β
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
β
β
Martin Luther King Jr. (A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches)
β
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.
β
β
Bil Keane
β
Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.
β
β
Shel Silverstein
β
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.
β
β
John Lennon
β
When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
β
β
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
β
Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.
β
β
Langston Hughes
β
I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.
β
β
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
β
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.
β
β
Emily Dickinson
β
If you're reading this...
Congratulations, you're alive.
If that's not something to smile about,
then I don't know what is.
β
β
Chad Sugg (Monsters Under Your Head)
β
The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1))
β
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.
β
β
Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts On Common Things)
β
But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.
β
β
Martin Luther King Jr.
β
The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.
β
β
Kalu Ndukwe Kalu
β
Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering 'it will be happier'...
β
β
Alfred Tennyson
β
Never lose hope. Storms make people stronger and never last forever.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.
β
β
Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)
β
I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.
β
β
Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)
β
There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.
" Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope.
β
β
Alexandre Dumas
β
The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
β
β
George Washington Burnap (The Sphere and Duties of Woman: A Course of Lectures)
β
Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.
β
β
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
β
Shoot for the moon, even if you fail, you'll land among the stars
β
β
Cecelia Ahern (P.S. I Love You (P.S. I Love You, #1))
β
For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3))
β
I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.
β
β
Theodore Roosevelt
β
Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.
β
β
Nelson Mandela
β
To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
β
β
G.K. Chesterton
β
Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We canβt escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other
β
β
Veronica Roth
β
Dare to Be
When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.
When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.
When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.
When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway.
When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back.
When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some.
When youβre feeling tired, dare to keep going.
When times are tough, dare to be tougher.
When love hurts you, dare to love again.
When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal.
When another is lost, dare to help them find the way.
When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.
When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.
When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.
When the day has ended, dare to feel as youβve done your best.
Dare to be the best you can β
At all times, Dare to be!
β
β
Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
It's the children the world almost breaks who grow up to save it.
β
β
Frank Warren
β
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.
β
β
Seneca
β
You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.
β
β
William Wilberforce
β
The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's.
β
β
Mark Twain
β
Get going. Move forward. Aim High. Plan a takeoff. Don't just sit on the runway and hope someone will come along and push the airplane. It simply won't happen. Change your attitude and gain some altitude. Believe me, you'll love it up here.
β
β
Donald J. Trump
β
I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
β
β
T.S. Eliot
β
But hoping," he said, "is how the impossible can be possible after all.
β
β
Marissa Meyer (Heartless)
β
Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.
β
β
Cormac McCarthy (The Road)
β
A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it's the most painful thing you'll ever have to do and that you've ever done. But what's yours is yours. Whether itβs up in the sky or here in your hands. And one day, it'll fall from the sky and hit you in the head real hard and that time, you won't have to put it back in the sky again.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
Donβt worry if people think youβre crazy. You are crazy. You have that kind of intoxicating insanity that lets other people dream outside of the lines and become who theyβre destined to be.
β
β
Jennifer Elisabeth (Born Ready: Unleash Your Inner Dream Girl)
β
I just hope I remember to tell my kids that they are as happy as I look in my old photographs. And I hope that they believe me.
β
β
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
β
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
β
β
Henry David Thoreau (I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau)
β
Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.
β
β
William S. Burroughs
β
Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.
β
β
Thich Nhat Hanh (Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life)
β
Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature.
β
β
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β
She was a beautiful dreamer. The kind of girl, who kept her head in the clouds, loved above the stars and left regret beneath the earth she walked on.
β
β
Robert M. Drake
β
A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you."
The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?"
The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.
β
β
Wendy Mass (Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life)
β
Step follows step,
Hope follows Courage,
Set your face towards danger,
Set your heart on victory.
β
β
Gail Carson Levine (The Two Princesses of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre, #1))
β
Γnen i-estel edain, ΓΊ-chebin estel anim.
(I gave Hope to the DΓΊnedain, I have kept none for myself.)
(Gilraen's linnod)
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3))
β
Ask yourself these three questions, Tatiana Metanova, and you will know who you are. Ask: What do believe in? What do you hope for? What do you love?
β
β
Paullina Simons (The Bronze Horseman (The Bronze Horseman, #1))
β
Anything under God's control is never out of control.
β
β
Charles R. Swindoll
β
I want to be the best version of myself for anyone who is going to someday walk into my life and need someone to love them beyond reason.
β
β
Jennifer Elisabeth (Born Ready: Unleash Your Inner Dream Girl)
β
Happiness is always there. You just have to choose to see it. There's no point dwelling in the dark and ignoring the light of the stars.
β
β
Carrie Hope Fletcher
β
No. Don't give up hope just yet. It's the last thing to go. When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.
β
β
Pittacus Lore (I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies, #1))
β
Although I'm only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite indepedent of anyone.
