Friendships

A friend is someone who knows all about you
and loves you just the same.
- Elbert Hubbard

A true friend is one who believes in you
when you have ceased to believe in yourself.
- Anonymous

Fate makes us family;
choice makes us friends.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving
for my friends, the old and the new.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Further reading: Happy Friends, Happy You

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Offering Helpful Advice

Be the Melody

Be the Melody in the Symphony of Your Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Be avid.
Create apart from perfection.
Risk failure.
Cover your words with sweat.
Run a little
Touch excruciatingly.
Laugh until you cry.
Dance with your eyes closed.
Care.
Understand you die a little in every moment.
Be Enlivened
- Mary Anne Radmacher

The only place where your dream becomes impossible
is in your own thinking.
- Robert H. Schuller

Don't live your life to please other people.
- Oprah Winfrey

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Further reading: How to Build Self Esteem and Self Confidence

How to Feel Good About Yourself

How to Keep a Positive Attitude Around Negative People

Positive Words

Think Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes about Change

Positive Thoughts

Positive Outlook Quotes

Positive Sayings

Releasing the Past

What's done is done.
- William Shakespeare

It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.
- William Shakespeare

To thine own self be true.
- William Shakespeare

Stop holding on to the past.
Release your regrets about whatever you may have done
or failed to do that turned out poorly.
Forgive others for whatever they may have done
or failed to do that cause you harm.
Declare today to be a new beginning.
Let go of the past and move on with creating
a joyful new future for yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Thoughts of Vengeance Only Harm Yourself

Regrets, Resentments and the Path to Forgiveness

Why I Choose to Believe that Others are Never the Cause of My Unhappiness
      

Slow and Steady

Nature does not hurry,
yet everything is accomplished.
- Lao Tzu

Who forces time is pushed back by time;
who yields to time finds time on his side.
- The Talmud

The bad news is time flies.
The good news is you're the pilot.
- Michael Althsuler

Today's Affirmation:
I will not be governed by the tyranny of immediacy.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Further reading: Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Overwhelm

Hurrying

Quotes about Perseverance

Quotes about Time

Quotes about Work

Quotes about Walking

Wise Thoughts

Quotes that Make You Think

Quotes of Wisdom

Happy Monday

If in our daily life we can smile,
if we can be peaceful and happy,
not only we, but everyone will profit from it.
This is the most basic kind of peace work.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Try to make at least one person happy every day.
If you cannot do a kind deed, speak a kind word.
If you cannot speak a kind word, think a kind thought.
Count up, if you can, the treasure of happiness
that you would dispense in a week, in a year, in a lifetime!
- Lawrence G. Lovasik

Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition,
is not only a waste of energy
but the worst habit you could possibly have.
- Dale Carnegie

Today is a perfect day to be happy.
Every day is a perfect day to be happy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Smile, and have a Good Morning

Tips for Saving Money while Living Well

Appreciate the Unexpected

Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa, Catholic nun and humanitarian, was born August 26, 1910 and died in 1997.

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
- Mother Teresa

Give the world the best you have
and it may never be enough.
Give the world your best anyway.
- Mother Teresa

It is not the magnitude of our actions
but the amount of love
that is put into them that matters.
- Mother Teresa

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

Further reading: Brotherly Love (being of service)

Pay It Forward - as an Expression of Universal Gratitude

Plant Trees For Your Grandchildren

Mother Teresa Quotes

Words of Encouragement

Quotes about Believing in Yourself

Words of Comfort

Count Your Blessings Quotes

Encouraging Words

Encouraging Bible Verses

The Hare and the Tortoise

The Hare and the Tortoise
- a Fable by Aesop

A Hare was making fun of the Tortoise one day for being so slow.

"Do you ever get anywhere?" he asked with a mocking laugh.

"Yes," replied the Tortoise, "and I get there sooner than you think. I'll run you a race and prove it."

The Hare was much amused at the idea of running a race with the Tortoise, but for the fun of the thing he agreed. So the Fox, who had consented to act as judge, marked the distance and started the runners off.

The Hare was soon far out of sight, and to make the Tortoise feel very deeply how ridiculous it was for him to try a race with a Hare, he lay down beside the course to take a nap until the Tortoise should catch up.

The Tortoise meanwhile kept going slowly but steadily, and, after a time, passed the place where the Hare was sleeping. But the Hare slept on very peacefully; and when at last he did wake up, the Tortoise was near the goal. The Hare now ran his swiftest, but he could not overtake the Tortoise in time.

Moral: The race is not always to the swift.
or
Slow and steady wins the race.

Motivational Sports Quotes

Never let the fear of striking out get in your way. - Babe Ruth (baseball player) 

 People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society. - Vince Lombardi (football coach) 

 Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth. - Muhammad Ali (boxer) 

 Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming. - John Wooden (basketball coach) 

 As Billie Jean King (tennis player) said, "Sports are a microcosm of society," so let these sports quotes motivate your whole life. 

