"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most
important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in
life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all
fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the
face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you
are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you
have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to
follow your heart."
Steven Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple, about having to face his own
mortality after being diagnosed with cancer.
*****
Below are seven quotations from Henry Thoreau submitted by Steve E., a
participant at Montreal Simple Living. Thanks Steve!...
"If you wish to give a man a sense of poverty, give him a thousand
dollars. The next hundred dollars he gets will not be worth more than the
ten dollars he used to get. Have pity on him; withold your gifts."
"Every generation laughs at the old fashions. but follows religiously the
new."
"I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self
on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and
wisely."
"Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for
love of it."
"A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in
the process of getting his bread."
"Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes
between a person and his objects and obtains them for him. The best thing
one can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavour to carry out
those schemes which he entertained when he was poor."
"Just in proportion to outward poverty is inward wealth."
"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded
on a velvet cushion."
*****
We are not rich by what we possess but rather by what we can do without.
Immanuel Kant
Start doing things you think should be done, and start being what you
think
society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely.
Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society?
Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then
behave decently and humanely. - Adam Michnik
I am only one; but I am still one. I cannot do everything, but still I can
do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.
Helen
Keller
When I was young, I set out to change the world. When I grew a little
older, I perceived that this was too ambitious so I set out to change my
state. This, too, I realized as I grew older was too ambitious, so I set
out to change my town. When I realized I could not do even this, I tried
to
change my family. Now as an old man, I know that I should have started by
changing myself. If I had started with myself, maybe then I would have
succeeded in changing my family, the town or even the state -- and who
knows, maybe even the world! - words of a Chassidic rabbi on his deathbed
Don't spend your precious time asking "Why isn't the world a better
place?"
It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is "How can I make it
better?" To that question, there is an answer. - Leo Buscaglia
If you approach each new person you meet in a spirit of adventure, you
will
find yourself endlessly fascinated by the new channels of thought and
experience and personality that you encounter. I do not mean simply the
famous people of the world, but people from every walk and condition of
life. - Eleanor Roosevelt
There is only one success...to be able to spend your life in your own
way.
Christopher Morley
What is right for one soul may not be right for another. It may mean
having
to stand on your own and do something strange in the eyes of others.
Eileen Caddy
Almost anything you do will seem insignificant but it is very important
that
you do it.You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma
Gandhi
What in your life is calling you?
When all the noise is silenced,
the meetings adjourned,
the lists laid aside,
& the wild iris blooms by itself
in the dark forest
what still pulls on your soul?
from The Box: Remembering the Gift
Those who hurry arrive first at the grave. - Spanish proverb
Work is not always required...There is such a thing as sacred idleness.
George MacDonald
Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste
the fruit. - Thoreau
As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should
keep
it. If you were to give it up in a mood of self-sacrifice or out of a
stern
sense of duty, you would continue to want it back, and that unsatisfied
want
would make trouble for you. Only give up a thing when you want some other
condition so much that the thing no longer has any attraction for you. -
Mahatma Ghandi
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
change
the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead
That happiness is to be attained through limitless material acquisition is
denied by every religion and philosophy known to humankind, but is
preached
incessantly by every American television set. - Robert Bellah
He who knows he has enough is rich. -
Lao Tse
*** Do you have a favourite quotation you wish to add?
E-mail us! ***
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