped-for future,
there is a feared future,
there is a predictable future,
and there is an unimagined future.
- Werner Erhard

Further reading: Hold Fast to Your Dreams

Be a Dreamer, In Action

Faith in a Great Future

Is your glass of life half empty? Or half full?
      

Friday, February 19, 2021

Worry is the Darkest Cloud

 


Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.
- Winston Churchill

Worry is the Darkest Cloud over Our Happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You can't change the past,
but you can ruin the present
by worrying about the future.
- Anonymous

How much pain they have cost us,
the evils which have never happened.
- Thomas Jefferson

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.
- Swedish Proverb

Further reading: Worry, Frustration and Resentment

Beyond Your Worries

Master of My Emotions

Fear of Suffering
      

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Love is the Ultimate

 


You know that you have fully experienced love
when you turn into love -
that is the spiritual goal of life.
- Deepak Chopra

Love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us.
Love is not a mere sentiment.
Love is the ultimate truth at the heart of creation.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Love is an undulating energy that moves through you,
within you, and radiates out of you,
and changes everything.
- Bartholomew

Further reading: The Power of Unconditional Love

What Does Love Look Like?

Giving Love and Comfort
     

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

The True Mystery

 


The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
- Oscar Wilde

Many men go fishing all of their lives
without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
- Henry David Thoreau

To know the whole world is nothing
when it is compared to knowing your own inner mystery of life.
- Osho

The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller

Further reading: Wonder and Mystery

The Mystery of Life

Beyond Answers

Experience Life with Reverence
      

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Hurrying is Both Inefficient AND Bad for Your Health

 


No good comes from hurrying.
- Yiddish Proverb

Haste is blind and improvident.
- Titus Livius (Livy)

He who sows hurry reaps indigestion.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

When you feel the need to hurry,
remember that everything in life is a CHOICE.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste
that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Take time to laugh.
It is the music of the soul.
- Anonymous

"Hurry up" ranks right up there with "you need to"
as a destroyer of our humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

Patience is an ever present alternative
to the mind's endemic restlessness and impatience.
Scratch the surface of impatience and what you will find
lying beneath it, subtly or not so subtly, is anger.
It's the strong energy of not wanting things to be the way they are
and blaming someone (often yourself) or something for it.
This doesn't mean you can't hurry when you have to.
It is possible even to hurry patiently, mindfully,
moving fast because you have chosen to.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Today's Affirmation:
Slowly and Deeply, I Inhale a Calming Breath.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Choose Inner Peace and a Less Stressful Life

Seven Tips for Stress-Free Living

Tending the Garden of Our Lives

The Wisdom of Patience
   

Monday, February 15, 2021

Presidents' Day 2021

 


We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson (third President of the United States)
[Declaration of Independence, and inscribed in the Jefferson Memorial]

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (32nd President of the United States)

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman,
before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
- John Quincy Adams (sixth President of the United States)

Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.
- George Washington (first President of the United States)

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John F. Kennedy (35th President of the United States)

With self-discipline most anything is possible.
- Theodore Roosevelt (26nd President of the United States)

Nothing is more important in our national life
than the welfare of our children.
- Harry S. Truman (33rd President of the United States)

Further reading: Save Only the Best of the Old Ways

Independence Day

Make a Difference, Vote

Hold Your Anger
      

Sunday, February 14, 2021

Valentine's Day 2021

 


Marriage, ultimately, is the practice of becoming passionate friends.
- Harville Hendrix

No partner in a love relationship should feel
that he has to give up an essential part of himself to make it viable.
- May Sarton

The greatest lovers are like twin blooms,
each reflecting the passion and the glory of the other.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You are my ground and you are my rainbow.
You are my butterfly and you are my ecstasy.
You are the start of my journeys and always my destination.
You are my home - the place to which I always return.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: 7 Secrets of Happy Couples

A Loving Relationship

Love and Relationship

Marriage
   

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Your Inner Beliefs VS. Your Superficial Beliefs

 


Begin with your own inner peace.
Then use that inner peace
as a platform from which
to approach the outer world
with perspective, understanding, and patience.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is those who have a deep and real inner life
who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.
- Evelyn Underhill

We're so engaged in doing things
to achieve purposes of outer value
that we forget the inner value,
the rapture that is associated
with being alive, is what it is all about.
- Joseph Campbell

