Holiday Inspirational Quotes

In your hands winter is a book with cloud pages that snow pearls of love.

All worries are less with wine.

Routine, done for long enough and done sincerely enough, becomes more than routine. It becomes ritual—it becomes sanctified and holy.

The nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale...

Snowflakes swirl down gently in the deep blue haze beyond the window. The outside world is a dream. Inside, the fireplace is brightly lit, and the Yule log crackles with orange and crimson sparks. There’s a steaming mug in your hands, warming your fingers. There’s a friend seated across from you in the cozy chair, warming your heart. There is mystery unfolding.

Stillness is what aims the archer’s arrow. It inspires new ideas. It sharpens perspective and illuminates connections.

Hunger gives flavour to the food.

Colored lights blink on and off, racing across the green boughs. Their reflections dance across exquisite glass globes and splinter into shards against tinsel thread and garlands of metallic filaments that disappear underneath the other ornaments and finery. Shadows follow, joyful, laughing sprites. The tree is rich with potential wonder. All it needs is a glance from you to come alive.

Its not what the universe gives us that matters, but what we give the universe

Do you enjoy holidays with your family? I don't mean your mom and dad family, but your uncle and aunt and cousin family? Personally, I do. There are several reasons for this. First, I am very interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other. Second, the fights are always the same.

Some people when they see cheese, chocolate or cake they don't think of calories.

MOTHER TIME: We all get the exact same 365 days. The only difference is what we do with them.

Once upon a time, the Reindeer took a running leap and jumped over the Northern Lights. But he jumped too low, and the long fur of his beautiful flowing tail got singed by the rainbow fires of the aurora. To this day the reindeer has no tail to speak of. But he is too busy pulling the Important Sleigh to notice what is lost. And he certainly doesn’t complain. What's your excuse?

Do you know a better time than the present for igniting your dreams?

I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays - let them overtake me unexpectedly - waking up some find morning and suddenly saying to myself: 'Why, this is Christmas Day!

If you can't find the spirit of the holidays in your heart, you'll never find it under a tree.

Why do you think that great leaders and thinkers throughout history have “gone out into the wilderness” and come back with inspiration, with a plan, with an experience that puts them on a course that changes the world? It’s because in doing so they found perspective, they understood the larger picture in a way that wasn’t possible in the bustle of everyday life. Silencing the noise around them, they could finally hear the quiet voice they needed to listen to. Creativity

The Gingerbread House has four walls, a roof, a door, a window, and a chimney. It is decorated with many sweet culinary delights on the outside. But on the inside there is nothing—only the bare gingerbread walls. It is not a real house—not until you decide to add a Gingerbread Room. That’s when the stories can move in. They will stay in residence for as long as you abstain from taking the first gingerbread bite.

It doesn't really matter how you look in [family holiday] pictures, it just matters that you're there.

Work while you can and rest when you must.

The holiday season is about love! Share it. Spread it. Live it.

We must practice temperance now, in times of plenty, because none of us know what the future holds- only that plenty never lasts.

Every voyage is self-awaken.

Every travel is a blessed adventure.

One of the best holidays ever initiated especially in USA is THANKSGIVING. Giving thanks is the sacrifice that honors the LORD and HE blesses those who does.

That spring was the start of everything, for me. Before then, I might have been half-asleep, drifting through life.

We must master ourselves unless we'd prefer to be mastered by someone or something else.

Thus the sons of earth now drink in The fire of heaven without danger. And it is our duty, poets, to stand Bare-headed under the storms of God, Grasping with our own hand The Father's beam itself, And to offer the gift of heaven, Wrapped in song, to the people. From “As On a Holiday” (“Wie Wenn am Feiertage”)

What are we calling that, exactly?” I ask. Arthur ponders this for a moment. “Hmm. How about … Haphazard Medley Inspired By Radio on the Drive Over, Messrs. McCartney, Lennon, Harrison, and Starr, The Most Hideous Preteen Holiday Monstrosity Ever Inflicted Upon The Ears Of Longsuffering Parents, The Smiths Because I Know You Like Them, And A Great Deal Of Nonsense Made Up Spur Of The Moment, All For The Beautiful Boy Who Is Sitting Next To Me, Because Somehow, Amidst The Recent Chaos, Dissatisfaction, And Mediocrity Of My Existence, Lord Knows How, I Seem To Have Done Something Very Right.” Oh, this guy. “You’re never going to fit that on any album sleeves,” I say, leaning in to rest my forehead against his. “Just the beautiful boy part, then,” he compromises, starting to smile.

