THINK about new ideas, rather than either blindly rejecting or accepting them

What is my purpose in sending these Daily Quotes and Inspirations, as I have been doing since 2008?
Some of these messages are intended to provide a small measure of comfort, but most of these messages are intended to challenge my readers to deeper thinking.

Short quotations/aphorisms are by their nature incomplete, and almost always present only one side of an issue. Long-time readers will also notice that I often present quotations that contradict each other - for example, some exhort the reader to work harder/smarter while others encourage placing a relatively low priority on work.

My hope is that these daily messages will get you thinking about new ideas. Let's take these aphorisms as a spur for inquiry. Let those ideas with which you disagree start you thinking, talking and questioning, but also let the comfortable, familiar, and inspiring quotes become a source of questioning. Remember that our comfortable inspiring quotes are also never 100% true in all situations. Open Minds - Open Hearts. Thank you for reading these daily messages.
Read more about this at Inspirational/Motivational Quotes - Spur for Inquiry

Beware of false knowledge;
it is more dangerous than ignorance.
- George Bernard Shaw

Look for what is,
and not for what you think should be.
- Albert Einstein [paraphrase]

What is a scientist after all?
It is a curious man looking through a keyhole,
the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on.
- Jacques Yves Cousteau

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.
- Harry S. Truman

All truths are easy to understand
once they are discovered;
the point is to discover them.
- Galileo Galilei

Do not limit yourself to either analysis or emotion.
Look deeply into the DNA of its seeds,
AND appreciate the intoxicating grandeur of the forest.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Be a Seeker

Lifelong Learning

Inquiry

Conscious Learning

Discovery
    

Choosing Compassion Toward ALL is Heroic

To go against the dominant thinking of your friends,
of most of the people you see every day,
is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.
- Theodore H. White

The opposite of courage in our society
is not cowardice, it is conformity.
- Rollo May

Life is a sum of all your choices.
- Albert Camus

Today's affirmation
I CHOOSE with Open Mind and Open Heart.
I renounce all assumptions and expectations.
I thoughtfully consider all possibilities.
I CHOOSE with courage, awareness, consciousness, and compassion toward all.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Trouble with Conformity

Make Decisions

Embrace Change

Do What You Know Is Right

Try Being Outrageous
       

Appreciate the Basics

 

Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.
- Wayne W. Dyer

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins with the realization
that we have already arrived!
- Michael Bernard Beckwith

Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively,
the basic goods of life, with awe,
pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy,
however stale these experiences may have become to others.
- Abraham Maslow

A Table Grace of Thanksgiving:
We gather today in gratitude for the bounty of the land,
the joyful company around this table,
and all the other blessings of this life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: A List of Gratitudes - a Thanksgiving

Thank You God

Gratitude: Virtue and Joy

Let Each Day be a Thanksgiving
    

Look Deeper - Don't Make Assumptions

Be aware of what is going on around you today - truly conscious.
Don't make assumptions. Focus on looking behind the obvious.
Make a conscious effort to observe life objectively,
and to avoid the natural tendency to see only
what you are expecting to see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say.
I just watch what they do.
- Andrew Carnegie

Be an Observer of Life.
Gaining wisdom from carefully observing life
is not a substitute for action -
it is a prerequisite for informed action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Your work is to discover your world
and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
- The Buddha

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
- Marcel Proust

Today's Affirmation:
I am a Passionate Observer of Life.
I See the events, feel the emotions,
and recognize the difference.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: New Eyes

What You See

Lifelong Learning
      

A New Year, and Time to Sow a New Crop

A world in upheaval is the breaking of the old sod -
the revealing of rich fresh soil ready for new planting.
Rejoice in the opportunity to sow a new crop.
Progress Does Not Come Gently.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past
have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.
- George S. Patton

Unexpected events can set you back or set you up.
It's all a matter of - perspective.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

This time, like all times, is a very good one,
if we but know what to do with it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Progress Does Not Come Gently.
 - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is no certainty; there is only adventure.
- Roberto Assagioli

We will only understand the miracle of life fully when
we allow the unexpected to happen.
- Paulo Coelho

Further reading: Knowledge is Soon Changed 

Appreciate the Unexpected

Assumptions

Expectations/Demands

Welcome Newness
     

Answer "Yes" to Yourself

 

As the evening beckons with the promise of tomorrow...

may your gratitude rise up and with strength answer, "yes."

