Do Everything with Love

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

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

We all go through life bristling
at our external limitations,
but the most difficult chains
to break are inside us.
- Bradley Whitford

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared
believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.
- Bruce Barton

True love doesn't come to you it has to be inside you.
- Julia Roberts

Who looks outside, dreams;
who looks inside, awakes.
- Carl Jung

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news.
The good news is that you don't know how great you can be!
How much you can love!
What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
- Anne Frank

Further reading: Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation

The Power of Unconditional Love

Solitude vs. Feeling Lonely

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Live from Your Heart

What is a Home?
        

Breathe, Smile, Create Happiness

Just smiling goes a long way toward making you feel better about life.
And when you feel better about life, your life is better.
- Art Linkletter

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen?
Then prepare to accept it.
Then proceed to improve on the worst.
- Dale Carnegie

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive.
The great opportunity is where you are.
- John Burroughs

Smile and the world smiles with you.
- Anonymous

Peace begins with a smile.
- Mother Teresa

Always do the best you can,
and everything else will take care of itself.
Focus your energies on doing what you can
rather than worrying about what you can't.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A smile that begins as an effort and a pretense quickly grows to become genuine,
and given time, a habit of happiness. In the words of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Inner Smile Exercise:
1. Breath slowly, deeply, and consciously.
2. Close your eyes and set the corners of your mouth in just the slightest smile.
3. Visualize your smile growing larger and larger, and your happiness increasing.

Today's affirmation:
Every day in every way I am getting better and better.
- Émile Coué

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

No Regrets

Beyond Your Worries
   

Hold Peace Toward ALL in Your Own Heart

Always hold peace toward all in your own heart.
If you are healthy, support those who are sick.
If you have a job, support those who have lost theirs.
If you are strong, support those who are feeble of body or mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

We can never obtain peace in the outer world
until we make peace with ourselves.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me:
I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
...
Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Matthew 25:35-40

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

Further reading: Feed Just One

Commitment To Service

The Good Samaritan

Help Others

Encourage Others

How Helping Others Helps You
      

Our Vanity is the Constant Enemy of Our Dignity

There is dignity in being of service.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors,
but in deserving them.
- Aristotle

One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked,
but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.
- Michael J. Fox (afflicted with Parkinson's disease at age 30)

A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of
labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil.
- Grover Cleveland

Our vanity is the constant enemy of our dignity.
- Anne Sophie Swetchine

Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative
of the dignity of my high vocation,
and its many responsibilities.
Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way
to coldness, unkindness, or impatience.
- Mother Teresa

The primal principle of democracy
is the worth and dignity of the individual.
- Edward Bellamy

Further reading: Live with Honor and Dignity

Is there a place for Honor today?

HONOR - the first Point of Simply An Inspired Life

Self-Care
      

Creat Light for Others - Serve

As we work to create light for others,
we naturally light our own way.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.
- Henry Ward Beecher

It's about sharing.
You just give what you have to give
wherever you go,
and you let God handle the rest.
- Lindsay Wagner

Good works are links that form a chain of love.
- Mother Teresa

In service, there is clarity and compassion.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

It is high time that the ideal of success
should be replaced by the ideal of service.
- Albert Einstein

The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others
will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.
- Helen Keller

The path to your own happiness is usually found in service.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Become Kinder

Be of Service

Spread Love
       

Dare to Believe in a Better Future

When we are no longer able to change a situation -
we are challenged to change ourselves.
- Viktor E. Frankl (Nazi concentration camp survivor)

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared
believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.
- Bruce Barton

I don't think of all the misery
but of the beauty that still remains.
- Anne Frank

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.
I just wish he didn't trust me so much.
- Mother Teresa

I Believe In Peace; I Believe In Mercy.
- Malala Yousafzai (shot by the Taliban in 2012 for advocating education for girls)

Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.
- Anne Frank (died in Nazi concentration camp)

Today's affirmation:
I believe in the goodness of people.
I believe in my own inner strength.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,

committed people can change the world.

Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

- Margaret Mead

Further reading: Mother Teresa prayer

Not A Victim

Anne Frank
     

Don't Reject Wise Thoughts Based on Who Speaks Them

 

Important ideas can come from unexpected places. We tend to label people - Genius, Idiot, Socialist, Right Wingnut, Freedom Fighter, Terrorist. But it is helpful to remind ourselves to be open to good ideas - whatever their source. It is equally important to avoid accepting any idea merely because we respect that person's other ideas or accomplishments. A further complication is that many quotes are falsely attributed - Thomas Jefferson, for example, didn't say half of what he is quoted as saying.

Here are some unexpected quotes - both important insights from infamous mouths and off-the-wall ideas from honored people...

Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights, because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
- Larry Flynt (creator and publisher of Hustler magazine)

What the Larry Flynn quote means to me...
A democratically-elected government is probably necessary to protect Human Rights, but it is not sufficient. Majorities protect their own rights, but not necessarily the rights of minorities.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Not only do wise words come from unexpected mouths, but those people who we consider wise don't always live up to our expectations...

