Focused words of inspiration are a great way to manifest your tomorrows. We have gathered these quotes and shared them here in hopes that they may help inspire, encourage, or enlighten you in the same way that they have for us.
Have a great addition? Please feel free to share it with us here.
Have a great addition? Please feel free to share it with us here.
Change
The thought manifests the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit. And the habit hardens into character. So, watch the thought and its ways with care. And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings.The Buddha
Change the story and you change perception; change perception and you change the world.
Jean Houston in A Passion for the Possible
One's destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.
Henry Miller
You have to sit by the side of a river a very long time before a roast duck will fly into your mouth.
Guy Kawasaki
Compassion
Before we can generate compassion and love, it is important to have a clear understanding of what we understand compassion and love to be. In simple terms, compassion and love can be defined as positive thoughts and feelings that give rise to such essential things in life as hope, courage, determination, and inner strength. In the Buddhist tradition, compassion and love are seen as two aspects of the same thing. compassion is the wish for another being to be free from suffering; love is wanting them to have happiness.His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care, for people will hear them and be influenced by them, for good or ill.
The Buddha
Om Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.
Sanskrit mantra: May all the beings in all the worlds be happy and free
Our listening creates a sanctuary for the homeless parts within another person.
Rachel Naomi Remen
In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.
The Buddha
Small as a peanut,
Big as a giant,
We're all the same size
When we turn off the light
Rich as a sultan,
Poor as a mite,
We're all worth the same
When we turn off the light.
Red, black or orange,
Yellow or white,
We all look the same
When we turn off the light.
So maybe the way
To make everything right
Is for God to just reach out
And turn off the light!
Shel Silverstein in Where the Sidewalk Ends
As one can see when the eyes are open, so one can understand when the heart is open.
Hazrat Inayat Khan in The Bowl of Saki
Extend the boundaries of the glowing kingdom of your love, gradually including your family, your neighbours, your community, your country, all countries - all living sentient creatures.
Paramahansa Yogananda
In the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you.
Rachel Naomi Remen
Just as a flower gives out its fragrance to whomsoever approaches or uses it, so love from within us radiates towards everybody and manifests as spontaneous service.
Swami Ramdas
Diversity
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.E.E. Cummings
Many paths lead from the foot of the mountain, but at the peak we all gaze at the single bright moon.
Ikkyu (Zen-monk poet)
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein
Dreams
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your own heart. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside, awakens.Carl Jung
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.
Shel Silverstein in Where the Sidewalk Ends
Within your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go.
Louise Driscoll
Don't let other people's opinions burn holes in your dreams.
Elsa Joy Bailey
Encouragement
It is not a question of whether you "have what it takes," but of whether you take the gifts you have - they are plenteous - and share them with all the world.Neale Donald Walsch in Tomorrow's God
Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless when facing them.
Rabindranath Tagore
It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not.
Denis Waitley
Those who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps.
St. Gregory the Great
I Believe in You
I believe in you ...
in your spirit,
your goodness,
in the way that you face each day
with a commitment to your life
and the things that really matter.
I believe in the decisions you make,
in the careful consideration
you give each challenge,
in the perseverance you've shown
when others might have given up.
I believe that you possess
an extraordinary strength
and endless reserve of resilience -
even more than you realize.
You are a person of enormous courage,
someone truly special in this world,
a rare and beautiful gift to all of us ...
And I hope you'll never forget that I believe in you!
Jennifer Fujita
I teach my sighs to lengthen into songs.
Theodore Roethke
Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.
Jacques Prévert
The true miracle is not walking on water or walking in air, but simply walking on this earth.
Thich Nhat Han
Imagine a Woman Who ...
Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman.
A woman who honours her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.
Imagine a woman who trusts and respects herself.
A woman who listens to her needs and desires.
Who meets them with tenderness and grace.
Imagine a woman who acknowledges the past's influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.
Imagine a woman who authors her own life.
A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf.
Who refuses to surrender, except to her truest self and wisest voice.
Imagine a woman who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.
Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life.
Imagine a woman in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.
Imagine a woman who honors the body of the Goddess in her changing body.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use her life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.
Imagine a woman who values the woman in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of woman.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.
Imagine yourself as this woman.
Patricia Lynn Reilly
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
Khalil Gibran
All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.
Indian Proverb
All beauty of the world is wet with the dew of tears.
Theodor Haecker
Those who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps.
St. Gregory the Great
When you are sorrowful, look again into your heart and you shall see that, in truth, you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Kahlil Gibran
For, after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human can fight, and never stop fighting.
E.E. Cummings
Equanimity
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.The Buddha
To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the Universe.
Eckhart Tolle in Stillness Speaks
The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry.
Maya Angelou
Breathing in, I calm the body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Every morning is like a new reincarnation into this world. Let us take it then for what it is and live each moment anew.
Paul Brunton
Hope is the deep orientation of the human soul that can be held at the darkest times.
Vaclav Havel
For, after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Fear
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.Albert Einstein
Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.
Pema Chodron
Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
James Joyce
Faith
The Divine is the sea. All religions are rivers leading to the sea. Some rivers wind a great deal. Why not go to the sea directly?Mother Meera
God made so many different kinds of people; why would God allow only one way to worship?
Martin Burber
The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.
The Buddha
Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Aurora Leigh
May your heart be an altar, from which the bright flame of unending thanksgiving ascends to heaven.
St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier in Embrace the World
We contain the seeds of Divine perfection.
Renee Locks
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
Thomas Moore
The wave does not need to die to become water. She is already water.
Thich Nhat Hanh
By saying grace, we release the Divine sparks in our food.
Rabbi Herschel
A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.
Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.
Doug Hammarskjold
Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Arundhati Roy
Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Forgiveness
We may not know how to forgive, and we may not want to forgive; but the very fact we say we are willing to forgive begins the healing practice.Louise Hay
Gratitude
Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.Native American ritual chant
Gratitude can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Meolody Beattie
Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.
Henry Ward Beecher
Grant me daily the grace of gratitude, to be thankful for all my many gifts, and so be freed from artificial needs, that I might lead a joyful, simple life.
Edward Hays in A Book of Wonders
Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.
Karl Barth
Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.
Hausa proverb from Nigeria
So much has been given to me; I have no time to ponder over that which has been denied.
Helen Keller
What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette in Age Doesn't Matter Unless You're a Cheese
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
John Kennedy
Gratitude is so close to the bone of life, pure and true, that it instantly stops the rational mind, and all its planning and plotting.
Regina Sara Ryan in Praying Dangerously
Growth
Our Deepest FearOur deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Marianne Williamson
Learning more techniques and methods for spiritual practice do become a distraction at some point as you continue on your spiritual path. At some point we must stop searching for more spiritual information. We must become all that we are learning.
Sandra Ingerman
We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.
Marcel Proust
Life
For me, a lovely day is any day I wake up.Bernie S. Siegel
Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.
Mark Twain
Dive deeply into the miracle of life and let the tips of your wings be burnt by the flame, let your feet be lacerated by the thorns, let your heart be stirred by human emotion, and let your soul be lifted beyond the earth.
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan in Call of the Dervish
"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
Hans Christian Anderson
It began in mystery and it will end in mystery, but what a rare and beautiful country lies in between.
Diane Ackerman
There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Albert Einstein
Some people go through life trying to find out what the world holds for them only to find out too late that it's what they bring the world that really counts.
Lucy Maud Montgomery in Anne of Green Gables
Take more time, cover less ground.
Thomas Merton in Dancing in The Waters of Life
Your life is always working, whether you know it or not. Sometimes if works to bring you what you want, and sometimes it works to keep you from what you think you want.
Neale Donald Walsch in Tomorrow's God
We don't know what life will bring, so it is what we bring to life that matters.
Patricia Campbell Carlson
Let us live so that, when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.
Mark Twain
We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny, but what we put into it is ours.