 Further reading: Choose Your Habits, Choose Your Life 

  How to Motivate Yourself 

  Success Tip: Drive Change

Hopes and Dreams

I Dream This Day of Wondrous Things,
of Peace and Hope and Pride.
I Dance My Dance with Life Today,
I'm Filled with Love Inside.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I have a dream that my four little children will one day
live in a nation where they will
not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

Can you imagine a life with no fear?
What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats?
- Max Lucado

You see things and you say, Why?
But I dream things that never were and say, Why not
- George Bernard Shaw

Have a Vision, a Dream.
Believe in that Vision.
Live that Vision with every fiber of your being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Consult not your fears...

Renewal and Rebirth

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

It's a Beautiful Life

May your life always be Counterpoint to the Clamor of the World.
May you delight in Dancing Lightly With Life.
May you soar on eagle wings, high above the madness of the world.
May you always sing Melody in the Symphony of Your Life.
May you taste, smell, and touch your dreams of a beautiful tomorrow.
May your sun always shine, and your sky be forever blue.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Let children walk with Nature,
let them see the beautiful blendings
and communions of death and life,
their joyous inseparable unity,
as taught in woods and meadows,
plains and mountains and streams
of our blessed star,
and they will learn that death
is stingless indeed,
and as beautiful as life.
- John Muir

Life has loveliness to sell,
all beautiful and splendid things,
blue waves whitened on a cliff,
soaring fire that sways and sings,
and children's faces looking up,
holding wonder like a cup.
- Sara Teasdale

Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

12 Life Lessons I Learned From My Cat

Three Rules of Life

Life is Beautiful Quotes

Beautiful Day

Quotes on Nature

Beautiful Thoughts

Beautiful Words

Beautiful Quotes on Life

Never Quit

The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.
- Herbert Kaufman

It's not whether you get knocked down,
it's whether you get up.
- Vince Lombardi

Successful people are simply those with successful habits.
- Brian Tracy

Winners never quit and quitters never win.
- Vince Lombardi

Choose your goal and keep your eye on it. Never give up.
Perhaps you will need to change your plan
and approach you goal from a different direction, but don't quit.
Keep thinking. Keep re-planning. Keep going.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Never Give Up

Daily Renewal

Tending the Garden of Our Lives

Norman Vincent Peale

Believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities. Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. - Norman Vincent Peale 

 The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have. - Norman Vincent Peale 

 Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory. - Norman Vincent Peale 

 Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds. - Norman Vincent Peale 

 Further reading: Pleasing Everyone 

  How to Forgive and Move On 

  Poems

Quiet Courage

Courage doesn't always roar.
Sometimes courage is the quiet voice
at the end of the day, saying,
"I will try again tomorrow."
- Mary Anne Radmacher

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy
is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet,
alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.
- Anne Frank

My quiet voice speaks the loudest.
- Richard Carlson

Your inner voice always knows what to do,
but it is a quiet voice.
You can only hear the whisperings of your inner voice -
your inner compass - when you turn down the volume
of your fears, your regrets, your resentments,
and the fear-based advice
your neighbors are so willing to give you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Dare to Live Fully

Have the Courage to Be Yourself

Have the Courage to Take Action - Now

Spiritual Quotes to Live By

Faith is taking the first step,
even when you don't see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Lord, grant that I might not so much
seek to be loved as to love.
- St. Francis of Assisi

Everything is a miracle,
not just the beautiful and lovely things.
- Anonymous

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,
Thank you, that would suffice.
- Meister Eckhart

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.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Trust in the Light

How to Choose Your Life Purpose

Where There is Love, Nothing is Missing - a Parable

Choose Your Attitude

We can always choose to perceive things differently.
You can focus on what's wrong in your life,
or you can focus on what's right.
- Marianne Williamson

Choose in ways that support your dreams.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Happiness is a choice.
You grieve, you stomp your feet,
you pick yourself up and choose to be happy.
- Lucy Lawless

You can choose to be peaceful right here and now ...
it has nothing to do with what other people do or think.
- Gerald Jampolsky

I choose acceptance and compassion toward all humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Joy is a Choice - but Not an Easy Choice

Moderating the Anger Response Through Training

Why I Choose to Believe that Others are Never the Cause of My Unhappiness

Positive Choices Quotes

Being Positive Quotes

Courage Quotes

Encouraging Quotes

Positive Quotes about Change

Empowering Quotes

It's a Wonderful Life

We live in a wonderful world that is
full of beauty, charm and adventure.
There is no end to the adventures that we can have
if only we seek them with our eyes open.
- Jawaharlal Nehru

