β
You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.
β
β
William W. Purkey
β
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
β
β
Mahatma Gandhi
β
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
β
β
Albert Einstein
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
You can't live your life for other people. You've got to do what's right for you, even if it hurts some people you love.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
β
May you live every day of your life.
β
β
Jonathan Swift
β
Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1))
β
Don't be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
β
β
Martin Luther King Jr. (I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World)
β
Be the reason someone smiles. Be the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness in people.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
The unexamined life is not worth living.
β
β
Socrates
β
Be mindful. Be grateful. Be positive. Be true. Be kind.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think, more talented than you know, and capable of more than you imagine.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Live the Life of Your Dreams: Be brave enough to live the life of your dreams according to your vision and purpose instead of the expectations and opinions of others.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Donβt waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
Itβs only after youβve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;
Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;
Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it;
Who has left the world better than he found it,
Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;
Whose life was an inspiration;
Whose memory a benediction.
β
β
Bessie Anderson Stanley (More Heart Throbs Volume Two in Prose and Verse Dear to the American People And by them contributed as a Supplement to the original $10,000 Prize Book HEART THROBS)
β
And, in the end
The love you take
is equal to the love you make.
β
β
Paul McCartney (The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics)
β
You cannot control the behavior of others, but you can always choose how you respond to it.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
More smiling, less worrying. More compassion, less judgment. More blessed, less stressed. More love, less hate.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
β
β
Agatha Christie
β
The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence; the past is a place of learning, not a place of living.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
[...]the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes βAwww!
β
β
Jack Kerouac (On the Road)
β
Life becomes easier and more beautiful when we can see the good in other people.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Success is not how high you have climbed, but how you make a positive difference to the world.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Pursue what catches your heart, not what catches your eyes.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Keep Going
Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life)
β
Make improvements, not excuses. Seek respect, not attention.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someoneβs life. Be the light that helps others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Start each day with a positive thought and a grateful heart.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Treat everyone with politeness and kindness, not because they are nice, but because you are.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals.
If you arenβt grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Believe in Your Heart
Believe in your heart that you're meant to live a life full of passion, purpose, magic and miracles.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Follow your heart, listen to your inner voice, stop caring about what others think.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
No amount of regretting can change the past, and no amount of worrying can change the future.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Life is about accepting the challenges along the way, choosing to keep moving forward, and savoring the journey.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Acts of Kindness:
A random act of kindness, no matter how small, can make a tremendous impact on someone else's life.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.
β
β
Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (The Teaching of Buddha)
β
Be brave to stand for what you believe in even if you stand alone.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Even if you cannot change all the people around you, you can change the people you choose to be around. Life is too short to waste your time on people who donβt respect, appreciate, and value you. Spend your life with people who make you smile, laugh, and feel loved.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Never lose hope. Storms make people stronger and never last forever.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Great things happen to those who don't stop believing, trying, learning, and being grateful.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Live in the present, remember the past, and fear not the future, for it doesn't exist and never shall. There is only now.
β
β
Christopher Paolini (Eldest (Inheritance, #2))
β
Always find opportunities to make someone smile, and to offer random acts of kindness in everyday life.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
If you want to forget something or someone, never hate it, or never hate him/her. Everything and everyone that you hate is engraved upon your heart; if you want to let go of something, if you want to forget, you cannot hate.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.
β
β
Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)
β
The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.
β
β
Eleanor Roosevelt
β
What's the good of living if you don't try a few things?
β
β
Charles M. Schulz
β
To me, Fearless is not the absense of fear. It's not being completely unafraid. To me, Fearless is having fears. Fearless is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, Fearless is living in spite of those things that scare you to death.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Sometimes you have to lose all you have to find out who you truly are.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
To shine your brightest light is to be who you truly are.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?
β
β
George Eliot
β
Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; itβs all an experience.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
Don't Just
Don't just learn, experience.
Don't just read, absorb.
Don't just change, transform.
Don't just relate, advocate.
Don't just promise, prove.
Don't just criticize, encourage.
Don't just think, ponder.
