Watchful Quotes

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
- Anonymous

The simplest questions are the most profound.
Where were you born?
Where is your home?
Where are you going?
What are you doing?
Think about these once in a while
and watch your answers change.
- Richard Bach

Watch your toes when you waltz with life, Dance Lightly.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Is today a day to gather strength from the storm -
a day to to learn life lessons for the next battle?
Or is today a day to sit by the fire
and watch the storm rage outside?
Either way, the storm is just life.
Give thanks for all of Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To know God, watch a butterfly return to the same tree -
after a year and a thousand miles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today is your day to practice whimsey,
skip on the beach, and play with the waves,
watch wondrous cloud animals parade your story,
find a magical white bunny down every rabbit hole.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Watch what people are cynical about,
and one can often discover what they lack.
- George S. Patton

Today is my day to practice whimsey,
skip on the beach, and play with the waves,
watch wondrous cloud animals parade my story,
find a magical white bunny down every rabbit hole.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Just watch this moment, without trying to change it at all.
What is happening? What do you feel?
What do you see? What do you hear?
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

We are tied to the ocean.
And when we go back to the sea,
whether it is to sail or to watch -
we are going back from whence we came.
- John F. Kennedy

To love. To be loved.
To never forget your own insignificance.
To never get used to the unspeakable violence
and the vulgar disparity of life around you.
To seek joy in the saddest places.
To pursue beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated
or complicate what is simple.
To respect strength, never power.
Above all, to watch. To try to understand.
To never look away. And never, never, to forget.
- Arundhati Roy

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge
and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you,
you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

Life repeats itself mindlessly -
unless you become mindful, it will go on repeating like a wheel.
That's why Buddhists call it the wheel of life and death,
the wheel of time.
It moves like a wheel: birth is followed by death,
death is followed by birth;
love is followed by hate, hate is followed by love;
success is followed by failure,
failure is followed by success. Just see!
If you can watch just for a few days,
you will see a pattern emerging, a wheel pattern.
One day, a fine morning, you are feeling so good and so happy,
and another day you are so dull,
so dead that you start thinking of committing suicide.
And just the other day you were so full of life,
so blissful that you were feeling thankful to God,
that you were in a mood of deep gratefulness,
and today there is great complaint
and you don't see the point why one should go on living...
And it goes on and on, but you don't see the pattern.
Once you see the pattern, you can get out of it.
- Osho

And you would accept the seasons of your heart
just as you have always accepted
that seasons pass over your fields
and you would watch with serenity
through the winters of your grief.
- Khalil Gibran

Give your time and efforts freely or not at all.
When you are tempted to say,
"Oh, if I have to, I'll skip my golf game
and watch my daughter play soccer," don't do it.
Either generate the heart-felt emotion
to make the free-will gift,
"I'd love to watch your game today, Sandy,"
or the honesty to decline the request gracefully.
Martyrdom doesn't create happiness
for any of the parties involved.
An honest, "No" is preferable to a coerced "Yes."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The most difficult thing in the world
is to know how to do a thing
and to watch somebody else doing it wrong,
without comment.
- Theodore. H. White

From the solemn gloom of the temple
children run out to sit in the dust,
God watches them play and forgets the priest.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man
... living in the sky. Who watches everything you do
every minute of every day. And the invisible man
has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do.
And if you do any of these things,
he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire
and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever,
and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream,
until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you.
He loves you and he needs money.
- George Carlin

Overflowing Cup of Tea:
The Zen Master poured his visitor's teacup full, and then kept pouring.
The visitor watched until he could no longer restrain himself.
"It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," the Zen Master said,
"you are full of your own opinions and assumptions.
How can you learn truth until you first empty your cup?"
- Traditional Zen Koan

Be careful not to do your good deeds
when there's no one watching you.
- Tom Lehrer

Dance like no one is watching,
love like you'll never be hurt.
Sing like no one is listening.
Live life like it's heaven on earth.
- Anonymous (various attributions and alternate phrasings)

Sing like no one's listening,
love like you've never been hurt,
dance like nobody's watching,
and live like its heaven on earth.
- Mark Twain

