"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." -- G. K. Chesterton

"It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance." -- Dalai Lama

"Crack up with laughter before you crack up with stress." -- from the markerboard at the therapist's office

"I am not afraid of storms, for
I am learning how to sail my ship."
-- Louisa May Alcott,
via "Thought for the Day" card from the local FranklinCovey store

"Change your thoughts and you change your world." -- Norman Vincent Peale, via "Thought for the Day" card from the local FranklinCovey store

"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures." -- Jessamyn West, via "Thought for the Day" card from the local FranklinCovey store

"The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands." -- Anne Frank, via "Thought for the Day" card from the local FranklinCovey store

"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies soley in my tenacity." -- Louis Pasteur, via "Thought for the Day" card from the local FranklinCovey store

"A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down." -- Robert Benchley (1889 - 1945), via Dog News

"The single most powerful investment we can ever make in life is investment in ourselves, in the only instrument we have with which to deal with life and to contribute." -- Stephen R. Covey

"True influence over another comes not from a moment's eloquence nor from any happily chosen word, but from the accumulation of a lifetime's thoughts stored up in the eyes." -- Thornton Wilder

"Loyalty to the country always; loyalty to the government when it deserves it." -- Mark Twain, via Donner Farms

"Each golden sunrise ushers in new opportunities for those who retain faith in themselves, and keep their chins up." -- Alonzo Newton Benn

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather." -- John Ruskin

Talent | "Use what talents you have; the woods would have little music if no birds sang their song except those who sang best." -- Reverend Oliver G. Wilson

Beauty | "There is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let form of an object be what it may -- light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful." -- John Constable

"The wisdom of those who have lived longer than I, though I never recognize it at the moment, is afterwards nearly always justified." -- Anaïs Nin

"Wake up with a smile and go after life... Live it, enjoy it, taste it, smell it, feel it." -- Joe Knapp

"Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive -- it's such an interesting world." -- L. M. Montgomery

"Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving." -- Kahlil Gibran

"Be satisfied with your possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them." -- Henry Van Dyke

"Politics does work better when citizens are guided by a sense of right or wrong rather than sheer expediency." -- George Soros

"Make peace with imperfection." -- from the markerboard at the therapist's office

"They change their sky, not their soul, who run across the sea." -- Horace

"If you borrow $2000 dollars from a bank and can't pay it back, you have a problem, but if you borrow a million and can't repay, they have a problem." -- Anonymous

"Anyone who sees in his own occupation merely a means of earning money degrades it; but he that sees in it a service to mankind ennobles both his labor and himself." -- A. Lawrence Lowell

Children | "There is little use to talk about your child to anyone; other people either have one or haven't." -- Don Herold

Children | "Hooky is when a small boy lets his mind wander -- and then follows it." -- Circle Arrow Retailer

Children | "For adult education nothing beats children." -- Banking

"When you have nothing to say, sing it." -- David Ogilvy

"Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art." -- Andy Warhol

"Wall Street is the only place people ride to in a Rolls-Royce to get advice from people who take the subway." -- Warren Buffett

"My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring
And carried alot on the wings of the breeze;
For above and around me the wild wind is roaring,
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas."
-- Anne Brontë

"I like not only to be loved, but to be told I am loved." -- George Eliot

"Independence is happiness." -- Susan B. Anthony

"The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry." -- Maya Angelou

"Zest is the secret of all beauty." -- Christian Dior

"Even the taking of small risks will add excitement to life." -- Arnold Lobel

Laughter | "Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed is the one most surely wasted." -- Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort

"Heal the past, live the present, dream the future." -- Mary Engelbreit

Expressing the Inexpressible

Music | "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." -- Aldous Huxley

Troubles | "Nothing lasts forever, not even troubles." -- Arnold H. Glasow

Solitude | "For solitude sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return."
-- John Milton

Renewal | "It was as if a veil had been torn suddenly away; I had understood, I had grasped what painting could be." -- Claude Monet

"What can one do with the past? Forgive it. Let it enter into you in peace." -- Dame Iris Murdoch

"I shook the habit off
Entirely and for ever, and again
In Nature's presence stood, as now I stand,
A sensitive being, a creative soul."
-- William Wordsworth

Sleep | "Blessings on him that invented sleep!" -- Miguel de Cervantes

"If love is the best thing in life, then the best part of love is the kiss." -- Thomas Mann

Variety | "Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavor."
-- William Cowper

"Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy if I could say how much." -- William Shakespeare

"When at last I took the time to look into the heart of a flower, it opened up a whole new world -- a world where every country walk would be an adventure, where every garden would become an enchanted one." -- Princess Grace of Monaco

Books | "A book is like a garden carried in a pocket." -- Chinese Proverb

"All nature smiles, and the whole world is pleased." -- Day Kellogg Lee

Health | "Health is the first muse, and sleep is the condition to produce it." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I would rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world." -- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), via Dog News

"Women and cats do as they damned well please, and men and dogs had best learn to live with it." -- Alan Holbrook, via Dog News

"Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies." -- Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902), The Way of All Flesh, via Dog News

"Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top." -- Robert Burton (1577 - 1640), via Dog News

"If you aren't afraid to fail, then you probably don't care enough about success." -- Mark McCormack

"The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers." -- David Ogilvy

"I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean." -- G. K. Chesterton, via Quotes of the Day

"I like to work in coffee shops. There are too many distractions at home -- four kids under 9 and not one of them has a job!" -- Harlan Coben, crime writer, on the writing process, via Oddly Enough Notable Quotes, crossposted to Streams of Consciousness

