quotes of note

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
-Goethe

It is something-it can be everything-to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below. - Wallace Stegner

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
- Leonard Cohen

I am only one, But I still am one.
I cannot do everything, But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
-Edward Everett

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit one's self to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys his inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom that makes work fruitful.
-Thomas Merton

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.
- Audrey Hepburn

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being, hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint. -Erma Bombeck

A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't. -Rhonda Handsome-

Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
-Charlotte Whitton

When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. -Elayne Boosler-

Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.
-Maryon Pearson

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.
-Eleanor Roosevelt

You are young. So you know everything. You leap into a boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me. Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart's little intelligence, and listen to me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks--when you hear that unmistakable pounding--when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming--then row, row for your life toward it.
- Mary Oliver " West Wind 2"

Capitalism can make people feel warm and fuzzy too.
- Andrea Zafer

Grab the bull by the tail and look the problem right in the face.
- Lennie Roberts - on environmental advocacy

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
- Buddha The "Enlightened One"

TTT
Put up in a place
where it's easy to see
The cryptic admonishment
"TTT"
When you feel
how depressingly
slowly you climb,
it is well to remember
that Things Take Time
-Piet Hein

Rather than ignore magic, I propose that we use it, that we listen to our inner voice, allowing it to express our deepest instincts. Though we may reject that voice by the power of our logic or our moral convictions, we should still listen, if for no other reason than the voice comes from within us.
-R. D. Chin

A competant and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a sympton of neurotic insecurity.
-Lazarus Long

Whenever women have insisted on absolute equality with men, they have invariably wound up with the dirty end of the stick. What they are and what they can do makes them superior to men, and their proper tactic is to demand special privileges, all the traffic will bear. They should never settle merely for equality. For women, "equality" is a disaster.
-Lazarus Long