Love like you've never been hurt,
dance like no one is watching,
live as though heaven is on earth.
- Satchel Paige

Whenever you do a thing,
act as if all the world were watching.
- Thomas Jefferson

Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
- Satchel Paige

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen:
A thief entered the little hut of a Zen Master,
but discovered there was nothing to steal.
The Zen Master discovered the thief.
"You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler,
"and you should not return empty-handed.
Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered,
but he took the clothes and slunk away.
The Zen Master sat naked, watching the moon.
"Poor fellow," he mused,
"I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
- Traditional Zen Koan

Life is a journey. It is not a race to test
who can finish first or who can end up with the most loot.
Rather, life is best enjoyed as a meander -
watching the view to left and right - above and below -
as the days slowly move past in dress review.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

This is my ultimate fantasy:
watching QVC with a credit card
while making love and eating at the same time.
- Yasmine Bleeth

Cloud Animals: Be a Child Again.
I remember warm summer afternoons,
laying in the shade of a maple tree in the back yard
of my Connecticut home watching the clouds for hours.
As those clouds formed dragons and foxes, clowns and angels,
I traveled across space and time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I will not be just a tourist in the world of images,
just watching images passing by which I cannot live in,
make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy.
- Anais Nin

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips,
be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.
- St. Francis of Assisi

People in their handlings of affairs
often fail when they are about to succeed.
If one remains as careful at the end
as he was at the beginning,
there will be no failure.
- Lao Tzu

We are what we pretend to be,
so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
- Kurt Vonnegut

Pride comes in two flavors -
be careful which you choose -
choose honor, not ego.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You got to be careful if you
don't know where you're going,
because you might not get there.
- Yogi Berra

A man is usually more careful of his money
than he is of his principles.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be careful the friends you choose -
for you will become like them.
- W. Clement Stone

Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge
on their children rather than virtue,
the art of speaking well rather than doing well;
but their manners should be of the greatest concern.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

While it is natural to feel some degree of
need for the approval of others, be careful.
If you find yourself unwilling to
take actions that others disapprove of,
you have lost control of your own life
and have given your destiny to others.
An excessive need-for-approval
is a sign of low self-esteem,
and in severe cases, a condition termed co-dependency.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I choose my friends for their good looks,
my acquaintances for their good characters,
and my enemies for their intellects.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
- Oscar Wilde

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich,
for the hopes of the instructed
are better than the wealth of the ignorant.
- Epictetus

I was thinking that I might fly today.
Just to disprove all the things you say...
please be careful with me, I'm sensitive,
and I'd like to stay that way.
- Jewel

There are three rules for dating:
1) Don't;
2) If you must, just be careful;
3) Forget the rules, your hormones will win anyway.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To state the facts frankly
is not to despair the future nor indict the past.
The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies
and gives a faithful accounting
to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.
- John F. Kennedy

Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had
because they didn't have the talent
or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?
- Nelson Mandela

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me
than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
- Albert Einstein

When I examine myself and my methods of thought,
I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy
has meant more to me than
any talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
- Albert Einstein

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
- Calvin Coolidge

Confidence is the most important single factor in this game,
and no matter how great your natural talent,
there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.
- Jack Nicklaus

The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have,
instead of what you don't have.
- Woody Allen

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy
between the genius and his human qualities
that one has to ask oneself whether
a little less talent might not have been better.
- Carl Jung

I think this is the most extraordinary
collection of talent, of human knowledge,
that has ever been gathered at the White House -
with the possible exception of
when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
- John F. Kennedy

We believe that if men have the talent
to invent new machines that put men out of work,
they have the talent to put those men back to work.
- John F. Kennedy

On His Blindness:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
- John Milton (1608-1674)

Use the power of your word
in the direction of truth and love.
- don Miguel Ruiz

May your spirit soar throughout the vast cathedral of your being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You will not be punished for your anger,
you will be punished by your anger.
- The Buddha

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering
is worse than the suffering itself.
- Paulo Coelho

A well-developed sense of humor
is the pole that adds balance to your steps,
as you walk the tightrope of life.
- William Arthur Ward

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Inspirational Quotes

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