If you want to feel rich,
just count all of the things you have that money can't buy.
- Anonymous

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.
- e. e. cummings

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves
to recognize how good things really are.
- Marianne Williamson

Further reading: 3 great quotes

Wisdom of Einstein

The World as Mystery

It's a Wonderful Life quotes

Quotes about Enjoying Life

Life Purpose Quotes

Never Give Up Quotes

Life is Like... Quotes

Inspiring Quotes about Life

Blessings

May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.
- Irish Blessing

Count your blessings. Once you realize
how valuable you are and how much you have going for you,
the smiles will return, the sun will break out,
the music will play, and you will finally
be able to move forward the life that God intended
for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence.
- Og Mandino

May today be your day to dance lightly with life
to sing wild songs of adventure,
to invite rainbows and butterflies out to play,
to soar your spirit and unfurl your joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Lift Your Burden of Resentments

What do you take for granted?

Table Graces

Staying Positive

What lies behind us and what lies before us
are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fall seven times, stand up eight.
- Japanese Proverb

Life is not about how fast you run
or how high you climb
but how well you bounce.
- Vivian Komori

Do not let what you cannot do
interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden

Our lives are defined not by the challenges we encounter,
but by how we respond to those challenges.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Choose Your Habits, Choose Your Life

How to Think Positive

Attitude is Everything

Dance with Life

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to Dance in the Rain.
- Vivian Greene

Dance like no one is watching,
love like you'll never be hurt.
Sing like no one is listening.
Live life like it's heaven on earth.
- Anonymous (various attributions and alternate phrasings)

Life may not be the party we hoped for,
but while we are here we might as well dance.
- Anonymous

Smile.
Today would be a wonderful day
not to take life so seriously.
Today may end up the way you prefer -
and it may not.
Happiness is not about being a winner -
it's about being gentle with life -
being gentle with yourself.
Let life be a dance,
and choose the kind of
dance you want for today -
perhaps a gentle loving dance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When you get the choice to sit it out or dance,
I hope you dance.
- Lee Ann Womack

Further reading: Live a Happier Life

Steve Jobs' Three Rules of Life

Conscious Breathing to Relieve Stress

Happy Thoughts

Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

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

The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have,
instead of what you don't have.
- Woody Allen

Our life is what our thoughts make it.
- Marcus Aurelius

Further reading: Celebrate Whimsey Today

Feel Happier Right Now

The Secret of Happiness

Seeing Others

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work. - Mother Teresa Each one of them is Jesus in disguise. - Mother Teresa We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty. - Mother Teresa Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier. - Mother Teresa Further reading: Where There is Love, Nothing is Missing - a Parable The #1 Secret of Great Relationships Plant Trees For Your Grandchildren

Expand

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

If you put yourself in a position where
you have to stretch outside your comfort zone,
then you are forced to expand your consciousness.
- Les Brown

Gratitude helps you to grow and expand;
gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life
and into the lives of all those around you.
- Eileen Caddy

Life expands to fill your dreams.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: How to Gain Self Confidence

How to Move On and Let Go

How To Not Care What Others Think

Follow Your Dreams

Overcoming Adversity Quotes

Expands Quotes

Quotes about Being Strong

Quotes about Attitude

Quotes about Not Caring What People Think

Choose Your Life

It is not the easy or convenient life for which I search,
but life lived to the edge of all that I may be.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Life is defined more by its risks than by its samenesses.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Sharpen your pencil as you create the story of your life.
Ask today as you consider the many choices in your view -
what is the highest and best use of your talents, skills and abilities?
When you answer that, seize the opportunity to sharpen
those qualities even more sharply by applying your focused effort.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Further reading: The Jump is So Frightening - Mary Anne Radmacher

How to Choose Your Life Purpose

How to Stay Young

Being Alone

What image does the phrase "being alone" bring up for you? Being lonely? Being unmarried? Quietly and happily reading a good book with no one around to annoy you? Hiking by yourself in a quiet forest? Especially if the phrase "being alone" feels like a negative thought to you, see if the quotes in this message, and on my pages of Quotes about Being Alone and Quotes about Being Single, don't help you to better appreciate the positive aspects of spending time alone.