Start small...on something big.

Wherever you are, you have to be joyfully alive.

History is written with blood, sweat, and tears, and it is etched into eternity by the quiet endurance of courageous people.

Christmas is filled with joy and laughter, but love is the foundation that inspires it all.

Great literature was never intended to be either facsimile or echo of real life; it was meant to shut out real life for a while, to free the harried mind from mundane considerations, so that the mind could holiday amid glorious language and vivid word-pictures and inspiring or alluring ideas.

Paradise” is a suffering word, grossly overused and ineptly devalued in everyday hype and blurb. Yet, tired as it is, it will have to do. Nothing else conveys that sense of place that can inspire a blissful contentment.

Every travel is blessed adventure.

Let others slap each others on the back while you're back in the lab or the gym or pounding the pavement.

May the splendor of the holiday season and the beauty of the lights enlighten your life and warm your heart.

Whatever the Grinch can steal, it's not Christmas.

...somehow when it's real, when it's your life...that person can feel farther off and more unobtainable than an actual celebrity. Proximity doesn't breed familiarity.

Jesus came to be the light for the world, and then there's the Christmas star and the idea of letting your light shine...But not blinding your neighbor with it.

Find joy and gratitude in today, make every day in life a holiday.

I want to send out my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has purchased Break in Two, and especially to those of you who took the time to review it. Your thoughtfulness and kind words have made the past two weeks most incredible. This whole writing thing was an experiment to see if I could do it. You have inspired me to continue on! I had no idea this would be such an incredibly gratify experience. Thank you to each and everyone one of you. All the best to you and yours this holiday season! MJ

I am billionaire bold bright omnipotent lively determined to go within to win opening my omnific eyes to realize wisdom innovation naturalizes… My cascading flow of financial love lavishly streams gold bars as I realize gold is intrinsic wealth as my intuitive imagination is my intrinsic innovations…

He gave us taste buds, then filled the world with incredible flavors like chocolate and cinnamon and all the other spices. He gave us eyes to perceive color and then filled the world with a rainbow of shades. He gave us sensitive ears and then filled the world with rhythms and music. Your capacity for enjoyment is evidence of God's love for you. He could have made the world tasteless, colorless, and silent. The Bible says that God "richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." He didn't have to do it, but he did, because He loves us.

MOTHER TIME: Every New Year is the same. Every day, every second is too for that matter. But when we deliver them in secret, when another year just begins as a matter of fact, it's easy to fail to appreciate what a miracle it is to have more time. So, I suppose, it feels different right now because this time you're paying attention

This holiday season give yourself the gift of self love and self acceptance. Your season will bloom into ultimate bliss.

I think that the great trick in life, wherever you are in the journey, is to do what you love and let the universe support it. When we do what we love, every day is a holiday.

All journeys eventually end in the same place, home. - Chris Geiger

You recreate yourself, when you relax.

Make time to relax, refresh and refocus.

He'd followed in the footsteps of a man who knew the way.

man was given two ears and one mouth for a reason

Relaxation is good, holidays are necessary, but there is nothing as rewarding and healthy as doing what you love and loving what you do. Our honest toil should inspire and satisfy us.

There are too many famous Steve Jobs anecdotes to count, but several of them revolve around one theme: his unwillingness to leave well enough alone. His products had to be perfect; they had to do what they promised, and then some. And even though deadlines loomed and people would have to work around the clock, he would regularly demand more from his teams than they thought they could provide. The result? The most successful company in the history of the world and products that inspire devotion that is truly unusual for a personal computer or cell phone.