- Mary Anne Radmacher

The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception
to such an extent that it changes the world you see.
- Robert Holden

The more you praise and celebrate your life,
the more there is in life to celebrate.
- Oprah Winfrey

The path to happiness is forgiveness of everyone
and gratitude for everything.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

He is a wise man who does not grieve
for the things which he has not,
but rejoices for those which he has.
- Epictetus

Celebrate! Celebration is an expression of Gratitude.
Gratitude is like the prayer, while
Celebration is the hymn and sacred dance.
Celebration is its own road to happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We can only be said to be truly alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
- Thornton Wilder

Further reading: Attitude of Gratitude

To Feel Blessed

A List of Gratitudes

Zero-Based Gratitude
    

Beauty is a Treasure

 

We can only be said to be truly alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
- Thornton Wilder

Even from the darkest night, songs of beauty can be born.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Beauty is whatever gives joy.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

We live in a wonderful world that is
full of beauty, charm and adventure.
There is no end to the adventures that we can have
if only we seek them with our eyes open.
- Jawaharlal Nehru

See beauty in the familiar.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Beauty and Adventure in the Commonplace

Pay Attention to the Natural World

Have Eyes for Beauty
      

Find something to enjoy and to appreciate about TODAY

 

Find something to enjoy and to appreciate about TODAY.

Today's affirmation:
My Cup Runneth Over - My Life Is Abundant.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Not what we have,
but what we enjoy,
constitutes our abundance.
- Epicurus

Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.
- Wayne Dyer

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins
with the realization that we have already arrived.
- Michael Beckwith

Abundance is not something we acquire.
It is something we tune into.
- Wayne Dyer

Further reading: Know that You have been Blessed

Have Gratitude for THIS Moment

Is your glass of life half empty? Or half full?

Appreciate Your Abundance

Practice Keen Awareness

Today's affirmation: I practice keen awareness,
and make my choices with consciousness, courage,
and compassion toward all.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Let us not look back in anger
or forward in fear,
but around in awareness.
- James Thurber

Today, begin to look on all things
with love, appreciation and open-mindedness.
- A Course in Miracles

It is the Consciousness with which we participate
in activities that makes the difference.
- Michael Beckwith

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious
privilege it is to be alive -
to breathe,
to think, to enjoy, to love.
- Marcus Aurelius

Pay attention. Cultivate awareness.
Life cannot be lived fully or joyfully if
our thoughts are focused on regretting the past,
preoccupied with anticipating the future,
or lost in the mind-fog of unconscious habitual behavior.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What is necessary to change a person is
to change his awareness of himself.
- Abraham Maslow

For some of us, the world appears to provide
only a fixed quantity of each resource -
a limited amount of food, of money,
of love, of success, of appreciation.
For others, life is unlimited.
Their world expands with the generosity, compassion,
inventiveness, and service that they contribute.
In this world-view, money that is spent
or given away returns multiplied.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Let Go and Accept This Moment

Assumptions are Dangerous

Be Open - Welcome the New

Bounty of the Earth
      

 

Welcome the Unfamiliar

Unless you try to do something
beyond what you have already mastered,
you will never grow.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Move out of your comfort zone. You can only
grow if you are willing to feel awkward and
uncomfortable when you try something new.
- Brian Tracy

If you put yourself in a position where you have to
stretch outside your comfort zone,
then you are forced to expand your consciousness.
- Les Brown

To the degree we're not living our dreams,
our comfort zone has more control of us than we have over ourselves.
- Peter McWilliams 

A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future.
You must break out of your current comfort zone and
become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.
- Denis Waitley

Further reading: Take Charge of Your Life

Time to Move On

Finding Joy in Our Troubled Lives

Your Intuition is Your Guide
      

Your Real Journey is Within

 

The only journey is the one within.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all of our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
- T. S. Eliot

