Carve your name on hearts, not on marble

 

A good character is the best tombstone.
Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember
you when forget-me-nots have withered.
Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.
- Charles Spurgeon

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us;
what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
- Albert Pike

What do you want written on your tombstone?
It won't be there if you haven't done it.
If you want "never missed a day of work," go for it,
but if you want it said that you radiated happiness to all around -
put a smile on every face - inspired us all to be the best we could be,
was a good friend, perhaps a loving spouse and parent,
you might want to start today to lighten up, and start to put happiness -
yours, your family's, and your friends -
ahead of material success or "achievement."

If you want to do it, do it - TODAY.
What you do TODAY is what others will remember. Make today count.

How do you want to be remembered? Live life full out - Begin today.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: To Do That Which Will Endure

Legacy to Future Generations

Seeds You Plant
      

Make a Positive Difference

 

The true measure of success in life is how many other lives you made better.
- Jeff Hoffman

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
- Bessie A. Stanley (commonly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Almost nothing you worry about today
will matter in a hundred years.
Think carefully about what you can focus on today.
Choose tasks that will actually make a positive difference
to your great-grandchildren.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is no brief candle to me.
It is a sort of splendid torch
which I have got a hold of for the moment,
and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible
before handing it on to future generations.
- George Bernard Shaw

It is not what we get.
But who we become, what we contribute...
that gives meaning to our lives.
- Tony Robbins

Further reading: Serve Others

Pass the Torch

To Live, Not Merely To Exist

Recognize Our Abundance
     

Our most basic common link ...

 

That sense of sacredness,
that thinking in generations,
must begin with reverence for this earth.
- Paul Tsongas

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet.
We all breathe the same air.
We all cherish our children's future.
And we are all mortal.
- John F. Kennedy

We need to think of the future and the planet we are
going to leave to our children and their children.
- Kofi Annan

People must feel that the natural world is important
and valuable and beautiful and wonderful
and an amazement and a pleasure.
- David Attenborough

To cherish what remains of the Earth
and to foster its renewal
is our only legitimate hope of survival.
- Wendell Berry

Consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.
- Wilma Mankiller

Image of our earth taken by the NASA Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite.

Further reading: Our Grandchildren's Planet

Natural Web of Life

One Great Dewdrop

All Life
    

Be Gentle with the Earth

 

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him,
that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men,
and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.
- Albert Schweitzer

This land, this water, this air, this planet -
this is our legacy to our young.
- Paul Tsongas

People must feel that the natural world is important
and valuable and beautiful and wonderful
and an amazement and a pleasure.
- David Attenborough

If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow,
we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology.
We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created,
not just as it looked when we got through with it.
- Lyndon B. Johnson

Be gentle with the earth.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Further reading: Our Future is the World's Children

One Planet, One People, One Destiny

Legacy to Future Generations

Reverence for Our Earth
      

Pay It Forward

 

TODAY, consider performing an act-of-kindness for someone who can never repay you.

Sometimes our light goes out but
is blown into flame by another human being.
Each of us owes deepest thanks
to those who have rekindled this light.
- Albert Schweitzer

Each of us has been generously gifted by parents, teachers, mentors, and others we can never repay. So, in gratitude for what we have received, it is now our turn to generously gift the children, the up-and-coming, and the down-and-out -- with no expectation that they can ever repay us - and with the hope that they will, in turn, pay-forward to another generation.

Pay It Forward.
Gift future generations in proportion to your gratitude.
The nature of life is that we pay forward
our biological creation and nurture.
Our parents gift us with life and nurture,
and we gift our children with life and nurture.
While this much is essential to continued human existence,
choose to take "pay it forward" farther - much farther.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father
goes forward, not backward.
What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children.
- Nancy Friday

The moment you become miserly you are closed
to the basic phenomenon of life: expansion, sharing.
The moment you start clinging to things,
you have missed the target.
Because things are not the target,
you, your innermost being, is the target -
not a beautiful house, but a beautiful you;
not much money, but a rich you;
not many things, but an open being,
available to millions of things.
- Osho

Further reading: Pay It Forward - as an Expression of Universal Gratitude

Opportunity for Daily Thanksgiving

True Measure of a Successful Life

Universal Kindness and Compassion
    

Give thanks for the rain in your life

 

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head,
and knows not that it brings abundance
to drive away the hunger.

- Saint Basil

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

- Albert Einstein

Water is the driving force of all nature.
- Leonardo da Vinci

When the well's dry, we know the worth of water.

- Benjamin Franklin

Give thanks for the rain in your life
which waters the flowers of your soul.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.
- Khalil Gibran

Further reading: Gratitude for Our Blessings

The true meaning of life

Natural World

The World We Leave Our Children

Watering
      

PLEASE: Register to Vote - and Vote!

