The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse - a fable by Aesop

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
- a fable by Aesop

A Town Mouse once visited a relative who lived in the country. For lunch the Country Mouse served wheat stalks, roots, and acorns, with a dash of cold water for drink. The Town Mouse ate very sparingly, nibbling a little of this and a little of that, and by her manner making it very plain that she ate the simple food only to be polite.

After the meal the friends had a long talk, or rather the Town Mouse talked about her life in the city while the Country Mouse listened. They then went to bed in a cozy nest in the hedgerow and slept in quiet and comfort until morning. In her sleep the Country Mouse dreamed she was a Town Mouse with all the luxuries and delights of city life that her friend had described for her. So the next day when the Town Mouse asked the Country Mouse to go home with her to the city, she gladly said yes.

When they reached the mansion in which the Town Mouse lived, they found on the table in the dining room the leavings of a very fine banquet. There were sweetmeats and jellies, pastries, delicious cheeses, indeed, the most tempting foods that a Mouse can imagine. But just as the Country Mouse was about to nibble a dainty bit of pastry, she heard a Cat mew loudly and scratch at the door. In great fear the Mice scurried to a hiding place, where they lay quite still for a long time, hardly daring to breathe. When at last they ventured back to the feast, the door opened suddenly and in came the servants to clear the table, followed by the House Dog.

The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse's den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella.

"You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not," she said as she hurried away, "but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it."

Moral: Poverty with security is better than plenty in the midst of fear and uncertainty.

Further reading: Seven Tips for Stress-Free Living

Never Let Anyone Get Your Goat

Zero-Based Gratitude

Go With the Flow - Six Ways to Live a Happier Life

Do not lose your inner peace - Saint Francis de Sales

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. - Saint Francis de Sales 

 The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence. - Norman Vincent Peale 

Further reading: 9 Secrets for Getting Un-Stuck 

  Try Daily Journaling 

  The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace. Peace Pilgrim 

  Let me bring peace into moments of chaos - jlh 

  The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

A well-spent day brings happy sleep - Leonardo da Vinci

A well-spent day brings happy sleep - Leonardo da Vinci 

 A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow. - Charlotte Brontë 

 The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night's sleep. - E. Joseph Cossman 

One who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry - Mohandas Gandhi

There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.
- Mohandas Gandhi

If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?
- Confucius

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.
- Leo Buscaglia

The antidotes for worry are gratitude, action, and service.

Further reading: The Paradox Of Living In The Moment - How To Be Happy Today And Prepare For Tomorrow

Life is always lived in the eye-of-the-storm - jlh
Beware the Rattlesnake of the Mind - jlh

Like a Newborn

Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble. - George Washington

Self-care is critical to having a strong inner foundation. Lorraine Cohen

Self-care is critical to having a strong inner foundation. Taking good care of YOU means the people in your life will receive the best of you rather than what is left of you.
- Lorraine Cohen
To the people who love you, you are beautiful already. This is not because they’re blind to your shortcomings but because they so clearly see your soul.
- Victoria Moran

Forgiveness ... is the finishing of old business that allows us to experience the present, free of contamination from the past.
- Joan Borysenko

Each and every human being on Earth has both the responsibility and the privilege of viewing themselves as Divine beings with the power to bring about peace.
- James Twyman

Every decision you make - every decision - is not a decision about what to do. It’s a decision about Who You Are. When you see this, when you understand it, everything changes. You begin to see life in a new way. All events, occurrences, and situations turn into opportunities to do what you came here to do.
- Neale Donald Walsch

Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict. - Rabindranath Tagore

Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict. - Rabindranath Tagore 

  The manifest universe is the body of God ... all people are incarnations of the One Spirit. - Ernest Holmes 

  God has no religion. - Mohandas Gandhi 

 When the vast cathedral of our being becomes a sanctuary for all creation, we become the face of God. - Jonathan Lockwood Huie 

 Today's affirmation: I Am One With Spirit and All Creation. I give thanks for the unity of all creation and for everything that has brought me to this moment. I release my entire being to the gentle nurture of Spirit.

Celebration is the hymn and sacred dance. - jlh

Celebrate. Celebration is an expression of Gratitude. Gratitude is like the prayer, while Celebration is the hymn and sacred dance. Celebration is a road to happiness.
- jlh

Today's Affirmation: I create Today as a celebration of my life. I Dance with a Light Heart. I play with life, laugh with life, dance lightly with life, and smile at the riddles of life, knowing that life's only true lessons are writ small in the margin.

Further reading: How to be Happy in Life

Celebrating Rainbows and Butterflies - the Small Miracles of Our Life

CELEBRATION - the seventh Point of Simply An Inspired Life

Today is your day to paint life in bold colors - jlh

Never trust spiritual leader who doesn't dance. - Miyagi

Oprah Winfrey: The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.

