Life
Favorite Selections from ToInspire.com

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. - Psalm 32:8

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. - Goethe

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. - Teilhard de Chardin

Great beginnings are not as important as the way one finishes. - Dr. James Dobson

I must accept life unconditionally. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition. - Margaret Lee Runbeck

Most true happiness comes from one's inner life, from the disposition of the mind and soul. Admittedly, a good inner life is difficult to achieve, especially in these trying times. It takes reflection and contemplation and self-discipline. - William L Shirer

For any American who had the great and priceless privilege of being raised in a small town there always remains with him nostalgic memories… And the older he grows the more he senses what he owed to the simple honesty and neighborliness, the integrity that he saw all around him in those days. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right. - Confucius

Perhaps it would be a good idea, fantastic as it sounds, to muffle every telephone, stop every motor, and halt all activity for an hour some day, to give people a chance to ponder for a few minutes on what it is all about, why they are living and what they really want. - James Truslow Adams

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence. - Daniel H. Burnham

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for. - Joseph Addison

Making an issue of little things is one of the surest ways to spoil happiness. One's personal pride is felt to be vitally injured by surrender, but there is no quality of human nature so nearly royal as the ability to yield gracefully. It shows small confidence in one's own nature to fear that compromise lessens self-control. To consider constantly the comfort and happiness of another is not a sign of weakness but of strength. - Charles Conrad

The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. - William James

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There is a form of laughter that springs from the heart, heard every day in the merry voice of childhood, the expression of a laughter -- loving spirit that defies analysis by the philosopher, which has nothing rigid or mechanical in it, and totally without social significance. Bubbling spontaneously from the heart of child or man. Without egotism and full of feeling, laughter is the music of life. - Sir William Osler

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine, as perhaps it may be thought, the true poetry of life - the poetry of the commonplace, of the ordinary man, of the plain, toil-worn woman, with their loves and their joys, their sorrows and their griefs. - Sir William Osler

Find a purpose in life so big it will challenge every capacity to be at your best. - David O. McKay

Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.  - Jean de la Bruyère

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them. - Henry David Thoreau

I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail. - William Faulkner

The sower may mistake and sow his peas crookedly; the peas make no mistake, but come up and show his line.  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our being is subject to all the chances of life. There are so many things we are capable of, that we could be or do. The possibilities are so great that we never, any of us, are more than one-fourth fulfilled.  - Katherine Anne Porter

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.  - Gandhi

The secret of my vigor and activity is that I have managed to have a lot of fun.  - Lowell Thomas

Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. - Chief Seattle

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.  - Cherokee Expression

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive..." (Italian Actress; 1859-1924)  - Eleonora Duse

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by what you bring to life. - John Homer Miller

Live not one's life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last.  - Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

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

A small boy looked at a star and began to weep. The star said, "Boy, why are you weeping?" And the boy said, "You are so far away I will never be able to touch you." And the star answered, "Boy, if I were not already in your heart, you would not be able to see me.  - John Magliola

Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.  - Tagore

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.  - Helen Keller

Every person’s life is a fairytale written by God’s fingers. - Hans Christian Anderson

Life is just a blank slate, what matters most is what you write on it. - Christine Frankland

I wanted a perfect ending... Now, I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.  - Gilda Radner

It is only through disruptions and confusion that we grow, jarred out of ourselves by the collision of someone else's private world with our own.  - Joyce Carol Oates

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved. - William Jennings Bryan

She said she usually cried at least once each day, not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful... and life was so short.  - Brian Andreas

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life. (Indian Philosopher (1895-1986)) - J.Krishnamurti

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. - Louis L'Amour

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. (1773-1855 - French-born Quaker Minister) - Stephen Grellet

Life is a magic vase filled to the brim; so made that you cannot dip into it nor draw from it; but it overflows into the hand that drops treasures into it-drop in malice and it overflows hate; drop in charity and it overflows love. - John Ruskin

We are born into a vast room whose walls consist of a thousand doors of possibility. Each door is flung open to the world outside, and the room is filled with light and noise. We close some of the doors deliberately, sometimes with fear, sometimes with calm certainty. Others seem to close by themselves, some so quietly that we do not even notice. (from City Limits) - Terry Teachout

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't. - Richard Bach

Be like a sponge when it comes to each new experience. If you want to be able to express it well, you must first be able to absorb it well. - Jim Rohn

Every time we leave home and go to another place, we open up the possibility of having something wonderful happen to us. When we move out of the familiar here and now, we set in motion a series of events that, taken together, bring about changes at the very root of our being. (from The Way of the Traveler)  - Joseph Dispenza

On the way to what you planned to happen, something even better comes along. - Janice Endique

Right now you are one choice away from a new beginning - one that leads you toward becoming the fullest human being you can be. (from Oprah Magazine, July 2002) - Oprah Winfrey

There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking. (from Manhood of Humanity (Institute of General Semantics)) - Alfred Korzybski

We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are. (from 'In Pharaoh's Army' - Knopf) - Tobias Wolff

If you have nothing else to do, look about you and see if there isn't something close at hand that you can improve! It may make you wealthy, though it is more likely that it will make you happy. - George Matthew Adams

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. - Theodore Roosevelt

It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. - Abraham Lincoln

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. - Oprah Winfrey

To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow. - Audrey Hepburn

Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious. - Will Rogers

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center. - Kurt Vonnegut

There are few things more powerful than a life lived with passionate clarity. - Erwin McManus

Good things happen when you get your priorities straight. - Scott Caan

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. - Desmond Tutu

Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect. - Margaret Mitchell

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. - John Locke

No one is the same, and we all have different life experiences. It's not my place to judge them or for them to judge me. We should all be accountable for our own lives. - Joanna Krupa

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will. - Michel de Montaigne

You can't get anywhere in life without taking risks. - Esme Bianco

Most people are rowing against the current of life. Instead of turning the boat around, all they need to do is let go of the oars. - Esther Hicks

In every aspect of life, have a game plan, and then do your best to achieve it. - Alan Kulwicki

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain. - Lord Byron

I have been bent and broken, but — I hope — into a better shape. (from 'Great Expectations') - Charles Dickens

Trifles make the sum of life. (from 'David Copperfield') - Charles Dickens

Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood. - George Orwell

I'm afraid I'm an incorrigible life-lover, life-wonderer, and adventurer. - Edith Wharton

It is only when we take chances, when our lives improve. The initial and the most difficult risk that we need to take is to become honest. - Walter Anderson

Life is a funny thing. We only get so many years to live it, so we have to do everything we can to make sure those years are as full as they can be. We shouldn't waste time on things that might happen someday, or maybe even never. - Colleen Hoover

Some things cannot be taught; they must be experienced. You never learn the most valuable lessons in life until you go through your own journey. - Roy Bennett

Try to be a rainbow to someone else's cloud. - Maya Angelou

We are constantly invited to be what we are. - Henry David Thoreau