I consider my greatest accomplishment to be lifelong celibacy.
- Isaac Newton (discoverer of the laws of gravitation and motion, famous mathematician, and perhaps the greatest scientist ever)

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
- attributed to Joseph Goebbels (Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany)

Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.
- Karl Marx (German philosopher and political economist whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern communism)

Spurious Quotations: Here are a couple of great quotes - except that they weren't said by who everybody thinks they were...

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.
- Josh Billings (not Mark Twain)

"Mother Teresa Prayer"
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; ... Forgive them anyway.
- Kent Keith (Mother Teresa kept a copy on the wall of her orphanage)

Further reading: Mother Teresa quotes: Love begins at home

Just Do Your Best

Give the world the best you have
and it may never be enough.
Give the world your best anyway.
- Kent Keith (frequently attributed to Mother Teresa)

Simply do your best, and you will avoid
self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it.
- Sam Ewing

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

Today's affirmation:
I will do my best...
and then relax in the knowing
that I have done all I could.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Take Charge of Your Life

Play to Win, but be a Good Loser

DO IT

Ignore Your Critics
    

How much can you love? What you can accomplish?

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

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

We all go through life bristling
at our external limitations,
but the most difficult chains
to break are inside us.
- Bradley Whitford

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared
believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.
- Bruce Barton

True love doesn't come to you it has to be inside you.
- Julia Roberts

Who looks outside, dreams;
who looks inside, awakes.
- Carl Jung

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news.
The good news is that you don't know how great you can be!
How much you can love!
What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
- Anne Frank

Further reading: Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation

The Power of Unconditional Love

Solitude vs. Feeling Lonely

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Live from Your Heart

What is a Home?
        

 

Smile

 

Just smiling goes a long way toward making you feel better about life.
And when you feel better about life, your life is better.
- Art Linkletter

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen?
Then prepare to accept it.
Then proceed to improve on the worst.
- Dale Carnegie

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive.
The great opportunity is where you are.
- John Burroughs

Smile and the world smiles with you.
- Anonymous

Peace begins with a smile.
- Mother Teresa

Always do the best you can,
and everything else will take care of itself.
Focus your energies on doing what you can
rather than worrying about what you can't.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A smile that begins as an effort and a pretense quickly grows to become genuine,
and given time, a habit of happiness. In the words of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Inner Smile Exercise:
1. Breath slowly, deeply, and consciously.
2. Close your eyes and set the corners of your mouth in just the slightest smile.
3. Visualize your smile growing larger and larger, and your happiness increasing.

Today's affirmation:
Every day in every way I am getting better and better.
- Émile Coué

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

No Regrets

Beyond Your Worries
   

We Belong to Each Other

 

Always hold peace toward all in your own heart.
If you are healthy, support those who are sick.
If you have a job, support those who have lost theirs.
If you are strong, support those who are feeble of body or mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

We can never obtain peace in the outer world
until we make peace with ourselves.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me:
I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
...
Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Matthew 25:35-40

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

Further reading: Feed Just One

Commitment To Service

The Good Samaritan

Help Others

Encourage Others

How Helping Others Helps You
      

Vanity is the Opposite of Dignity

 

There is dignity in being of service.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors,
but in deserving them.
- Aristotle

One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked,
but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.
- Michael J. Fox (afflicted with Parkinson's disease at age 30)

A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of
labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil.
- Grover Cleveland

Our vanity is the constant enemy of our dignity.
- Anne Sophie Swetchine

Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative
of the dignity of my high vocation,
and its many responsibilities.
Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way
to coldness, unkindness, or impatience.
- Mother Teresa

The primal principle of democracy
is the worth and dignity of the individual.
- Edward Bellamy

Further reading: Live with Honor and Dignity

Is there a place for Honor today?

HONOR - the first Point of Simply An Inspired Life

Self-Care
      

Share Generously

 

As we work to create light for others,
we naturally light our own way.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.
- Henry Ward Beecher

It's about sharing.
You just give what you have to give
wherever you go,
and you let God handle the rest.
- Lindsay Wagner

Good works are links that form a chain of love.
- Mother Teresa

In service, there is clarity and compassion.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

It is high time that the ideal of success
should be replaced by the ideal of service.
- Albert Einstein

The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others
will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.
- Helen Keller

The path to your own happiness is usually found in service.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Become Kinder

Be of Service

Spread Love
       

Believe In Peace; Believe In Mercy

 

When we are no longer able to change a situation -
we are challenged to change ourselves.
- Viktor E. Frankl (Nazi concentration camp survivor)

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared
believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.
- Bruce Barton

I don't think of all the misery
but of the beauty that still remains.
- Anne Frank

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.
I just wish he didn't trust me so much.
- Mother Teresa

I Believe In Peace; I Believe In Mercy.
- Malala Yousafzai (shot by the Taliban in 2012 for advocating education for girls)

Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.
- Anne Frank (died in Nazi concentration camp)

Today's affirmation:
I believe in the goodness of people.
I believe in my own inner strength.

Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world.
For, indeed, that's all who ever have.
- Margaret Mead

Further reading: Mother Teresa prayer

Not A Victim

Anne Frank
     

Important Ideas Can Come From Unexpected People

Important ideas can come from unexpected places. We tend to label people - Genius, Idiot, Socialist, Right Wingnut, Freedom Fighter, Terrorist. But it is helpful to remind ourselves to be open to good ideas - whatever their source. It is equally important to avoid accepting any idea merely because we respect that person's other ideas or accomplishments. A further complication is that many quotes are falsely attributed - Thomas Jefferson, for example, didn't say half of what he is quoted as saying.

Here are some unexpected quotes - both important insights from infamous mouths and off-the-wall ideas from honored people...

Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights, because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
- Larry Flynt (creator and publisher of Hustler magazine)

What the Larry Flynn quote means to me...
A democratically-elected government is probably necessary to protect Human Rights, but it is not sufficient. Majorities protect their own rights, but not necessarily the rights of minorities.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Not only do wise words come from unexpected mouths, but those people who we consider wise don't always live up to our expectations...

I consider my greatest accomplishment to be lifelong celibacy.
- Isaac Newton (discoverer of the laws of gravitation and motion, famous mathematician, and perhaps the greatest scientist ever)

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
- attributed to Joseph Goebbels (Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany)

Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.
- Karl Marx (German philosopher and political economist whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern communism)

Spurious Quotations: Here are a couple of great quotes - except that they weren't said by who everybody thinks they were...

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.
- Josh Billings (not Mark Twain)

"Mother Teresa Prayer"
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; ... Forgive them anyway.
- Kent Keith (Mother Teresa kept a copy on the wall of her orphanage)

Further reading: Mother Teresa quotes: Love begins at home

Do Your Best, and People May (or may not) Like It

 

Give the world the best you have
and it may never be enough.
Give the world your best anyway.
- Kent Keith (frequently attributed to Mother Teresa)

Simply do your best, and you will avoid
self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it.
- Sam Ewing

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

Today's affirmation:
I will do my best...
and then relax in the knowing
that I have done all I could.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Take Charge of Your Life

Play to Win, but be a Good Loser

DO IT

Ignore Your Critics
    

In Silence, You Understand Yourself and the Universe.

Find stillness and you find God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We need to find God,
and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness.
God is the friend of silence.
See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...
We need silence to be able to touch souls.
- Mother Teresa

God is found in stillness.
To know God is to stop and be still.
Listen to the spirit within you.
Communion with God happens internally.
You will never meet God in the hustle and bustle of life.
Learn to be silent.
It is here that you will find God.
- Tanya Guerrier

The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue
seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.
- Alan Watts

In prayerful silence you must look into your own heart.
No one can tell you better than yourself
what comes between you and God.
Ask yourself.
Then listen!
- Johannes Tauler

There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery
that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it,
and fills it with noble inclinations.
- Washington Irving

In Silence, You Understand Yourself and the Universe.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet,
you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything.
- Alan Watts

Today's affirmation:
I am a Unique Expression
of the Universal Fabric of Creation.
I celebrate both my uniqueness
and my connection with all that is.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Stillness of the Mind

Have a Conversation with God, Today

Quiet Time

Breath by Breath
     

Be of Service to Your Fellow Human Beings

 

Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Bear with each other and forgive one another.
- Colossians 3:12

The only way you can serve God is by serving other people.
- Rick Warren

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

Religion is a blessing when, and only when,
it provides a focus for a compassionate community
to minister to its members and to the world at large.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Do God's Work

True Religion is about Helping Others

Love One Another
    

Wondrous Things: Peace and Hope and Pride

 

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

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

We all go through life bristling
at our external limitations,
but the most difficult chains
to break are inside us.
- Bradley Whitford

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared
believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.
- Bruce Barton

True love doesn't come to you it has to be inside you.
- Julia Roberts

Who looks outside, dreams;
who looks inside, awakes.
- Carl Jung

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news.
The good news is that you don't know how great you can be!
How much you can love!
What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
- Anne Frank

Further reading: Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation

The Power of Unconditional Love

Solitude vs. Feeling Lonely

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Live from Your Heart

What is a Home?
        

Breath slowly, deeply, and consciously

 

Just smiling goes a long way toward making you feel better about life.
And when you feel better about life, your life is better.
- Art Linkletter

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen?
Then prepare to accept it.
Then proceed to improve on the worst.
- Dale Carnegie

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive.
The great opportunity is where you are.
- John Burroughs

Smile and the world smiles with you.
- Anonymous

Peace begins with a smile.
- Mother Teresa

Always do the best you can,
and everything else will take care of itself.
Focus your energies on doing what you can
rather than worrying about what you can't.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A smile that begins as an effort and a pretense quickly grows to become genuine,
and given time, a habit of happiness. In the words of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Inner Smile Exercise:
1. Breath slowly, deeply, and consciously.
2. Close your eyes and set the corners of your mouth in just the slightest smile.
3. Visualize your smile growing larger and larger, and your happiness increasing.

Today's affirmation:
Every day in every way I am getting better and better.
- Émile Coué

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

No Regrets

Beyond Your Worries