The world was at her feet, and she didn’t even know it. None of them did—the normal ones; the ones who didn’t have to worry about the day to day, hour to hour, and minute to minute; the masses of people who woke up each and every day not fearing the hours ahead and the day that would follow; or those who didn’t have to wonder if they’d be around to celebrate the next holiday. How easily people took life for granted when it had so easily been given. How I wished for such simplicity.

Now the city is at its loveliest. The crowds of summer and autumn have gone, the air has a new freshness, the light has that pale-gold quality unique to this time of year. There have been several weeks of this weather now, without a drop of rain.

Stillness is what aims the archer’s arrow. It inspires new ideas. It sharpens perspective and illuminates connections. It slows the ball down so that we might hit it. It generates a vision, helps us resist the passions of the mob, makes space for gratitude and wonder.

We can never succeed in knowing our own self without holidays and anniversaries.

It is still possible, after all, to forge a covenant that binds us not to God in obedience but to one another in mercy. We need only choose, this year, to keep the flame lit...

I love you, Tanzy Meadows.” His whispered words circled her ear, her heart, her innermost being. Tender kisses tantalized her neck. “Tell me you love me too.

No matter the packaging or the size... everything we are lucky to have is a gift and gifts are blessings even if in disguise.

Find the sweetness in this holiday season. Embrace the endless love that surrounds you.

Wishing you a holiday season filled with joy and light. May your life be showered in bliss and enfolded in unconditional love.

This season trim your inner tree with self kindness. You deserve it. Because you are perfect, just as you are.

Put yourself in tough situations. Accept challenges. Familiarize yourself with the unfamiliar. That's how you widen your perspective and your understanding.

Every voyage is a new glorious experience.

A holiday is for kindness, compassion, love, and holiness; it is not for laziness or craziness.

Relax and renew your spirit!

Go forward and explore many great lands.

I find it inspiring to actively choose which traditions to celebrate and also come up with new ideas for traditions of my own.

Winters in Michigan are a lot like John Holmes’s penis: awe-inspiring but way too long, leaving you to wonder—after the

Working minds do not rest on Workers' Day.

Nothing better than surviving holiday inspired blood sport to refocus the mind.

What stood in the way became the way. What impeded action in some way advanced it. It’s inspiring. It’s moving. It’s an art we need to bring to our own lives.

Control your perceptions. Direct your actions properly. Willingly accept what's outside of your control. That's all we need to do.

Their very special, very very favorite ornament continued to inspire them that Christmas and for all the Christmases that followed.

He does not require that we live a perfect life. He only requires that we try to live as He wills. The only way to fail Him is by giving up.

But can you be fully content with your life, can you bravely face what life has in store from one day to the next, can you bounce back from every kind of adversity without losing a step, can you be a source of strength and inspiration to others around you? That’s Stoic joy—the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty. It’s a serious thing—far more serious than a smile or a chipper voice.

By seeing each day and each situation as a kind of training exercise, the stakes suddenly become a lot lower. The way you interpret your own mistakes and the mistakes of others is suddenly a lot more generous.

Flora was in that state where the spirit may be willing but the flesh is weak and wishes to go on holiday - and where the flesh in most cases wins hands down with a packed suitcase. It did so now. So she did what many a researcher both great and insignificant does when they are stuck. She yawned while contemplating how to catch the Muse by surprising Her. Almost invariably, the Muse has seen it all before - and also yawns.

As the warrant says, I’ll be taking all patient files and billing records.” She crossed her arms. “I’ll help you with the files, but billing records aren’t kept here. Doc had a local gal do all the billing electronically,

That's what being Jewish is: summoning the means to question who you are and how you have behaved. Have you remained alight in the darkness of cruel wishes,..? Have you forgiven? Have you lived up to the standards of your one and only heart?

