Jessamyn West Quotes

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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world
that we must love our enemies - or else?
The chain reaction of evil -
hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -
must be broken, or else we shall be plunged
into the dark abyss of annihilation.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

When a man you like switches from what
he said a year ago, or four years ago,
he is a broad-minded person who has courage enough
to change his mind with changing conditions.
When a man you don't like does it,
he is a liar who has broken his promise.
- Franklin Pierce Adams

I am the Wizard. This world is mine.
I speak. It's done. My realm is fine.
My wand, my tongue. My sword, my voice.
It's good. It's bad. I speak my choice.
I say happy, or I say mad.
I say angry, or I say glad.
I name that drawing on the wall.
It's not graffiti after all.
The past has been broken. The prison's not real.
My word holds the magic - the power to heal.
Intent is my weapon - a sword from above.
Cruel hate, fear, and anger transmute into love.
This world's my joy. This mouth's my toy.
Reborn -I'm a brand new girl or boy.
I choose. I speak. My will is done.
Come join. Come play. This can be fun.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is a secret wisdom-of-the-ages
that holds the key to breaking our
cycle of self-imposed suffering.
The secret wisdom is, "Life is not supposed to be fair."
This is not sad news. This is GLORIOUS news!
Life is not broken. Nothing is wrong.
God has not failed, died, or gone on vacation.
The world is working perfectly. We just misunderstood.
Somewhere along the way, someone got the idea that
life was "supposed" to be "fair,"
and all the trouble started -
expectation, disappointment, resentment, anger -
a whole cycle of suffering that began
with the belief that life is "supposed" to be "fair."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt
until they are too strong to be broken.
- Samuel Johnson

Most of us believe that we have
been betrayed by someone outside of us -
in other words someone has done something to hurt us,
been dishonest or broken a promise made:
some trust in some concept was broken.
Indeed someone may have taken an action
that took only their needs into consideration,
they may have not followed through on a promise made,
and they may have not told you the truth.
But their actions have nothing to do with you
and have everything to do with them.
That's why no one can do anything TO you.
They can take actions that involve you that you may not like -
according to your point of view.
But you are not a victim, no way, no how.
- Sheri Rosenthal

Personally, I have fond memories of playing
on slippery rocks on the banks of a rushing river
as a child and hitchhiking in college.
To those who say, "But times are different now,"
I reply that statistically life is much safer now
than in the 1950s, with regard to both crime and accidents.
What has changed is our attitudes.
In those years, a broken leg from falling off a swing
or the back of a tractor was just part of childhood -
an excuse for gathering autographs.
Today that broken leg would be a source
of outrage and probably lawsuits.
I long for a simpler time when life was taken less seriously.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Lovers who have been left, lose confidence and become afraid.
They learn to leave relationships first.
The broken hearted become the heart breakers.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The reason why the world lacks unity,
and lies broken and in heaps,
is, because man is disunited with himself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rules are mostly made to be broken
and are too often for the lazy to hide behind.
- Douglas MacArthur

All things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man...
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)

Our "Rainbows and Butterflies" are the small miracles of our life -
the little things that are so easy to overlook,
yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment
to notice and to pay attention.
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh,
for the touch of a hand and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree,
I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
- Abraham Lincoln

Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh, for the touch of a hand
and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Feel Unity with Spirit and All Creation
All things share the same breath the
beast, the tree, the man... the air
shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle [actually written by screenwriter Ted Perry in 1972]

Give me six hours to chop down a tree
and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
- Abraham Lincoln

Pause to appreciate the beauty around you.
Whether rainbow or butterfly,
mountain or tree, painting or poem -
whether crafted by nature or by a human hand -
beauty adds a magical element to life
that surpasses logic and science.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Have you ever hugged a tree?
Hug a tree, and one day you will come to know
that it is not only that
you have hugged the tree
but that the tree also responds,
the tree also hugs you.
- Osho

If you plan for a year, plant a seed.
If for ten years, plant a tree.
If for a hundred years, teach the people.
When you sow a seed once, you will reap a single harvest.
When you teach the people, you will reap a hundred harvests.
- Kuan Chung

Great talents are the most lovely
and often the most dangerous
fruits on the tree of humanity.
They hang upon the most slender twigs
that are easily snapped off.
- Carl Jung

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore.
There is always something to make you wonder
in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.
- Albert Schweitzer

A few minutes ago every tree was excited,
bowing to the roaring storm,
waving, swirling, tossing their branches
in glorious enthusiasm like worship.
But though to the outer ear these trees
are now silent, their songs never cease.
- John Muir

Everybody is a genius.
But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
- Albert Einstein

One day Alice came to a fork in the road
and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.
"Which road do I take?" she asked.
His responses was a question: "Where do you want to go?"
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
- Lewis Carroll

Faith:
When you walk to the edge of all the light you have
and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,
you must believe that one of two things will happen:
...
There will be something solid for you to stand upon,
or, you will be taught how to fly
- Patrick Overton - from his book of poems: The Leaning Tree, 1975
[Widely mis-attributed to Barbara J. Winter, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and others]

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree
is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.
- Burton Hills

I never saw a discontented tree.
They grip the ground as though they liked it,
and though fast rooted, they travel about as far as we do.
- John Muir

We are born believing.
A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emancipation from the bondage of the soil
is no freedom for the tree.
- Rabindranath Tagore

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.
- Albert Einstein

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree
is connected with that of man.
- Henry David Thoreau

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 am a plain ordinary magnificent creation of God,
just like every other plain ordinary
mountain, ocean, tree, animal, and human.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Be not like the sugarcane -
do not hold your sweetness inside.
Be like the fruit tree -
be generous with your best.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie (inspired by Tagore)

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
- Abraham Lincoln

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time
with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
- Thomas Jefferson

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves
to recognize how good things really are.
- Marianne Williamson

Sometimes the things you really want
sneak in the back door.
Notice.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
- widely misattributed to Mark Twain

I am one with the Earth,
with the Water, with the Fire,
with the Air that I breathe,
with all Living Things,
and we are all one with Spirit.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

A time for work, a time for play -
balance in all things.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You never really understand a person
until you consider things from his point of view.
- Harper Lee

Management is doing things right;
leadership is doing the right things.
- Peter F. Drucker

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
- Reinhold Niebuhr (Serenity Prayer)

Winners must have two things:
definite goals and a burning desire to achieve them.
- Anonymous

Keep a grateful journal. Every night,
list five things you are grateful for.
- Oprah Winfrey

Do not allow obligation or immediacy to
bind you to physical things or specific actions.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear,
and not bothering.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller

If you want to feel rich,
just count all of the things you have that money can't buy.
- Anonymous

It is only through labor and painful effort,
by grim energy and resolute courage,
that we move on to better things.
- Theodore Roosevelt

The most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched,
they must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller

Be alert. The most important things in life
are seldom the most obvious.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

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