β
β
Anne Frank (The Diary of Anne Frank)
β
To be rejected by someone doesn't mean you should also reject yourself or that you should think of yourself as a lesser person. It doesn't mean that nobody will ever love you anymore. Remember that only ONE person has rejected you at the moment, and it only hurt so much because to you, that person's opinion symbolized the opinion of the whole world, of God.
β
β
Jocelyn Soriano (Mend My Broken Heart)
β
If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?
β
β
Yann Martel (Life of Pi)
β
Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
β
β
J.K. Rowling
β
Sometimes good things fall apart, so better things can fall together.
β
β
Marylin Monroe
β
Friends.
They arenβt any such thing as good friend or bad friend.
Maybe there are just friend.
People who stand by you when you're hurt and who helped you feel not so lonely.
Maybe there are worth being scared for and hoping for and living for.
Maybe worth dying for too.
If that what has to be.
No bad friends.
Only people you want.
Need to be with.
People who build their houses in your heart.
β
β
Stephen King
β
I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am
β
β
John Newton
β
May Light always surround you;
Hope kindle and rebound you.
May your Hurts turn to Healing;
Your Heart embrace Feeling.
May Wounds become Wisdom;
Every Kindness a Prism.
May Laughter infect you;
Your Passion resurrect you.
May Goodness inspire
your Deepest Desires.
Through all that you Reach For,
May your arms Never Tire.
β
β
D. Simone
β
Words can never fully say what we want them to say, for they fumble, stammer, and break the best porcelain. The best one can hope for is to find along the way someone to share the path, content to walk in silence, for the heart communes best when it does not try to speak.
β
β
Margaret Weis (Dragons of a Lost Star (Dragonlance: The War of Souls, #2))
β
Nikolai had been told that hope was dangerous, had been warned of it many times. But heβd never believed that. Hope was the wind that came from nowhere to fill your sails and carry you home.
β
β
Leigh Bardugo (King of Scars (King of Scars, #1))
β
Death is the easy part, the hard part is living and knowing you could be so much more then youβre willing to be.
β
β
Robert M. Drake
β
It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere.
β
β
Sigmund Freud (The Future of an Illusion)
β
Come friends, it's not too late to seek a newer world.
β
β
Alfred Tennyson
β
If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
β
β
E.M. Forster (What I Believe and Other Essays)
β
Yes, I understand why things had to happen this way. I understand his reason for causing me pain. But mere understanding does not chase away the hurt. It does not call upon the sun when dark clouds have loomed over me. Let the rain come then if it must come! And let it wash away the dust that hurt my eyes!
β
β
Jocelyn Soriano (Mend My Broken Heart)
β
Donβt let mental blocks control you. Set yourself free. Confront your fear and turn the mental blocks into building blocks.
β
β
Roopleen (Words to inspire the winner in YOU)
β
It's funny how, in this journey of life, even though we may begin at different times and places, our paths cross with others so that we may share our love, compassion, observations, and hope. This is a design of God that I appreciate and cherish.
β
β
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β
That's everyone's dream, isn't it, really? Instead of many who give you little pieces of themselves-one who gives you everything.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Chain of Gold (The Last Hours, #1))
β
I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep.
β
β
Charlotte BrontΓ« (Villette)
β
Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.
β
β
Immanuel Kant
β
Everything that is done in this world is done by hope.
β
β
Martin Luther
β
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
β
β
Thomas Merton (Thoughts in Solitude)
β
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3))
β
No matter how hard life is, don't lose hope
β
β
Zayn Malik
β
You couldn't erase the past. You couldn't even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right.
β
β
Ann Brashares (Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood (Sisterhood, #3))
β
Give me the Love that leads the way
The Faith that nothing can dismay
The Hope no disappointments tire
The Passion that'll burn like fire
Let me not sink to be a clod
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God
β
β
Amy Carmichael
β
I was born into BolΓvar's labyrinth, and so I must believe in the hope of Rabelais' Great Perhaps.
β
β
John Green
β
We do not get to choose when in our lives we feel pain," said Matthew. "It comes when it comes, and we try to remember, even though we cannot imagine a day when it will release its hold on us, that all pain fades. All misery passes. Humanity is drawn to light, not darkness.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Chain of Gold (The Last Hours, #1))
β
There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.
β
β
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
β
Sometimes to self-discover you must self-destruct.
β
β
Robert M. Drake
β
By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream
β
β
Virginia Woolf
β
Itβs not over if youβre still here,β Chronicler said. βItβs not a tragedy if youβre still alive.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Manβs Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you're giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.
β
β
Terence McKenna
β
Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment.
β
β
Og Mandino
β
Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself.
Believe in yourself, your abilities and your own potential. Never let self-doubt hold you captive. You are worthy of all that you dream of and hope for.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
I've had it with being nice, understanding, fair and hopeful. I feel like being negative all day. The chip on my shoulder could sink the QE2. I've got an attitude problem and nobody better get in my way...I'm in a bad mood and the whole stupid little world is gonna pay!