But too often, we proceed like this . . . A flash of inspiration: I want to do the best and biggest ______ ever. Be the youngest ______. The only one to ______. The “firstest with the mostest.” The advice: Okay, well, here’s what you’ll need to do step-by-step to accomplish it. The reality: We hear what we want to hear. We do what we feel like doing, and despite being incredibly busy and working very hard, we accomplish very little. Or worse, find ourselves in a mess we never anticipated.

Your life right now is pretty darn good! Some people wait all day for 5pm, all week for Friday, all year for the holidays, all their lives for happiness. Don’t be one of them. Don’t wait until your life is almost over to realize how good it has been. The good life begins right now, when you stop waiting for a better one.

9. Your Photo Album Many people have a photo album. In it they keep memories of the happiest of times. There may be a photo of them playing by the beach when they were very young. There may be the picture with their proud parents at their graduation ceremony. There will be many shots of their wedding that captures their love at one of its highest points. And there will be holiday snapshots too. But you will never find in your album any photographs of miserable moments of your life. Absent is the photo of you outside the principal’s office at school. Missing is any photo of you studying hard late into the night for your exams. No one that I know has a picture of their divorce in their album, nor one of them in a hospital bed terribly sick, nor stuck in busy traffic on the way to work on a Monday morning! Such depressing shots never find their way into anyone’s photo album. Yet there is another photo album that we keep in our heads called our memory. In that album, we include so many negative photographs. There you find so many snapshots of insulting arguments, many pictures of the times when you were so badly let down, and several montages of the occasions where you were treated cruelly. There are surprisingly few photos in that album of happy moments. This is crazy! So let’s do a purge of the photo album in our head. Delete the uninspiring memories. Trash them. They do not belong in this album. In their place, put the same sort of memories that you have in a real photo album. Paste in the happiness of when you made up with your partner, when there was that unexpected moment of real kindness, or whenever the clouds parted and the sun shone with extraordinary beauty. Keep those photos in your memory. Then when you have a few spare moments, you will find yourself turning its pages with a smile, or even with laughter.

This is not to say that you’re not unique and that you don’t have something amazing to contribute in your short time on this planet. This is not to say that there is not room to push past creative boundaries, to invent, to feel inspired, or to aim for truly ambitious change and innovation. On the contrary, in order to properly do these things and take these risks we need balance.

Happy New Year? Oh, dear friends, this statement is like a dagger that gets pushed one inch deeper into my chest each time I hear it…Oh, my friends, let’s not celebrate the traditional holidays that no longer mean anything to many of us. Let’s find a new celebration day to celebrate every human life. Let’s do away with all celebrations imposed on us by the oppressive political and religious establishments around the world. Let’s stop killing each other. Let’s stop waging wars against each other. Let’s stop imposing economic sanctions on each other. Let’s stop closing borders in the face of each other. Let’s do away with all the fake, expensive, shiny, and nicely wrapped gifts of indifference. Let’s work a bit harder on the most precious human gift possible—the gift of listening carefully to each other.

What stood in the way became the way. What impeded action in some way advanced it. It’s inspiring. It’s moving. It’s an art we need to bring to our own lives. Not everyone looks at obstacles—often the same ones you and I face—and sees reason to despair. In fact, they see the opposite. They see a problem with a ready solution. They see a chance to test and improve themselves. Nothing stands in their way. Rather, everything guides them on the way.

Why do you think that great leaders and thinkers throughout history have “gone out into the wilderness” and come back with inspiration, with a plan, with an experience that puts them on a course that changes the world? It’s because in doing so they found perspective, they understood the larger picture in a way that wasn’t possible in the bustle of everyday life. Silencing the noise around them, they could finally hear the quiet voice they needed to listen to.

