#902 Cannot blossom without sunshine

Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.  ~ Helen Keller

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.  ~ Joseph Addison

Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch.  ~ Walt Whitman

Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.  ~ Thomas Mann

A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love.  ~ Max Muller

Tags: quotes about sunshine, life

-How much sunshine is within you?
-How much light can you emanate?
-How much love can you give?
-How can you enrich your reserve?

#901 Light one small candle

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth try.  ~ James A. Michener

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.  ~ John Wooden

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.  ~ Mark Twain

When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.  ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.  ~ Chinese proverb

Tags: quotes about character, life

- Whose character do you admire?
- What affirmative qualities can you say about your character?
- What positive action can you undertake in the near term?

#900 Risks must be taken

To laugh is to risk being a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To express feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams, before the crowd
Is to risk their loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
The person who risks nothing,
Does nothing,
Has nothing and is nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But they simply cannot learn, Feel, change, grow, love or live.
Risks must be taken because, the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
Only a person who risks is free.  ~Leo Buscaglia

Tags: quotes about risk, life

- To what extent are you a risk taker?
- What is a person missing if he/she does not take risks?
- What risk could you take in the near term?

#899 A form of exploration

Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you.  ~ Aldous Huxley

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its strength.   ~A. J. Cronin

And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned.  ~ Dorothy Parker

Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience.  ~ Victoria Holt

In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.  ~ Ansel Adams

Tags: quotes about experience, life

-When did you feel scarred and burned?
-How did you respond?
-What wisdom have you gained from your 'explorations' in experience?

#898 Ride the energy

No creature is fully itself till it is, like the dandelion opened in the bloom of pure relationship to the sun, the entire living cosmos.  ~ D. H. Lawrence

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.  ~ Desiderus Erasmus

Originality is...a by-product of sincerity.  ~ Marianne Moore

My mom always said I like to stir the pot with a glittering spoon.  ~ Kris Carr

Ride the energy of your own unique spirit.  ~ Gabrielle Roth

Tags: quotes about being yourself, individuality, life

- When have you felt self actualized and in tune with your individuality?
- How can you live out your uniqueness in enriching ways?

#897 Grades of concealing it

In heaven I yearn for knowledge, account all else inanity;
On earth I confess an itch for the praise of fools - that's vanity.   ~ Robert Browning

I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity.  ~ Diana Vreeland

Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired; even I who write this, and you who read this.  ~ Blaise Pascal

There are no grades of vanity; there are only grades of concealing it.  ~ Mark Twain

Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.   ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Tags: quotes about vanity, life

- Hey, what's so bad about a little vanity?
- When does it become a problem?
- What's a good antidote?

#896 Keep moving

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.   ~ Thomas Merton

Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed.  Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds' wings.   ~ Rumi

My point is, life is about balance. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. The pina and the colada.     ~ Ellen DeGeneres

The word happiness would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.   ~Carl Jung

Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.   ~Robert Fulghum

Life is like riding a bicycle; in order to keep your balance you must keep moving.   ~ Albert Einstein

Tags: quotes about balance, life

- What area of your life needs more balance?
- How can you enrich your daily awareness and contentment?
- What new initiative could enhance your center?