Don't just take, give.
Don't just see, feel.
Donβt just dream, do.
Don't just hear, listen.
Don't just talk, act.
Don't just tell, show.
Don't just exist, live.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
Do not let the memories of your past limit the potential of your future. There are no limits to what you can achieve on your journey through life, except in your mind.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.
β
β
AnaΓ―s Nin
β
Stop comparing yourself to other people, just choose to be happy and live your own life.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Let the improvement of yourself keep you so busy that you have no time to criticize others.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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
You are not rich until you have a rich heart.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
In the end
these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you live?
How deeply did you let go?
β
β
Jack Kornfield (Buddha's Little Instruction Book)
β
Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.
β
β
Walt Whitman
β
Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Do not set aside your happiness. Do not wait to be happy in the future. The best time to be happy is always now.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
Help others without any reason and give without the expectation of receiving anything in return.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
The unhappiest people in this world, are those who care the most about what other people think.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.
β
β
F. Scott Fitzgerald
β
Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.
β
β
Carlos Ruiz ZafΓ³n (The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1))
β
Itβs your life; you donβt need someoneβs permission to live the life you want. Be brave to live from your heart.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
In life, finding a voice is speaking and living the truth. Each of you is an original. Each of you has a distinctive voice. When you find it, your story will be told. You will be heard.
β
β
John Grisham
β
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
β
β
Ralph Waldo Emerson
β
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
β
β
Ralph Waldo Emerson (The Complete Prose Works Of Ralph Waldo Emerson)
β
The only way that we can live, is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
The more you feed your mind with positive thoughts, the more you can attract great things into your life.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Be Brave and Take Risks: You need to have faith in yourself. Be brave and take risks. You don't have to have it all figured out to move forward.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Happiness depends on your mindset and attitude.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Do Not Lie to Yourself
We have to be honest about what we want and take risks rather than lie to ourselves and make excuses to stay in our comfort zone.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter. Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don't even matter, while all that time we waste and the people who do love us have to stand on the sidewalk and watch us beg in the streets! It's time to put an end to this. It's time for us to let ourselves be loved.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
Surround Yourself with People Who Believe in Your Dreams:
Surround yourself with people who believe in your dreams, encourage your ideas, support your ambitions, and bring out the best in you.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Don't let the expectations and opinions of other people affect your decisions. It's your life, not theirs. Do what matters most to you; do what makes you feel alive and happy. Don't let the expectations and ideas of others limit who you are. If you let others tell you who you are, you are living their reality β not yours. There is more to life than pleasing people. There is much more to life than following others' prescribed path. There is so much more to life than what you experience right now. You need to decide who you are for yourself. Become a whole being. Adventure.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
Well, now
If little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you
Little by little
If suddenly you forget me
Do not look for me
For I shall already have forgotten you
If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life
And you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots
Remember
That on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms
And my roots will set off to seek another land
β
β
Pablo Neruda (Selected Poems)
β
Promise Yourself
To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.
To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.
β
β
Christian D. Larson (Your Forces and How to Use Them)
β
We can't be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don't have something better.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
Life is too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. In the first place, if they had better things going on in their lives, they wouldn't have the time to sit around and talk about you. What's important to me is not others' opinions of me, but what's important to me is my opinion of myself.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected. Maybe they always have been and will be. Maybe we've lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we've found each other. And maybe each time, we've been forced apart for the same reasons. That means that this goodbye is both a goodbye for the past ten thousand years and a prelude to what will come.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
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
The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create.
β
β
Chuck Palahniuk (Choke)
β
Weβre all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if youβve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect thereβs no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isnβt until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problemsβthe ones that make you truly who you areβthat weβre ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what youβre looking for. Youβre looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: it's got to be the right wrong personβsomeone you lovingly gaze upon and think, βThis is the problem I want to have.β
I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.
β
β
Andrew Boyd (Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe)
β
Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere - be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.
β
β
Betty Smith (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)
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
Pain is a pesky part of being human, I've learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can't be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, βYes!β
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
β
β
Oriah Mountain Dreamer