Looking Stupid

"There are worse things than looking stupid. Sleeping through life is one of them."

--Laura Preble

The Little Things

"The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things."

--Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

No Children?

"If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either."

--Dick Cavett

Good Laughs

"We are all here for a spell; get all the good laughs you can."

--Will Rogers

Perfection vs. Excellence

"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business."

--Michael J. Fox

Spreading Light

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."

--Edith Wharton

Safe Ships

"A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."

--Grace Murray Hopper

A Mere Child

"I must take issue with the term 'a mere child,' for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult."

--Fran Lebowitz

Certainties

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties."

--Sir Francis Bacon

Decide What You Want

"The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want."

--Ben Stein

Life's Scars

"It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars."

--Garrison Keillor

Who We Become

"I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become."

--Oprah Winfrey

The Big Joke

"I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it."

--Jack Handey

First Rate Work

"You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are."

--Anna Quindlen

Most Important Thing

"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in."

--Mitch Albom

Growing Strong

"Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict."

--William Ellery Channing

Wearing Out

"It is better to wear out than to rust out."

--Bishop Richard Cumberland

The Originality of Me

"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known."

--Chuck Palahniuk

Regret

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."

--Sidney J. Harris

Opportunity to Do Your Best

"A problem is a chance for you to do your best."

--Duke Ellington

Simple Pleasures

"I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex."

--Oscar Wilde

Talents

"We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts."

--Madeleine L'Engle

Never Too Late

"It's never too late to be who you might have been."

--George Eliot

Change, Renew, Rejuvenate

"We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden."

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Perfection in the Work

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."

--Aristotle

Do Right

"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."

--Mark Twain

Secret of Happiness

"The secret of happiness in not in what one likes to do, but in what one has to do."

--James M. Barrie

Tomorrow

"Defer not till tomorrow to be wise, tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise."

--William Congreve

Shine

"Let your light shine. Shine within you so that it can shine on someone else."

--Oprah Winfrey

Change

"All appears to change when we change."

--Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Astouding Ourselves

"If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."

--Thomas A. Edison

A Daring Adventure

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

--Helen Keller

Mighty Powers

"Be bold and mighty powers will come to your aid."

--Basil King

A Recipe for Joyful Life

"A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe."

--Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Old Griefs

"Waste not fresh tears over old griefs."

--Euripides

Discovery

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."

--Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Problems

"No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it."

--Richard Feynman

To Be, To Live

"Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy."

--Rabbi Abraham Heschel

Remedies

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie."

--William Shakespeare

Tomorrows and Yesterdays

"You pile up enough tomorrows and you'll be left with nothing but a bunch of empty yesterdays."

--Meredith Willson

Love and Be Loved

"What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!"

--Victor Hugo

Do Something, Do Something Else

"Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy."

--Jim Hightower

Letting Go

"Train yourself to let go of the things you fear to lose."

--George Lucas

Small People

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

--Mark Twain

Doubt

"Doubt whom you will, but never yourself."

--Christine Bovee

Time to Play

"If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play."

--John Cleese

Fear of Not Living Fully

"Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully."

--Frances Moore Lappe

Purpose of Life

"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience."

--Eleanor Roosevelt

Snowball Effect

"The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball - the further I am rolled, the more I gain."

--Susan B. Anthony

Irreplaceable

"In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different."

--Coco Chanel

Ignorance is Bliss

"Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace."

--Robert J. Sawyer

Most Admirable Trait

"To be one's self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity."

--Irving Wallace

The Path of Joy

"Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy."

--Sarah Ban Breathnach

Better and Happier

"Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier."

--Mother Teresa

Charming Gardneners

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy: They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

--Marcel Proust

Joys of Youth

"The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing."

--Eric Berne

Hope

"This song was written from the perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are."

- Marketa Irglova, musician after winning an Academy Award for the song 'Falling Slowly' from the movie 'Once.'

We're All Aliens

"People's strange perspectives still mystify me.

So often we don't connect. We can't bridge between the worlds we carry in our heads.

Hey--Jupiter and five moons--no, six.

My eyes make me different.

No, everyone's different.

We're all aliens."

--from the Concrete trade paperback, "Depths," by Paul Chadwick

Simply Apart

"Some of us are simply...apart."

--from the Concrete trade paperback, "Depths," by Paul Chadwick

Endings and Beginnings

"But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time."

--Mitch Albom

A Little Piece of God

"The real power behind whatever success I have now was something I found within myself - something that's in all of us, I think, a little piece of God just waiting to be discovered."

-- Tina Turner

Top Ten Thoughts For 2008

Number 10. Life is sexually transmitted.

Number 9. Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Number 8. Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

Number 7. Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.

Number 6. Some people are like a Slinky ... not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.

Number 5. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying Of nothing.

Number 4. All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

Number 3. Why does a slight tax increase cost you $200.00 and a substantial tax Cut saves you $0.30?

Number 2. In the '60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world Is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

AND THE NUMBER 1 THOUGHT FOR 2008: 'Life is like a jar of jalapeños. What you do today, might burn your a$$ tomorrow'.

--Neal Boortz, boortz.com

Never Too Late

"It's never too late to be who you might have been."

--George Eliot