Thinking will not overcome fear but action will. - W. Clement Stone

Thinking will not overcome fear but action will. - W. Clement Stone 

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. - Rabindranath Tagore

Today's affirmation: I Act with Bold Courage. Taking inspiration from the powerful vision of my future, I boldly set sail with courage and intent. I hold my course with focused attention and relentless commitment, as I weather the storms of life. 

 Further reading: Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. Mark Twain

Where there is no vision, there is no hope. - George Washington Carver

Where there is no vision, there is no hope. - George Washington Carver 

 A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done. - Ralph Nader 

Today's affirmation: Standing in the inspiring vision of my future, I boldly take every step - large and small - with courage and intent. 

 Further reading: I have a Dream... Martin Luther King Jr. (video) 

  VISION - the fifth Point of Simply An Inspired Life

It is our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. - J. K. Rowling

It is our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. - J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets) 

 To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform. - Theodore H. White 

 Today's affirmation: I CHOOSE with Open Mind and Open Heart. I renounce all assumptions and expectations. I declare that I will thoughtfully consider all possibilities. I will CHOOSE with courage, awareness, consciousness, and compassion toward all. 

 Further reading: No one is in control of your happiness but you

I Say NO - I Say YES

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. Oprah Winfrey

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough. - Oprah Winfrey 

 Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation. - Brian Tracy 

Further reading: Zero-Based Gratitude 

  Comparisons are odious

A wise man will make haste to forgive - Samuel Johnson

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain. - Samuel Johnson 

 Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness. - Marianne Williamson 

 Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; ... For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned. - attributed to St. Francis of Assisi 

 Yes, it is hard to forgive, but unconditional forgiveness is the path to your own inner peace. 

 Further reading: Regrets, Resentments and the Path to Forgiveness 

  Forgive and Forget? Can You Really Lift Your Burden of Resentments? 

  FORGIVENESS - the second Point of Simply An Inspired Life

It is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right - William J. H. Boetcker

That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong. - William J. H. Boetcker

 No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect. - George Bernard Shaw 

Nothing is more valuable than your self respect. When you lose respect for yourself, you have lost everything. Whatever it takes, and whoever you upset, do what you know - deep inside - is the right thing. 

 Further reading: This Above All, to Thine Own Self Be True - 5 Ways to Apply William Shakespeare's Advice Today 

  HONOR - the first Point of Simply An Inspired Life What is Honor? Is there a place for Honor today? 

  Joy blooms where minds and hearts are open. - jlh 

  Martin Luther King, Jr. - If a man is called to be a street sweeper

It is always the simple that produces the marvelous. - Amelia Barr

It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.
- Amelia Barr

The essence of life is not in the great victories and grand failures, but in the simple joys.
- jlh

Further reading: 12 Life Lessons I Learned From My Cat

Act as if it were impossible to fail. - Dorthea Brande

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail.
- Dorthea Brande

It is hardly possible to build anything if frustration, bitterness and a mood of helplessness prevail.
- Lech Walesa


Further reading: How to Live a Stress-Free Life

Conscious Breathing to Relieve Stress

Stop Anger Before it Stops You - 7 Secrets

Take Charge of Your Life - 9 Secrets For Getting Un-Stuck

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins with the realization that we have already arrived! - Michael Beckwith

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins with the realization that we have already arrived!
- Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith

We attract abundance when we ask from a compassionate heart.
- jlh

Once you believe that you have been blessed with the wealth of heaven and earth, you have in fact been so blessed. As an added bonus, living your life in a state of feeling blessed with wealth acts as an attractor to material wealth.

Further reading: Zero-Based Gratitude

The enlightened give thanks for what most people take for granted. Michael Beckwith

Intention versus Expectation (Demand)

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

We attract abundance when we ask from a compassionate heart - jlh

Life expands to fill your dreams. - jlh

Life expands to fill your dreams.
- jlh

Further reading: Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. Walt Disney

Adventure is not outside man; it is within. George Eliot

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can - William Faulkner

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. - William Faulkner 

 Never mind what others do; do better than yourself, beat your own record from day to day, and you are a success. - William J. H. Boetcker 

 Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit. - Conrad Hilton 

 Do the best you can. Be proud of your accomplishments - without comparing yourself to others.

 Further reading: Success Tip: Drive Change

Belling the Cat - Aesops Fables

Belling the Cat - a fable by Aesop 

 The Mice once called a meeting to decide on a plan to free themselves of their enemy, the Cat. At least they wished to find some way of knowing when she was coming, so they might have time to run away. Indeed, something had to be done, for they lived in such constant fear of her claws that they hardly dared stir from their dens by night or day. Many plans were discussed, but none of them was thought good enough. At last a very young Mouse got up and said: "I have a plan that seems very simple, but I know it will be successful. All we have to do is to hang a bell about the Cat's neck. When we hear the bell ringing we will know immediately that our enemy is coming." All the Mice were much surprised that they had not thought of such a plan before. But in the midst of the rejoicing over their good fortune, an old Mouse arose and said: "I will say that the plan of the young Mouse is very good. But let me ask one question: Who will bell the Cat?" 