 

PLEASE: Register to Vote - and Vote!
[ONE in FOUR adult American citizens are not yet Registered to VOTE!
College students and other younger adults are the most likely not to be Registered.]

Voting for the kind of America you believe in
is one of the greatest gifts you can give your grandchildren.
In many ways, our future is determined as much by local school boards and city councils as by federal officials.

Make a difference.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson

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

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act!
Action will delineate and define you.

- Thomas Jefferson

Bad politicians are sent to Washington [and state and local government] by good people who don't vote.
- William E. Simon

Voting is an expression of three key life principles -
CHOICE, INTENT, and ACTION.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: You Are What You Do

Either Accept It, or Change It

Walk Your Path

True Measure of a Successful Life

    

Success is to leave the world a little bit better than you found it

 

Believe in yourself,
in your vision for your future,
and in your ability to take a small step
each day toward achieving your vision.

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To leave the world a bit better ... to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Bessie A. Stanley (commonly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Anyone who proposes to do good
must not expect people to roll stones out of his way,
but must accept his lot calmly,
even if they roll a few stones upon it.
- Albert Schweitzer

True success is bringing joy to yourself and to others.
Success is measured in lives bettered, not in money or power.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We do not need to proselytize
either by our speech or by our writing.
We can only do so really with our lives.
Let our lives be open books for all to study.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Further reading: March On

Pay It Forward

Turn Crisis into Progress

Stand Together
    

Society's Soul

What kind of world do you want to leave your great-grandchildren?
What can you do today to help create that world?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul
than the way in which it treats its children.
- Nelson Mandela

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
- Khalil Gibran

The philosophy of the school room in one generation
will be the philosophy of government in the next.
- Abraham Lincoln

Further reading: Honor the Children

Passing the Torch

Our Grandchildren

Full Measure
   

Treat the Earth Well

We have an obligation to live in harmony with God's creation.
- Bruce Babbitt

Everything you do, and everything you do not do,
is your legacy to future generations.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Treat the earth well.
It was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.
- Native American traditional

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him,
that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men,
and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.
- Albert Schweitzer

Be gentle with the earth.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Further reading:

Plant Trees For Your Grandchildren

The World We Leave Our Children

The Seeds You Plant

All Life
   

Our Responsibility to Future Generations

 

Let us be protectors of creation,
protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature,
protectors of one another, and of the environment.
- Pope Francis

The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson

We need to think of the future and the planet we are
going to leave to our children and their children.
- Kofi Annan

Consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.
- Wilma Mankiller

To cherish what remains of the Earth
and to foster its renewal
is our only legitimate hope of survival.
- Wendell Berry

Further reading: Our Grandchildren's Planet

For Future Generations

Your Legacy - Making a Difference

Reverence

For Our Children
     

How do you want to be remembered?

A good character is the best tombstone.
Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember
you when forget-me-nots have withered.
Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.
- Charles Spurgeon

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us;
what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
- Albert Pike

What do you want written on your tombstone?
It won't be there if you haven't done it.
If you want "never missed a day of work," go for it,
but if you want it said that you radiated happiness to all around -
put a smile on every face - inspired us all to be the best we could be,
was a good friend, perhaps a loving spouse and parent,
you might want to start today to lighten up, and start to put happiness -
yours, your family's, and your friends -
ahead of material success or "achievement."

If you want to do it, do it - TODAY.
What you do TODAY is what others will remember. Make today count.

How do you want to be remembered? Live life full out - Begin today.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: To Do That Which Will Endure

Legacy to Future Generations

Seeds You Plant
      

What You Do for Others

The true measure of success in life is how many other lives you made better.
- Jeff Hoffman

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
- Bessie A. Stanley (commonly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Almost nothing you worry about today
will matter in a hundred years.
Think carefully about what you can focus on today.
Choose tasks that will actually make a positive difference
to your great-grandchildren.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is no brief candle to me.
It is a sort of splendid torch
which I have got a hold of for the moment,
and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible
before handing it on to future generations.
- George Bernard Shaw

It is not what we get.
But who we become, what we contribute...
that gives meaning to our lives.
- Tony Robbins

Further reading: Serve Others

Pass the Torch

To Live, Not Merely To Exist

Recognize Our Abundance
     

All Who Inhabit This Planet

That sense of sacredness,
that thinking in generations,
must begin with reverence for this earth.
- Paul Tsongas

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet.
We all breathe the same air.
We all cherish our children's future.
And we are all mortal.
- John F. Kennedy

We need to think of the future and the planet we are
going to leave to our children and their children.
- Kofi Annan

People must feel that the natural world is important
and valuable and beautiful and wonderful
and an amazement and a pleasure.
- David Attenborough

To cherish what remains of the Earth
and to foster its renewal
is our only legitimate hope of survival.
- Wendell Berry

Consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.
- Wilma Mankiller

Image of our earth taken by the NASA Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite.