"Solve the problem yourself or accept a fate you may not like...from this perspective, the ethic of personal responsibility gains appeal." -- Noel M. Tichy

"In order to serve its purpose, a vision has to be a shared vision." -- Warren Bennis

"You can't be a micromanager unless you micromanage everybody." -- Bob Boone, manager for Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds, via Cincinnati Reds Blog

"Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes." -- Lewis Grizzard, via Dog News

"It is better that a man should tyrannize over his bank balance than over his fellow citizens." -- John Maynard Keynes

"Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children." -- William Penn (1644 - 1718), via Dog News

"Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war." -- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Julius Caesar", Act 3 scene 1, via Dog News

"When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news." -- John B. Bogart (1848 - 1921), via Dog News

"It is entirely seemly for a young man killed in battle to lie mangled by the bronze spear. In his death all things appear fair. But when dogs shame the gray head and gray chin and nakedness of an old man killed, it is the most piteous thing that happens among wretched mortals." -- Homer (800 BC - 700 BC), The Iliad, via Dog News

"I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine." -- Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), via Dog News

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." -- Groucho Marx (1890 - 1977), via Dog News

"If dogs could talk, it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one." -- Andrew A. Rooney, via Dog News

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man." -- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), via Dog News

"Some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant." -- Anonymous, via Dog News

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969), speech to the Republican National Committee, January 31, 1958, via Dog News

Knowledge | "If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain." -- Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. (1900 - 1965), speech at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, October 8, 1952, via Dog News

Charity | "A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog." -- Jack London (1876 - 1916), via Dog News

Pets | "It's funny how dogs and cats know the inside of folks better than other folks do, isn't it?" -- Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna, 1912, via Dog News

"Basically I'm a dog person. I certainly, though, wouldn't want to offend my constituents who are cat people, and I should say that being, I hope, a sensitive person, that I have nothing against cats, and had cats when I was a boy, and if we didn't have the two dogs might very well be interested in having a cat now." -- Incoming Missouri Congressman James Talent, responding to the question "Are you a dog or a cat person?", via Dog News

"A woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." -- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), via Dog News

"The purpose of a liberal arts education is to learn that a person can like both cats and dogs!" -- Sonjay Anand, via Dog News

"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves." -- August Strindberg (1849 - 1912), via Dog News

Achievement | "You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can." -- Jimmy Carter

"Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in." -- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

"Man is a dog's idea of what God should be." -- Holbrook Jackson, via Dog News

"Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs." -- Christopher Hampton, via Dog News

"When two dogs fight for a bone, and the third runs off
with it, there's a lawyer among the dogs." -- German proverb, via Dog News

"Two dogs meet for the first time and one dog says to the other, 'Hello, my name is "Bad dog, Bad Baaad Dog." What's your name?'" -- Author Unknown, via Dog News

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

"Everyone is a house with four rooms: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person." -- Rumer Godden, Writer

"I think it's more important to be fit so that you can be healthy and enjoy activities than it is to have a good body." -- Rachel Blanchard

"If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves." -- Lane Kirkland

"In Washington, it's dog eat dog. In academia, it's exactly the opposite." -- Robert Reich, the Secretary of Labor, via Dog News

"Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog." -- Author Unknown, via Dog News

"To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs." -- Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963), via Dog News

"Most success comes from ignoring the obvious." -- Trevor Holdsworth

"To succeed you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality." -- Anita Roddick

"I've always reckoned a camel is a horse designed by a committee." -- Freddie Laker

The Universal Language

Music | "Music is a universal language of emotion, mood, and message." --Daniel Johnson, Jr.

"Few men who have liberated themselves from the fear of God and the fear of death are yet able to liberate themselves from the fear of man." -- Lin Yutang

"Of all the myriad created things, man is but one. And of all those who inhabit the land...an individual man is but one. Is not he, as compared with all creation, but as the tip of a hair upon a horse's skin?" -- Zhuangzi

"Inspiration... comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness." -- Brenda Ueland

"All who joy would win
Must share it, -- Happiness was born a twin."
-- Lord Byron

"Never did sn more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!"
-- William Wordsworth

"Ah, Hope! what would life be, stripped of thy encouraging smiles, that teach us to look behind the dark clouds of today, for the golden beams that are to gild the morrow." -- Susanna Moodie

"Meet the sunrise with confidence." -- Alonzo Newton Benn

"The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one." -- Joan Baez

"When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece." -- John Ruskin

"The first wealth is health." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you." -- Winnie The Pooh

"It is not your paintings I like, it is you're painting." -- Albert Camus

"Any life is made up of a single moment — the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is." -- Jorge Luis Borges

"A simple man believes anything,
but a prudent man gives thought to his steps."
-- Proverbs 14:15 (NIV)

"All's well that ends with a good meal." -- Arnold Lobel

"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine." -- Obi-Wan Kenobi

"Some people are like balloons -- easy to blow up and full of hot air." -- from the markerboard in the therapist's office

"A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion." -- Robert Chapman

"After the greatest clouds, the sun." -- Alan of Lille

"Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul." -- Marcus Aurelius

"The genuine knowledge originates in direct experience." -- Mao Zedong

"Only one who has loved knows the power of love." -- Hu Shi

"Nothing causes self-delusion quite so readily as power." -- Liu Binyan

"Let the ancient serve the present, let the foreign serve the national; by developing that which has been accomplished, one creates something that is new." -- Mao Zedong

"Being misunderstood by someone is vexation. Being misunderstood by everyone is tragedy." -- Liu Shahe