Language... has created the word "loneliness"
to express the pain of being alone.
And it has created the word "solitude"
to express the glory of being alone.
- Paul Tillich

Love does not claim possession,
but gives freedom.
- Rabindranath Tagore

If you are single, eliminate the thought that something is lacking,
and just live each day joyfully.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When you are lonely you are thinking of the other,
you are missing the other.
Loneliness is a negative state.
...
Aloneness is the presence of oneself.
Aloneness is very positive.
- Osho (This is a fragment of a longer quote that you can read at
Quotes about Loneliness)

Further reading: How to Cope with Feeling Lonely

How to Deal with Rejection

How to Avoid Falling in Love With Love

Quotes about Solitude

Quotes about Being Strong

Inner Peace Quotes

Missing Someone Quotes

Quotes about Long Distance Relationships

Positive Thoughts

Write it on your heart that every day
is the best day in the year.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves
to recognize how good things really are.
- Marianne Williamson

I hold my course with focused attention
and relentless commitment,
as I weather the storms of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Change your thoughts and you change your world.
- Norman Vincent Peale

Further reading: How to Think Positive

How to be Positive Around Negative People

Attitude is Everything

Positive Affirmations

Positive Thoughts

Positive Attitude Quotes

Positive Quotes to Live By

Positive Thinking Quotes

Positive Sayings

Rejuvenate

Take time to play!
Ask for what you want.
Laugh.
Live loudly.
Be avid.
Learn a new thing.
Be Yourself!
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Take time to laugh. It is the music of the soul.
Take time to think. It is the source of power.
Take time to play. It is the source of perpetual youth.
Take time to read. It is the fountain of wisdom.
Take time to pray. It is the greatest power on Earth.
Take time to love and be loved. It is a God-given privilege.
Take time to be friendly. It is the road to happiness.
Take time to give. It is too short a day to be selfish.
Take time to work. It is the price of success.
- Anonymous

Further reading: How to Stay Young

Time is What We Make of It

Overwhelm

Have you read all my articles on happiness, relationships, habits, money, self esteem, staying positive, and living with joy and purpose? Visit www.how-to-self.com
  

The Truth

The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing,
and should be treated with caution.
- J. K. Rowling

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)

About most subjects, there is not "The Truth."
There is merely one's personal truth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The problem with making assumptions
is that we believe they are the truth
- don Miguel Ruiz

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

Further reading: Question Your Questions

Truth isn't True

Maybe So, Maybe Not.

Angels

We are each of us angels with only one wing,
and we can only fly by embracing one another.
- Lucretius

Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.
- G. K. Chesterton

Friends are angels who lift us to our feet
when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.
- Anonymous

May God grant you always...
A sunbeam to warm you,
a moonbeam to charm you,
a sheltering Angel so nothing can harm you.
Laughter to you.
Faithful friends near you.
And whenever you pray,
Heaven to hear you.
- Irish Blessing

Further reading: Have a Conversation With God, Today

Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation

Thoughts on Angels

Spiritual Thoughts

Words to Live By

Words of Comfort

Motivational Words

Words of Sympathy

Be Cheerful

The eyes of the cheerful and of the melancholy man are fixed upon the same creation; but very different are the aspects which it bears to them. - Albert Pike 

 Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox 

 I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition. - Martha Washington 

 The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up. - Mark Twain 

 Further reading: The Secret of Happiness 

  Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now 

  How to Stay Positive

Not As It Appears

Everything is not as it appears to be.
- Proverb

What people believe prevails over the truth.
- Sophocles

Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth.
- Ludwig Boerne

What if it were only an illusion?
Perhaps life is not as threatening as it appears.
Perhaps the greatest threat to our serenity
is our fear of the future -
our fear of the unknown.
Perhaps, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said,
"The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: More about Fear (One key to dealing with fear is being able to distinguish between the 10% of the time when danger is imminent, and the 90% of the time when unfounded fear becomes an impediment to success and happiness. ...read more...)

Thoughts on Reality

Thoughts on Fear

Thoughts on Life

Thoughts on Love

Deep Thoughts

Thought for the Day

Judging Others

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
- Mother Teresa

People see themselves as the center of the universe
and judge everything as it relates to them.
- Peace Pilgrim

When I am able to resist the temptation to judge others,
I can see them as teachers.
- Gerald Jampolsky

Share our similarities, celebrate our differences.
- M. Scott Peck

Today's affirmation
I Resist the Temptation to Judge Others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Open Mind - Open Heart

May You Be Blessed

Why I Choose to Believe that Others are Never the Cause of My Unhappiness

Quotes about Judging People

Quotes about Acceptance

Quotes about Diversity

Quotes about Attitude

Quotes about Unity

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Try Something New

Move out of your comfort zone. You can only
grow if you are willing to feel awkward and
uncomfortable when you try something new.
- Brian Tracy

Unless you try to do something
beyond what you have already mastered,
you will never grow.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The opposite of courage in our society
is not cowardice, it is conformity.
- Rollo May

I live to experience something new each day -
to learn something new,
meet a new friend,
bring joy into someone's life,
feel the wind newly on my skin,
touch a new fear, a new anger,
and with focused intent and good fortune,
find an ample measure of my own joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Take Charge of Your Life

Transform Your Life

Welcome Change