He who is contented is rich.
- Lao Tzu
He is richest who is content with the least,
for content is the wealth of nature.
- Socrates
Wealth consists not in having great possessions,
but in having few wants.
- Epictetus
A good life isn't measured in material goods.
There is no quicker path to misery than coveting your neighbors' stuff.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Further reading:
Small Pleasures
Emulate the Patience of Nature
Burden of Jealousy
Living in the Present
How far you can go without destroying from within
what you are trying to defend from without?
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The end does NOT justify the means.
Freedom cannot be gained by sacrificing the freedom of others.
Free speech cannot be gained by limiting the free speech of others.
Human rights cannot be secured by trampling the human rights of others.
Viciousness in others cannot be fought by becoming vicious oneself.
Neither individual nor nation can long survive by meeting hatred with hatred,
injustice with injustice, prejudice with prejudice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.
- Robert Green Ingersoll
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
- Emma Lazarus - written on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety,
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson [Declaration of Independence, and inscribed in the Jefferson Memorial]
The best way to enhance freedom in other lands
is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.
- Jimmy Carter
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph
is for enough good men to do nothing.
- Edmund Burke
Further reading:
The Freedom of Others
Take Action About Things That Matter
Personal Freedom
Independence - Freedom - Liberty
Do the small things of life with a relaxed awareness.
When you are eating, eat totally -
chew totally, taste totally, smell totally.
Touch your bread, feel the texture.
Smell the bread, smell the flavor.
Chew it, let it dissolve into your being.
- Osho
It is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and the good,
and dwell as little as possible on the evil and the false.
- Richard Cecil
Pay attention to rainbows, and snowflakes,
butterflies and the songs of birds,
the crash of storm-driven waves
and the mirror-surface of a quiet pond.
Let the depths of nature become a part of your innermost being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Further reading:
What You Focus On
Cultivate Awareness
Managing Your Wayward Mind
Life is Beautiful
Faith is realizing that you always get what you need.
- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
When you walk to the edge of all the light you have
and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,
you must believe that one of two things will happen:
__ There will be something solid for you to stand upon,
__ or, you will be taught how to fly.
Faith © Patrick Overton from his book of poems: The Leaning Tree, 1975
[Widely mis-attributed to Barbara J. Winter, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and others]
The most telling act of true Faith
is celebrating the death of a loved one
with the certain knowledge that
they are now in a better place.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If I could tell the world just one thing
it would be we're all okay,
and not to worry cause worry is wasteful
and useless in times like these.
I won't be made useless.
I won't be idle with despair,
I will gather myself around my faith.
Light does the darkness most fear.
- Jewel
Faith is an Unlimited Source.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Further reading:
An Unknowable Future
Faith Before Dawn
The Edge of All We Know
Eternity
Even those things which seem out of reach of our choice
are governed by how we choose to perceive them.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
There is nothing true anywhere,
The true is nowhere to be seen;
If you say you see the true,
This seeing is not the true one.
- Abraham Lincoln paraphrasing Lao Tzu's Tao te Ching
Seeing the light is a choice, not seeing the light is no choice.
- Douglas Horton
Change what you see,
by changing how you see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Further reading:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Labels
Opinions
Finding Beauty