Further reading: Our Grandchildren's Planet

Natural Web of Life

One Great Dewdrop

All Life
    

Let All Life be Sacred to You

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him,
that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men,
and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.
- Albert Schweitzer

This land, this water, this air, this planet -
this is our legacy to our young.
- Paul Tsongas

People must feel that the natural world is important
and valuable and beautiful and wonderful
and an amazement and a pleasure.
- David Attenborough

If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow,
we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology.
We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created,
not just as it looked when we got through with it.
- Lyndon B. Johnson

Be gentle with the earth.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Further reading: Our Future is the World's Children

One Planet, One People, One Destiny

Legacy to Future Generations

Reverence for Our Earth
      

Our Debt of Gratitude Goes Forward, Not Backward - Pay It Forward

TODAY, consider performing an act-of-kindness for someone who can never repay you.

Sometimes our light goes out but
is blown into flame by another human being.
Each of us owes deepest thanks
to those who have rekindled this light.
- Albert Schweitzer

Each of us has been generously gifted by parents, teachers, mentors, and others we can never repay. So, in gratitude for what we have received, it is now our turn to generously gift the children, the up-and-coming, and the down-and-out -- with no expectation that they can ever repay us - and with the hope that they will, in turn, pay-forward to another generation.

Pay It Forward.
Gift future generations in proportion to your gratitude.
The nature of life is that we pay forward
our biological creation and nurture.
Our parents gift us with life and nurture,
and we gift our children with life and nurture.
While this much is essential to continued human existence,
choose to take "pay it forward" farther - much farther.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father
goes forward, not backward.
What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children.
- Nancy Friday

The moment you become miserly you are closed
to the basic phenomenon of life: expansion, sharing.
The moment you start clinging to things,
you have missed the target.
Because things are not the target,
you, your innermost being, is the target -
not a beautiful house, but a beautiful you;
not much money, but a rich you;
not many things, but an open being,
available to millions of things.
- Osho

Further reading: Pay It Forward - as an Expression of Universal Gratitude

Opportunity for Daily Thanksgiving

True Measure of a Successful Life

Universal Kindness and Compassion
    

Look Deep into Nature

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head,
and knows not that it brings abundance
to drive away the hunger.

- Saint Basil

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

- Albert Einstein

Water is the driving force of all nature.
- Leonardo da Vinci

When the well's dry, we know the worth of water.

- Benjamin Franklin

Give thanks for the rain in your life
which waters the flowers of your soul.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.
- Khalil Gibran

Further reading: Gratitude for Our Blessings

The true meaning of life

Natural World

The World We Leave Our Children

Watering
      

Register to VOTE!

PLEASE: Register to Vote - and Vote!
[ONE in FOUR adult American citizens are not yet Registered to VOTE!
College students and other younger adults are the most likely not to be Registered.]

Voting for the kind of America you believe in
is one of the greatest gifts you can give your grandchildren.
In many ways, our future is determined as much by local school boards and city councils as by federal officials.

Make a difference.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson

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

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act!
Action will delineate and define you.

- Thomas Jefferson

Bad politicians are sent to Washington [and state and local government] by good people who don't vote.
- William E. Simon

Voting is an expression of three key life principles -
CHOICE, INTENT, and ACTION.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: You Are What You Do

Either Accept It, or Change It

Walk Your Path

True Measure of a Successful Life

    

To have Succeeded is to have Helped Others

Believe in yourself,
in your vision for your future,
and in your ability to take a small step
each day toward achieving your vision.

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To leave the world a bit better ... to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Bessie A. Stanley (commonly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Anyone who proposes to do good
must not expect people to roll stones out of his way,
but must accept his lot calmly,
even if they roll a few stones upon it.
- Albert Schweitzer

True success is bringing joy to yourself and to others.
Success is measured in lives bettered, not in money or power.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We do not need to proselytize
either by our speech or by our writing.
We can only do so really with our lives.
Let our lives be open books for all to study.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Further reading: March On

Pay It Forward

Turn Crisis into Progress

Stand Together
    

Our Debt to All Our Society's Children

What kind of world do you want to leave your great-grandchildren?
What can you do today to help create that world?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul
than the way in which it treats its children.
- Nelson Mandela

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
- Khalil Gibran

The philosophy of the school room in one generation
will be the philosophy of government in the next.
- Abraham Lincoln

Further reading: Honor the Children

Passing the Torch

Our Grandchildren

Full Measure