Positivity

I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.
- Saint Francis of Assisi - and a favorite wildlife biologist of mine

Your habitual thoughts will determine your future.  Always be mindful of the energy that you bring into your life.  Think positively.
- Unknown

Take care of your thoughts when you are alone.

Take care of your words when you are with the people.

- Unknown

The more you thank Life, the more Life will give to you to be thankful for.
- Unknown

Your smile is your logo.

Your personality is your business card.

How you leave others feeling after having an experience with you becomes your trademark.

- Jay Danzie

It's not about having the right opportunities.  It's about handling the opportunities right.
- Mark Hunter

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peaces for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

- Unknown, via BAJ

Resolve

Work harder than everybody. You're not going to get it by whining, and you're not going to get it by shouting, and you're not going to get it by quitting. You're going to get it by being there.
- - Barbara Walters

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. 
- - Margaret Mead

Stand for something, know what that something is.  Know what you won’t stand for, and don’t stand for it.
- - Helen Mae Boudreau (1946 - ), on her 62nd birthday

The force is within you.  Force yourself.
- - Harrison Ford

Whether you believe you can or can’t, you are right.
- - Henry Ford

The height of your accomplishments will equal the depth of your convictions.
- - William F. Scolavino

All high achievers plan their work and work their plan for they are keenly aware that “luck” is most often being prepared to take advantage of a situation.
- - Unknown 

What do we do?  We do what we have to; so we can do what we want to.
- - Denzel Washington’s movie, “Great Debators” 

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the first; but the size of the fight in the dog.
- - Dwight D Eisenhower

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

There is a sense of exhilaration that comes from facing head-on the hard truths and saying, “We will never give up.  We will never capitulate.  It might take a long time, but we will find a way to prevail.

- - Jim Collins

No man can hope to accomplish anything great in this world until he throws his whole soul, flings the force of his whole life, into it. It is not enough simply to have a general desire to accomplish something.  There is but one way to do that; and that is, to try to be somebody with all the concentrated energy we can muster.
-- Orison Sweet Marden (1850-1924) American Editor and Speaker

If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.
- - Jim Rohn, motivational speaker

Someone is sitting in the shade today, because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
- Warren Buffet

Age

You cannot be old and wise without first being young and foolish.
- Anita Ares Boudreau, aka 'Memere' (1911-1994)

Life's journey is not to arrive at your grave in a well preserved body; but rather to skid in ass backwards and sideways, totally worn out and shouting, "Holy shit! ... what a ride!"
-- Unknown

Some people try to turn back their odometers. 
Not me, I want people to know why I look this way. 
I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.
-- Will Rogers

It's not the years in your life that count.  It's the life in your years.
- Abe Lincoln

Those aren't grey hairs, idiot.  They are strands of glitter growing out of my head.
- Unknown

After a While

(You Learn)

by Veronica A. Shoffstall, 1971

After a while you learn the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul.

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning,
and company doesn’t always mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses are not contracts,
and presents aren’t promises.

And you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead...

With the grace of a woman,
not the grief of a child.

And you learn
To build all your roads on today,

Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans,
and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns
if you get too much…

So, you plant your own garden,
and decorate your own soul...

Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

you really are strong,
you really do have worth.

And you learn, and you learn…
with every goodbye,

You Learn…

Identity

Never dull you shine for anyone else.
- Tyra Banks

Not all girls are made of sugar and everything nice. Some girls are made of adventure, dark chocolate, intelligence, cuss words and courage.
- Brooke Hampton

Freedom

Together, we shall write an American story of hope, not fear. Of unity, not division. Of light, not darkness. A story of decency and dignity. Love and healing. Greatness and goodness. May this be the story that guides us.

- President Joe Biden, at his 2021 January Inauguration. This was two weeks after Trump supporter’s violent insurrection at the U.S. Capital building.

Injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

America will never be destroyed from the outside.  If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.  
- Abraham Lincoln

The idea that some lives matter less, is the root of all that is wrong with the world.
- Paul Farmer

The question isn't who's going to let me, it's who is going to stop me.
- Ayn Rand, author

Everything can be taken from a man, but one thing, the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude to any given set of circumstances, to choose one's way.
- Viktor Frankl, Nazi concentration camp survivor

The memory of oppressed people cannot be taken away, 
and for such people revolt is always an inch below the surface.
- Howard Zinn (1922-2010.  American historian, political science professor at Boston University playwright and social activist)

I am no longer accepting the things I can not change, I am changing the things I can not accept!

Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the Mountaineer.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their freshness into you and the storms their energy, while your cares drop off like autumn leaves.
- John Muir

The most common way people give up their power, is by thinking they don't have any.
- Alice Walker, author

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Hurt

One of the hardest things you will ever have to do, my dear, is to grieve the loss of a person who is still alive.
- Unknown

Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.
- - Maya Angelou

What wound did ever heal but by degrees? 

- - Shakespeare Othello

Life isn’t always ideal or romantic. It’s a series of triumphs and disappointments, and that’s okay.  The best we can do is open our hearts and learn to appreciate and forgive.  
- - Turning Point,” by Adrian Grenier (1976 - ) Reader’s Digest, June 2007.  Actor, HBO’s “Entourage.”

Grief is an ocean.
Abbreviated from others' quotes likening grief and its process to oceans and waves.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as like lasts.  There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature - - the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.  

- Rachel Carson

Direction

If we don’t change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going.
- - Chinese Proverb

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

- - Beverly Sills 

First say to yourself, what would you be, and then do what you have to do.

- - Epictetus (55 - 135 AD)

A boat is safe in the harbor. But this is not the purpose of a boat.
- - Paulo Coelho, author

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
- - Dr. Seuss