The longest journey is the journey inwards.
Of him who has chosen his destiny, Who has started
upon his quest for the source of his being.
- Dag Hammarskjold

The key to growth is the introduction of
higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.
- Lao Tzu

Never make your home in a place.
Make a home for yourself inside your own head.
You'll find what you need to furnish it -
memory, friends you can trust, love of learning,
and other such things.
That way it will go with you wherever you journey.
- Tad Williams

Further reading: At the Center of Your Being

You Can't Escape Yourself

How We See Things
    

Consider the world from the perspective of others

Unhappiness is generally a result of spending too much time
regretting and resenting the past or worrying about the future.
The key to happiness and success is focusing,
with awareness, on the present moment.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie  

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
- Aldous Huxley

The ability to be in the present moment
is a major component of mental wellness.
- Abraham Maslow 

Dwell in stillness.
Observe without reacting and without judging.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Life is simple.
Everything happens for you, not to you.
Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late.
You don't have to like it... it's just easier if you do.
- Byron Katie

 Be still and know who you are.
- Kirtana

Give yourself permission to allow this moment to be exactly as it is,
and allow yourself to be exactly as you are.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

You're either attaching to your thoughts or you're inquiring. There is no other choice.
- Byron Katie

What is necessary to change a person is
to change his awareness of himself.
- Abraham Maslow

When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.
- Byron Katie

Have you ever arrived at work after your morning commute, and noticed that you didn't remember a single thing you saw during your drive? Let today be a day of awareness. Consciously pay attention to what is going on around you as drive, walk, do your business, or relax. Consider the world from the perspective of those you pass - the small child, the elderly lady trying to cross the street, the homeless person, the truck driver, the policeman, the executive in the big limo. 

First accept reality, only then choose how to react to it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Cherish This Moment Question Your Questions

Byron Katie - No one can give you freedom but you 

Truth isn't True. Reality isn't Real.

Cultivate Awareness Consciousness

Live in the Present

Cease Striving 

VISION - the fifth Point of Simply An Inspired Life

Breath by Breath        

Analysis AND Emotion

 

What is my purpose in sending these Daily Quotes and Inspirations, as I have been doing since 2008?
Some of these messages are intended to provide a small measure of comfort, but most of these messages are intended to challenge my readers to deeper thinking.

Short quotations/aphorisms are by their nature incomplete, and almost always present only one side of an issue. Long-time readers will also notice that I often present quotations that contradict each other - for example, some exhort the reader to work harder/smarter while others encourage placing a relatively low priority on work.

My hope is that these daily messages will get you thinking about new ideas. Let's take these aphorisms as a spur for inquiry. Let those ideas with which you disagree start you thinking, talking and questioning, but also let the comfortable, familiar, and inspiring quotes become a source of questioning. Remember that our comfortable inspiring quotes are also never 100% true in all situations. Open Minds - Open Hearts. Thank you for reading these daily messages.
Read more about this at Inspirational/Motivational Quotes - Spur for Inquiry

Beware of false knowledge;
it is more dangerous than ignorance.
- George Bernard Shaw

Look for what is,
and not for what you think should be.
- Albert Einstein [paraphrase]

What is a scientist after all?
It is a curious man looking through a keyhole,
the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on.
- Jacques Yves Cousteau

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.
- Harry S. Truman

All truths are easy to understand
once they are discovered;
the point is to discover them.
- Galileo Galilei

Do not limit yourself to either analysis or emotion.
Look deeply into the DNA of its seeds,
AND appreciate the intoxicating grandeur of the forest.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Be a Seeker

Lifelong Learning

Inquiry

Conscious Learning

Discovery
    

Be a Hero, Choose Compassion Toward ALL

 

To go against the dominant thinking of your friends,
of most of the people you see every day,
is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.
- Theodore H. White

The opposite of courage in our society
is not cowardice, it is conformity.
- Rollo May

Life is a sum of all your choices.
- Albert Camus

Today's affirmation
I CHOOSE with Open Mind and Open Heart.
I renounce all assumptions and expectations.
I thoughtfully consider all possibilities.
I CHOOSE with courage, awareness, consciousness, and compassion toward all.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Trouble with Conformity