The outer conditions of a person's life will always
be found to reflect their inner beliefs.
- James Lane Allen

Further reading: Master of My Emotions

What Really Matters

Your Attitude is Your Window

Renewal

Mastering Time

Life Really Is Good
      

Friday, February 12, 2021

Stand By Your Moral Values AND Choose Peace

 


Peace doesn't just happen.
Peace must be "made,"
and it's hard work to make Peace.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Peace is not an absence of war,
it is a virtue, a state of mind,
a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
- Baruch Spinoza

It is not enough to say we must not wage war.
It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

We can never obtain peace in the outer world
until we make peace with ourselves.
- Dalai Lama

The world has always been in an uproar, and it always will be.
Choose Peace. Choose to live with Peace.
Choose to interact peacefully with everyone -
especially those whose instinct is not to be peaceful.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Peacemakers

Love All, Judge None

Hatred vs. Love
     

Thursday, February 11, 2021

The Grinding All-Consuming Fear of Having Less

 


People generally complain about only two things:
when they have less than yesterday,
and when they have less than their neighbor.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Happiness in the present is only shattered by comparison with the past.
- Douglas Horton

Expectations Diminish Joy.
- Anonymous

Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession
as they torment us with their loss.
- Epicurus

Comparisons are odious.
- Old English Saying
Read more about this...

Further reading: Rejoice for What You Have

We have Already Arrived

Comparison - Cause of Unhappiness

Appreciating Our Lives
   

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Your Own Rainbows and Butterflies Kind of Day

 


Lighten up, have a rainbows and butterflies kind of day.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.
And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.
- Irish Blessing

Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world.
Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak.
Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor,
and your picture begins to lighten up.
- Allen Klein

The only limits in our life are those we impose on ourselves.
- Bob Proctor

The best portion of a good man's life
is his little, nameless, unremembered
acts of kindness and of love.
- William Wordsworth

Further reading: Cherish the Whimsey

Life as Play

Boldly Paint Your Life

Simple Living and Small Pleasures
      

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

The Way You Look at Things

 


One's destination is never a place but rather a new
way of looking at things.
- Henry Miller

Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life.
- Burton Hills

Life is a continuity always and always.
There is no final destination it is going towards.
Just the pilgrimage, just the journey in itself is life,
not reaching to some point,
no goal - just dancing and being in pilgrimage,
moving joyously, without bothering about any destination.
- Osho

I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life
as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.
- Joseph Campbell

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.
- Helen Keller

Further reading: Purpose and Direction

Through the Eyes of Another

Where You're Going
    

Monday, February 8, 2021

Focus on Results, Don't Hurry

 


No good comes from hurrying.
- Yiddish Proverb

Haste is blind and improvident.
- Titus Livius (Livy)

He who sows hurry reaps indigestion.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

When you feel the need to hurry,
remember that everything in life is a CHOICE.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste
that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Take time to laugh.
It is the music of the soul.
- Anonymous

"Hurry up" ranks right up there with "you need to"
as a destroyer of our humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

Patience is an ever present alternative
to the mind's endemic restlessness and impatience.
Scratch the surface of impatience and what you will find
lying beneath it, subtly or not so subtly, is anger.
It's the strong energy of not wanting things to be the way they are
and blaming someone (often yourself) or something for it.
This doesn't mean you can't hurry when you have to.
It is possible even to hurry patiently, mindfully,
moving fast because you have chosen to.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Today's Affirmation:
Slowly and Deeply, I Inhale a Calming Breath.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Choose Inner Peace and a Less Stressful Life

Seven Tips for Stress-Free Living

Tending the Garden of Our Lives

The Wisdom of Patience
   

Sunday, February 7, 2021

Focus on How Blessed You Are


Count your blessings - not your troubles.
- Dale Carnegie

In a society that has you counting money, pounds, calories, and steps,
be a rebel and count your blessings instead.
- Rev. Lisa Heckman

It is always a good day to be grateful for all of life -
grateful for large blessings and small.
Especially to be grateful for the symbolic blessings -
the rainbows and butterflies that come into our lives
when we least expect and most need them.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If only the people who worry about their liabilities
would think about the riches they do possess,
they would stop worrying.
- Dale Carnegie

