Ann > Ann's Quotes

“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.”
― Amy Tan

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“When a woman becomes her own best friend life is easier.”
― Diane Von Furstenberg

“The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it...”
― Nicholas Sparks, At First Sight

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“...legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.

[Letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803]”
― James Madison

“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”
― Josh Billings

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess:

Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity.

Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples' affairs. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. But thou knowest, Lord, that in the end I will need a few friends.

Keep me from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point.

Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others; help me to endure them with charity. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains -- they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing.

I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn't agree with that of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong.

Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint -- it is so hard to live with some of them -- but a harsh old person is one of the devil's masterpieces.

Make me sympathetic without being sentimental, helpful but not bossy. Let me discover merits where I had not expected them, and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess any. And, Lord, give me the grace to tell them so.

Amen”
― Anonymous

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
― Robert Frost

“Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.”
― Christian D. Larson, Your Forces and How to Use Them

“Asked, Who is the rich man? Epictetus replied, “He who is content.”
― Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of Epictetus

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....”
― Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

“We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing!”
― Benjamin Franklin

“What you are is God's gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.”
― Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer

“I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.”
― Leo Rosten, Captain Newman, M.D.

“When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter.”
― Winston Churchill

“Many lose through never starting. A job well begun is half done.”
― Orrin Woodward

“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.”
― Khalil Gibran

“The Reality of The Other Person Lies Not In What He Reveals To You, But What He Cannot Reveal To You.
Therefore, If You Would Understand Him, Listen Not To What He Says, But Rather To What He Does Not Say.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept.”
― Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson in His Journals

“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Complete Prose Works Of Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.”
― Thomas Merton