Dag Hammarskjold
Mindfulness
Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.Nathaniel Hawthorne
Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work with mastery. Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds. Shine!
The Buddha
Gradually one's mastery in contemplation extends from the primal atom to the greatest magnitude.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 1.40
Looking behind I am filled with gratitude. Looking forward I am filled with vision. Looking upwards I am filled with strength. Looking within I discover peace.
Quero Apache Prayer
I draw a prayer round me like a dark protective wall, withdraw inside it as one might into a convent cell and then step outside again, calmer and stronger and more collected again.
Etty Hillesum in An Interrupted Life
So far as past errors are concerned, forget them and start afresh, as if it were your first day in this body; but, so far as your present contacts are concerned, be kind to them, as if it were your last day in this body.
Paul Brunton
In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.
Howard Thurman
There exists only the present instant […] a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence.
Eckhart Tolle
Nature
We should notice that we are already supported at every moment. There is the earth below our feet and there is air, filling our lungs and emptying them. We should begin from this when we need support.Natalie Goldberg
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 in nature have a message you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.
Eleanora Duse
As the Sun shines upon my heart, so may my heart shine upon others!
The Upanishads
May the sun bring you new energy by day, may the moon softly restore you by night, may the rain wash away your worries, may the breeze blow new strength into your being.
Apache Blessing
To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life.
John Burroughs
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
Galileo Galilei
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus
If we could see the miracle of a single flower, our whole life would change.
The Buddha
Practice
Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.R. Collier
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
Henry David Thoreau
Learning more techniques and methods for spiritual practice do become a distraction at some point as you continue on your spiritual path. At some point we must stop searching for more spiritual information. We must become all that we are learning.
Sandra Ingerman
Prosperity
Wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants.Esther De Wall
You made me so rich, oh God, please let me share out your beauty with open hands.
Etty Hillesum's Letters From Westerbork
We would give anything for what we have.
Tony Hoagland
O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.
Henry David Thoreau
Pursue excellence. Ignore success.
Deepak Chopra
You cannot give your life more days, but you can give your days more life.
Unknown
True affluence is not needing anything.
Gary Snyder in Writer's Almanac
The store was closed, so I went home and hugged what I own.
Brooks Palmer
Relationships
Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.Alan Cohen in Wisdom Of The Heart
When you listen generously to people they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time.
Rachel Naomi Remen
An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by its own fullness, not by its reception.
Harold Loukes
If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence, like the sunlight, will illuminate you in God.
St. Issac (7th Century Monk)
A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.
Alan Cohen in Wisdom Of The Heart
We are in community each time we find a place where we belong.
Peter F. Block
An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by its own fullness, not by its reception.
Harold Loukes
We are in community each time we find a place where we belong.
Peter F. Block
So far as past errors are concerned, forget them and start afresh, as if it were your first day in this body; but, so far as your present contacts are concerned, be kind to them, as if it were your last day in this body.
Paul Brunton
Service
Gratitude can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and created a vision for tomorrow.Melody Beattie
Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.
Shirley Chisholm
When we begin to believe that there is greater joy in working with and for others, rather than just for ourselves, then our society will truly become a place of celebration.
Jean Vanier
Yoga
Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.B.K.S. Iyengar
Yoga is bodily gospel.
Reaven Fields
Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are.
Jason Crandell
You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state.
Sharon Gannon
The yoga mat is a good place to turn when talk therapy and antidepressants aren't enough.
Amy Weintraub
Yoga does not remove us from the reality or responsibilities of everyday life but rather places our feet firmly and resolutely in the practical ground of experience. We don't transcend our lives; we return to the life we left behind in the hopes of something better.
Donna Farhi
Yoga has a sly, clever way of short-circuiting the mental patterns that cause anxiety.
Baxter Bell
If I'm losing balance in a pose, I stretch higher and God reaches down to steady me. It works every time and not just in yoga.
Terri Guillemets
Yoga is 99% practice and 1% theory.
Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois
What we want out of yoga is ourselves, not something better than ourselves.
Douglas Brooks
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