β
β
John Waters (Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters)
β
Love.
Not the kind you see in the movies or hear about on the radio.
The real kind.
The kind that gets beaten down and bloody, yet perseveres.
The kind that hopes even when hope seems foolish.
The kind that can forgive. The kind that believes in healing.
The kind that can sit in silence and feel renewed.
The real kind of love.
It's rare and we have it...
β
β
Chelsea Fine (Sophie & Carter)
β
Difficulties and adversities viciously force all their might on us and cause us to fall apart, but they are necessary elements of individual growth and reveal our true potential. We have got to endure and overcome them, and move forward. Never lose hope. Storms make people stronger and never last forever.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels--hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency. I'm inspired by the love people have for their children. And I'm inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.
β
β
Barack Obama
β
True beauty, the kind that doesn't fade or wash off, takes time. It takes incredible endurance. It is the slow drip that creates the stalactite, the shaking of the Earth that creates mountains, the constant pounding of the waves that breaks up the rocks and smooths the rough edges. And from the violence, the furor, the raging of the winds, the roaring of the waters, something better emerges, something that would have otherwise never existed.
And so we endure. We have faith that there is purpose. We hope for things we can't see. We believe there are lessons in loss, power in love, and that we have within us the potential for a beauty so magnificent, our bodies can't contain it.
β
β
Amy Harmon (Making Faces)
β
Therefore I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject however trivial or however vast. By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.
β
β
Virginia Woolf (A Room of Oneβs Own)
β
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
β
β
Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space)
β
For everything in this journey of life we are on, there is a right wing and a left wing: for the wing of love there is anger; for the wing of destiny there is fear; for the wing of pain there is healing; for the wing of hurt there is forgiveness; for the wing of pride there is humility; for the wing of giving there is taking; for the wing of tears there is joy; for the wing of rejection there is acceptance; for the wing of judgment there is grace; for the wing of honor there is shame; for the wing of letting go there is the wing of keeping. We can only fly with two wings and two wings can only stay in the air if there is a balance. Two beautiful wings is perfection. There is a generation of people who idealize perfection as the existence of only one of these wings every time. But I see that a bird with one wing is imperfect. An angel with one wing is imperfect. A butterfly with one wing is dead. So this generation of people strive to always cut off the other wing in the hopes of embodying their ideal of perfection, and in doing so, have created a crippled race.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
Do not love half lovers
Do not entertain half friends
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life
and do not die a half death
If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished
Do not silence yourself to say something
And do not speak to be silent
If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it
for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance
Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes
Half a drink will not quench your thirst
Half a meal will not satiate your hunger
Half the way will get you no where
Half an idea will bear you no results
Your other half is not the one you love
It is you in another time yet in the same space
It is you when you are not
Half a life is a life you didn't live,
A word you have not said
A smile you postponed
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know
To reach and not arrive
Work and not work
Attend only to be absent
What makes you a stranger to them closest to you
and they strangers to you
The half is a mere moment of inability
but you are able for you are not half a being
You are a whole that exists to live a life
not half a life
β
β
Kahlil Gibran
β
Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, βWhat do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.β Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.
β
β
Vincent van Gogh
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Not one day in anyoneβs life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy, or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Downβs-syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example. Each smallest act of kindnessβeven just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smileβreverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time itβs passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will. All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwinedβthose dead, those living, those generations yet to comeβthat the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands. Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strengthβto the very survival of the human tapestry. Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in this momentous day.
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Dean Koontz (From the Corner of His Eye)
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Our opportunities to give of ourselves are indeed limitless, but they are also perishable. There are hearts to gladden. There are kind words to say. There are gifts to be given. There are deeds to be done. There are souls to be saved.
As we remember that βwhen ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God,β (Mosiah 2:17) we will not find ourselves in the unenviable position of Jacob Marleyβs ghost, who spoke to Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickensβs immortal "Christmas Carol." Marley spoke sadly of opportunities lost. Said he: 'Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one lifeβs opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!'
Marley added: 'Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!'
Fortunately, as we know, Ebenezer Scrooge changed his life for the better. I love his line, 'I am not the man I was.'
Why is Dickensβ "Christmas Carol" so popular? Why is it ever new? I personally feel it is inspired of God. It brings out the best within human nature. It gives hope. It motivates change. We can turn from the paths which would lead us down and, with a song in our hearts, follow a star and walk toward the light. We can quicken our step, bolster our courage, and bask in the sunlight of truth. We can hear more clearly the laughter of little children. We can dry the tear of the weeping. We can comfort the dying by sharing the promise of eternal life. If we lift one weary hand which hangs down, if we bring peace to one struggling soul, if we give as did the Master, we canβby showing the wayβbecome a guiding star for some lost mariner.
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Thomas S. Monson