#1067 The secret of success

To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step in knowledge.

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

Novelty is an essential attribute of the beautiful.

The secret of success is constancy of purpose.

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.

But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.

Most people die with their music still locked up inside them.

Quotes by Benjamin Disraeli 

- What topics are you quite ignorant about?
- How reluctant are you to be critical?
- What is your underlying, driving purpose in life?

#1066 Wiser today than yesterday

May you live every day of your life.

Books, the children of the brain.

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday.

Quotes by Jonathan Swift

-How rich is your life on most days?
-How would you define an enriching life?
-Why are meager expectations a good thing?

#1065 The same necessity

A house that does not have one worn, comfy chair in it is soulless.

We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.

Routine is not a prison, but the way to freedom from time.

The garden is growth and change and that means loss as well as constant new treasures to make up for a few disasters.

It always comes back to the same necessity: go deep enough and there is a bedrock of truth, however hard.

Quotes by May Sarton

- To what extent can you be yourself?
- How much do you enjoy solitude?
- How effective is Sarton's image of life as a garden?

#1064 Struggles to the light

Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.

Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.

Prejudice is a great time saver. It enables you to form opinions without bothering to get the facts.

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.

Quotes by George Santayana 

- In what sense is life a predicament?
- How diversified are your interests?
- What wisdom have you gained through disillusionment?

#1063 You are like fireworks

Smile, breathe and go slowly.

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.

Every path, every street in the world is your walking meditation path.

Be yourself. Life is precious as it is. All the elements for your happiness are already here. There is no need to run, strive, search or struggle. Just Be.

You are like fireworks. You go out into your children, your friends, your society, and the whole world.

Quotes by Thich Nhat Hanh

- How conscious are you of your breath and its power to relax and center you?
- To what extent can you meditate along the varied paths of your life?
- To what extent can you be yourself?
- What fireworks could accompany your life?

#1062 Your thinks be thanks

Life is a picnic on a precipice.

The older lives like not to be stood in rows or at right angles.

You owe it to us all to get on with what you're good at.

All that we are not stares back at what we are.

You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.

Let all your thinks be thanks.

Quotes by W. H. Auden

- What is so precarious about life?
- Why do seniors not like straight lines?
- Are you sharing what you're good at?
- How grateful are you?

# 1061 The secret of the ages

-so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

- To refine, to clarify, to intensify that eternal moment in which we alone live there is but a single force the imagination.

- Mothlike in mists, scintillant in the minute brilliance of cloudless days, with broad bellying sails they glide to the wind tossing green water from their sharp prows while over them the crew crawls.

 -It is at the edge of a petal that love waits.

 -It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.

Quotes by William Carlos Williams

- How do you interpret the poem of the red wheel barrow?
- What do you find beautiful about Williams' writing?
- Where do you find beauty around you?