 Moral: It is one thing to say that something should be done, but quite a different matter to do it. 

 Further reading: How to Overcome Frequent Insomnia 

  Aesop's Fables: The Miller, His Son, and the Ass 

  Aesop: The Fox and the Grapes Aesop: Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail 

  Aesop's Fables: The Fisherman and the Little Fish

Quotations help us remember the simple yet profound truths that give life perspective and meaning. Criswell Freeman

Quotations help us remember the simple yet profound truths that give life perspective and meaning. - Criswell Freeman 

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. - Mark Twain (attributed) 

Quotations are dead unless a spur for inquiry. - jlh 

The greatest value of inspirational quotes (sayings) is as a source of questions - to get us thinking about new ideas. Open minds - open hearts.

I wept because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet. - old Persian proverb

I wept because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.
- old Persian proverb

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
- Mother Teresa

Today's affirmation: I am grateful for everything I have.

Further reading: Zero-Based Gratitude

Breaking the Cycle of Self-Inflicted Suffering

I Pray for Peace in the Middle East

Mother Teresa prayer

There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. - Martin Luther King, Jr. 

  Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness. - Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Further reading: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.

Knowledge is soon changed - Gene Wolfe

Knowledge is soon changed, then lost in the mist, an echo half-heard.
- Gene Wolfe

Life is lived in the mists - little is fully visible, less is certain. Yet rejoice in the unknowing, and let all of life be a wonderful adventure. - jlh

Further reading: 5 Secrets For Breaking Your Bad Habits

The Eye-of-the-Storm

Be Here Now - Ram Dass

Lao Tzu: The words of truth are always paradoxical.

Change is the law of life - John F. Kennedy

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. - John F. Kennedy 

  Study the past, if you would divine the future. - Confucius 

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable. - George S. Patton 

 The future has nothing in common with the past - except natural laws and human nature. 

 Further reading:8 Ways to Balance Your Life 

  How to get over regrets and resentments 

  I Say NO - I Say YES

One can not reflect in streaming water. Lao Tzu

One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others. - Lao Tzu 

  Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. - Khalil Gibran 

 How does your light reflect in the world? Be peace and share peace. 

 Further reading: Say NO to Stress: 8 Easy and Powerful Ways 

  Smile and the world smiles with you. 

  Anais Nin: We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her. Francis Bacon

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her. - Francis Bacon 

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

 A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help. - Albert Schweitzer

 All life is precious, and intimately interlinked with our own. 

 Further reading: De-Stress Your Life 

  Six Ways to Live a Happier Life 

  UNITY - the eighth Point of Simply An Inspired Life 

  All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind. - Swami Vivekananda

Beauty is whatever gives joy. Edna St. Vincent Millay

Beauty is whatever gives joy. - Edna St. Vincent Millay 

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. - Franz Kafka 

  To love beauty is to see light. - Victor Hugo 

 We are blessed to experience nature's paintbox. 

 Further reading: CELEBRATION - the seventh Point of Simply An Inspired Life

Life is magnificent - just as it comes.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

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.
- Declaration of Independence of United States of America

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
- John F. Kennedy

To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.
- Theodore H. White

Further reading: Pay It Forward - as an Expression of Universal Gratitude

Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble. George Washington

Presidential Quotes

Thomas Jefferson quotes

Byron Katie - The Work - No one can give you freedom but you ...

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. Gandhi

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Make sure you never, never argue at night. You just lose a good night's sleep, and you can't settle anything until morning anyway.
- Rose Kennedy

Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.
- Voltaire

Share more, argue less. Thank more, resent less. Appreciate more, blame less.

Further reading: Six Ways to End Bickering About Money

Stop Anger Before it Stops You

Moderating the Anger Response Through Training

Five 30-Second Emotional Releases to De-Stress at Work

A Story of Money

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest. William Blake

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest. - William Blake 

  Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. - The Buddha 

  The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings! - Henry Ward Beecher

With gratitude, all life appears as a blessing - without gratitude, all of life is perceived as a burden.

 Further reading: Zero-Based Gratitude 

  Comparisons are odious 

  What do you take for granted? 

  The struggle ends when the gratitude begins. Neale Donald Walsch

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle - The Buddha

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
- The Buddha

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
- Chinese proverb often quoted by Eleanor Roosevelt

As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

The unknown is like the darkness of a cave - it can be illuminated by the brief light of one adventurer's small candle.
- jlh

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Further reading: How to Stay Positive Around Negative People

7 Tips for Stress-Free Living

Conscious Breathing to Relieve Stress

The Eight Points of Simply An Inspired Life