Oh . . . I'd been getting pretty sick of the office. It made me feel dead inside. Finally, the week-ends weren't long enough to get it out of my system. I couldn't read poetry or listen to music. It was like being constipated. Well, I got a holiday and went to Kent for a week's hiking. And for the first two days I felt nothing at all, just a sort of deadness inside. And one day I went into a pub in a place called Marden and had a couple of pints. And as I came out, a sort of bubble seemed to burst inside me, and I started feeling things again. And I suddenly felt an overwhelming hatred for cities and offices and people and everything that calls itself civilisation . . . . "Then I got an idea. I sat down at the side of the road and thought about it. I'd read somewhere that the Manichees thought the world was created by evil. Well, it suddenly seemed to me that the forces behind the world weren't either good or evil, but something quite incomprehensible to human beings. And the only thing they want is movement, everlasting movement. That's the way I saw it suddenly. Human beings want peace, and they build their civilisations and make their laws to get peace. But the forces behind the world don't want peace. So they send down ertain men whose business is to keep the world in a turmoil - the Napoleons, Hitlers, Genghis Khans. And I called these men the Enemies, with a capital E. And I thought I belong among the Enemies - that's why I detest this bloody civilisation. And I suddenly began to feel better . . . .

Too often, artists who think it was “inspiration” or “pain” that fueled their art and create an image around that—instead of hard work and sincere hustle—will eventually find themselves at the bottom of a bottle or on the wrong end of a needle. The same goes for us, whatever we do. Instead of pretending that we are living some great story, we must remain focused on the execution—and on executing with excellence. We must shun the false crown and continue working on what got us here. Because that’s the only thing that will keep us here.

But too often, we proceed like this… A flash of inspiration: I want to do the best and biggest ______ ever. Be the youngest ______. The only one to ______. The “firstest with the mostest.” The advice: Okay, well, here’s what you’ll need to do step-by-step to accomplish it. The reality: We hear what we want to hear. We do what we feel like doing, and despite being incredibly busy and working very hard, we accomplish very little. Or worse, find ourselves in a mess we never anticipated. Because we only seem to hear about the passion of successful people, we forget that failures shared the same trait. We don’t conceive of the consequences until we look at their trajectory.

Then I took another sack and started going through all of the papers on my desk, and in the drawers of the desk. I was fairly ruthless and threw out things I'd been keeping for no good reason, stuff that if I died my unfortunate executor would have no hesitation in throwing out either, because what was he going to do with it... what was he going to do with old love letters, pay slips, gas and electric bills, yellowed typescripts of abandoned articles, instruction manuals for consumer durables I no longer possessed, holiday brochures the holidays of which I hadn't gone on... Jesus, it occurred to me -- as I stuffed all of this garbage into a bag -- the shit we leave behind us for other people to sort out.

Though ever-present as your helper and creator, God has made a sanctuary of free will where only you are in control. It’s your consciousness . However you choose to wake up that truth-seeking awareness within, God will support you. Hasn’t it happened so far? What if you seek God by means of beliefs? God will illuminate the truth within those beliefs. What if you ask God to live within your heart? No problem. It has always been so. What if you resolve to honor your body as God’s temple? You can do it through athletics, yoga or dance; through health food or pleasure food, celibacy or sex. Whatever your choice, sooner or later, the result will be a stronger version of God’s presence coursing through your blood. What if you pursue God through religion? Depending on the beliefs within your beliefs, God will participate just as you’ve requested.

They think it's what we need to hear, but it's the opposite. Inviting glamorous people to school, asking them to parade their glamorous lives onstage, getting them to inspire us with their message that anything is possible if only we believe. Dream. Reach for the stars. Well, no thanks. That's not for me. I'm not going to get there, and neither are most people that I know, and that's fine by me. It is. It really is. When did it stop being fine for everyone else? The normal stuff. Sunday dinners and, I don't know , taking a walk in the park and listening to music and working in an ordinary job for an ordinary wage that will allow you to maybe go on holiday once a year, and really look forward to it too because you're are not a greedy bastard wanting more, more, more all the time. That's who should be doing a talk at school. Seriously. Show me someone happy with a life like that, because it's enough. It should be enough. All that other stuff is meaningless.