Make Decisions

Embrace Change

Do What You Know Is Right

Try Being Outrageous
       

Appreciate Every Day the Basic Goods of Life

 

Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.
- Wayne W. Dyer

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins with the realization
that we have already arrived!
- Michael Bernard Beckwith

Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively,
the basic goods of life, with awe,
pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy,
however stale these experiences may have become to others.
- Abraham Maslow

A Table Grace of Thanksgiving:
We gather today in gratitude for the bounty of the land,
the joyful company around this table,
and all the other blessings of this life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: A List of Gratitudes - a Thanksgiving

Thank You God

Gratitude: Virtue and Joy

Let Each Day be a Thanksgiving
    

Don't Make Assumptions, Look Behind the Obvious

 

Be aware of what is going on around you today - truly conscious.
Don't make assumptions. Focus on looking behind the obvious.
Make a conscious effort to observe life objectively,
and to avoid the natural tendency to see only
what you are expecting to see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say.
I just watch what they do.
- Andrew Carnegie

Be an Observer of Life.
Gaining wisdom from carefully observing life
is not a substitute for action -
it is a prerequisite for informed action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Your work is to discover your world
and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
- The Buddha

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
- Marcel Proust

Today's Affirmation:
I am a Passionate Observer of Life.
I See the events, feel the emotions,
and recognize the difference.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: New Eyes

What You See

Lifelong Learning
      

A World in Upheaval...

 

A world in upheaval is the breaking of the old sod -
the revealing of rich fresh soil ready for new planting.
Rejoice in the opportunity to sow a new crop.
Progress Does Not Come Gently.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past
have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.
- George S. Patton

Unexpected events can set you back or set you up.
It's all a matter of - perspective.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

This time, like all times, is a very good one,
if we but know what to do with it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Progress Does Not Come Gently.
 - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is no certainty; there is only adventure.
- Roberto Assagioli

We will only understand the miracle of life fully when
we allow the unexpected to happen.
- Paulo Coelho

Further reading: Knowledge is Soon Changed 

Appreciate the Unexpected

Assumptions

Expectations/Demands

Welcome Newness
     

Praise and Celebrate Your Life

As the evening beckons with the promise of tomorrow...

may your gratitude rise up and with strength answer, "yes."

- Mary Anne Radmacher

The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception
to such an extent that it changes the world you see.
- Robert Holden

The more you praise and celebrate your life,
the more there is in life to celebrate.
- Oprah Winfrey

The path to happiness is forgiveness of everyone
and gratitude for everything.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

He is a wise man who does not grieve
for the things which he has not,
but rejoices for those which he has.
- Epictetus

Celebrate! Celebration is an expression of Gratitude.
Gratitude is like the prayer, while
Celebration is the hymn and sacred dance.
Celebration is its own road to happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We can only be said to be truly alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
- Thornton Wilder

Further reading: Attitude of Gratitude

To Feel Blessed

A List of Gratitudes

Zero-Based Gratitude
    

Be Conscious of Your Treasures

 

We can only be said to be truly alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
- Thornton Wilder

Even from the darkest night, songs of beauty can be born.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Beauty is whatever gives joy.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

We live in a wonderful world that is
full of beauty, charm and adventure.
There is no end to the adventures that we can have
if only we seek them with our eyes open.
- Jawaharlal Nehru

See beauty in the familiar.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Beauty and Adventure in the Commonplace

Pay Attention to the Natural World

Have Eyes for Beauty
      

My Cup Runneth Over - My Life Is Abundant

 

Find something to enjoy and to appreciate about TODAY.

Today's affirmation:
My Cup Runneth Over - My Life Is Abundant.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Not what we have,
but what we enjoy,
constitutes our abundance.
- Epicurus

Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.
- Wayne Dyer

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins
with the realization that we have already arrived.
- Michael Beckwith

Abundance is not something we acquire.
It is something we tune into.
- Wayne Dyer

Further reading: Know that You have been Blessed

Have Gratitude for THIS Moment

Is your glass of life half empty? Or half full?

Appreciate Your Abundance