Further reading: Step Back, Gain Perspective

Beyond Worries

May You Be Blessed
    

Saturday, February 6, 2021

Take a Stand for What You Know is Right


The greatest way to live with honor in this world
is to be what we pretend to be.
- Socrates

Reputation is what other people know about you.
Honor is what you know about yourself.
- Lois McMaster Bujold

The truth of the matter is that
you always know the right thing to do.
The hard part is doing it.
- Gen. Norman Schwarzkoff

You will never do anything in this world without courage.
It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
- Aristotle

When people get caught up with that which is right
and they are willing to sacrifice for it,
there is no stopping point short of victory.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

All the great things are simple,
and many can be expressed in a single word:
freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
- Winston Churchill

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
- Abraham Lincoln

Never let your sense of morals
get in the way of doing what's right.
- Isaac Asimov

Read: What is Moral versus What is Right

Do what you feel in your heart to be right.
You'll be criticized anyway.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Whatever your friends and family do,
Always do what you know is right.

If it's Right, stand up for it - together.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Live with honor

Be yourself. Honor yourself.

Is there a place for Honor today?
         

Friday, February 5, 2021

Trust Your Own Self


Always be a first-rate version of yourself,
instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
- Judy Garland

To free us from the expectations of others,
to give us back to ourselves -
there lies the great singular power of self-respect.
- Joan Didion

Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him,
and then choose that way with all his strength.
- Hasidic Saying

Be simply yourself and don't compare or compete.
- Lao Tzu

Since you are the one who has to live with your choices,
be sure they are your own.
- Alan Cohen

Further reading: Have Confidence in Yourself

Trust Your Own Advice

Believe in Yourself

Think for Yourself
       

Thursday, February 4, 2021

Become, Contribute


 The true measure of success in life is how many other lives you made better.
- Jeff Hoffman

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
- Bessie A. Stanley (commonly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Almost nothing you worry about today
will matter in a hundred years.
Think carefully about what you can focus on today.
Choose tasks that will actually make a positive difference
to your great-grandchildren.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is no brief candle to me.
It is a sort of splendid torch
which I have got a hold of for the moment,
and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible
before handing it on to future generations.
- George Bernard Shaw

It is not what we get.
But who we become, what we contribute...
that gives meaning to our lives.
- Tony Robbins

Further reading: Serve Others

Pass the Torch

To Live, Not Merely To Exist

Recognize Our Abundance
      

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Cherish Our Natural World


To cherish what remains of the Earth
and to foster its renewal
is our only legitimate hope of survival.
- Wendell Berry

The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson

Consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.
- Wilma Mankiller

We need to think of the future and the planet we are
going to leave to our children and their children.
- Kofi Annan

To cherish what remains of the Earth
and to foster its renewal
is our only legitimate hope of survival.
- Wendell Berry

Let us be protectors of creation,
protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature,
protectors of one another, and of the environment.
- Pope Francis

Further reading: Our Grandchildren's Planet

Reverence

For Future Generations

For Our Children

Your Legacy - Making a Difference
     

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Believe in the Goodness of Life


Believe in the goodness of life.
Believe in the power of time to heal and to renew.
Believe in the power of forgiveness and gratitude.
Believe in the gift of rainbows and butterflies.
Believe in the laughter of children.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Being part of the natural world reminds me
that innocence isn't ever lost completely;
we just need to maintain our goodness to regain it.
- Jewel

Believe in love.
Believe in magic.
Believe in others.
Believe in yourself.
Believe in your dreams.
If you don't, who will?
- Jon Bon Jovi

Further reading: Renew Yourself

Natural Goodness

Believe in Humanity

Our Opportunity
    

 

Monday, February 1, 2021

Dismiss That Which Insults Your Soul


Re-examine all that you have been told...
dismiss that which insults your soul.
- Walt Whitman

You are a product of your environment.
So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective.
Analyze your life in terms of its environment.
Are the things around you helping you toward success -
or are they holding you back?
- W. Clement Stone

Know thyself, and thou shalt know the Universe and God.
- Pythagoras

To know your ruling passion, examine your castles in the air.
- Richard Whately

We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly -
spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity
to renew itself and create order.
- Susan Taylor

The unexamined life is not worth living.
- Socrates

Further reading: A Truly Successful Life

To Live, Not Merely To Exist

What Is Success?

What You Become
    
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