In a few weeks almost everyone’s gonna forget about the Beirut bombing, like we forgot about the ever-incoming nuke, like we forgot about the President campaigning on student loan forgiveness, like we forgot about the actor who said not enough Jews died in the Holocaust and that he hoped his wife got gang raped, like how each new President makes the other Presidents look kinder and gentler, like we forget about war crimes, like we forget about the secret police, like we forget about the homeless when we can’t see them, like we forget what it’s like to be poor to be hungry the minute we have food we have money, like we forgot about Three Mile Island, like we forgot that fall and spring used to be as long as winter and summer like we forgot we could do something about this, like we forget about anything we don’t turn into a holiday and remember only the signs and symbols of the horror, like we forget each time we remember that it’s not that we forget, it’s that there are just too many tragedies, every week, forever and ever, and to remember them all would kill you. Your heart would break and stop beating and you'd die. So we forget.

A reply dated 13 May finally arrived from the town clerk. Mr Mottershead could open the zoo subject to: 1) the type of animals being limited to those already described in previous correspondence; 2) the estate should not be used as an amusement park, racing track or public dance hall; and 3) no animals were to be kept within a distance of a hundred feet from the existing road. This necessitated the purchase of an additional strip of land between the road and the estate, which would have to be securely enclosed, but which couldn't be used for animals. (First it was used as a children's playground and later became a self-service cafe.) Somehow my dad managed to get a further mortgage of £350 to pay for the land and fencing. Of all the conditions, the most damaging in the long term was the last: the zoo was allowed 'no advertisement, sign or noticeboard which can be seen from the road above-mentioned'. Only a small sign at the entrance to the estate would be permitted, which meant the lodge, which was a good twenty-five yards from the road was completely invisible to any passing car. This would remain a problem for a very long time. For many years, the night before bank holidays, Dad and his friends would have to go out and hang temporary posters under the official road signs on the Chester bypass. The police turned a blind eye as long as they were taken down shortly afterwards.

August 8th START WITH WHERE THE WORLD IS “Do now what nature demands of you. Get right to it if that’s in your power. Don’t look around to see if people will know about it. Don’t await the perfection of Plato’s Republic, but be satisfied with even the smallest step forward and regard the outcome as a small thing.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 9.29.(4) Have you ever heard the expression “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough”? The idea is not to settle or compromise your standards, but rather not to become trapped by idealism. The community organizer Saul Alinsky opens his book Rules for Radicals with a pragmatic but inspiring articulation of that idea: “As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be—it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.” There is plenty that you could do right now, today, that would make the world a better place. There are plenty of small steps that, were you to take them, would help move things forward. Don’t excuse yourself from doing them because the conditions aren’t right or because a better opportunity might come along soon. Do what you can, now. And when you’ve done it, keep it in perspective, don’t overblow the results. Shun both ego and excuse, before and after.

Come with me. Don’t look at me like that. I know it’s ridiculous and that’s why. We’re dead here. If you still want us, we’ll have to go find it, but it isn’t here. I know two certainties. I love you and good things take work. Life is that thing we create when we already have what we need. I don’t need another yesterday. What’s the point? It’s no coincidence the things that I worked for were the only things that ever made me happy. In trying, I feel like a human again. In that space before the reward. Finally, I am. The men I met before you are as good as dust. I don’t even remember their names. All it took was looking at each other for us to meet. Nothing needed to be earned. It’s why most relationships are secretly unhappy. They were built on a neutral convenience. They don’t know each other. But the sex will be nice and the arms of holding someone in the holidays and hating being lonely will make us stay forever. Perfectly tame. Whatever happened to walking up to a stranger on the street and slaying the dragon of Fear? Marriages built on endeavor. Giving someone your whole day. Identity from hermitting. Life is achievement, honey. Death is saying okay. The best fruit is the one you have to climb for. You have to march through the fire. Make the jump. Drive across the country. Effort in love. Effort in fashion. Food. Work. Give thought to how we chew. How we move. Even speak. To make day and night things our own. It’s our only job. Indecision is criminal. When we try, we exist again. And I have to exist. I have to, I have to. So I’m leaving. And you can come if you want. I’m going either way, but you’d be my favorite. Flight’s at 5