Favorite Quotes

Over the years I have collected quotes of saints and others, that wonderfully instruct us in what is good and just in the eyes of the Lord, although this is sometimes not the author's intent. Please take a look at some of these quotes.

I know that I am very distracted, very forgetful; I am superficial, I allow myself to be ensnared by all kinds of attractions and preoccupations.         unknown

Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendors born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So it is with people who sometimes cover up the entire disc of eternity with a dollar, and so quench transcendent glories with a little shining dust.      Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Nothing happens by chance, my friend... No such thing as luck. A meaning behind every little thing . . . .   Richard Bach

  . . . . the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.    Albert Einstein

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the one that has opened for us!     Alexander Graham Bell

May you use those gifts you have received , and pass on the love that has been given to you.   Therese of Liseaux

 most men . . . .  can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in . . . .  and which they have  woven,  thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.            Leo Tolstoy

We failed, but in the good providence of God apparent failure often proves a blessing.   - Robert E. Lee

Albeit failure in any cause produces a correspondent misery in the soul, yet it is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true.   John Keats

Faults are more easily recognized in the works of others than in our own.              LEONARDO DA VINCI

 The heart has reasons of which reason knows nothing.      Blaise Pascal

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all.                Emily Dickinson

It is not important to do powerful and great things, but to do small things with great love.

No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear; but grateful, take the good I find, the best of now and  here.                                        - John Greenleaf Whittier

In the evening of life, all that matters is love.                       John of the Cross

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” Herman Melville

 “The living moment is everything.” D.H. Lawrence

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” Paul Boese

“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Albert Einstein

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

"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."

“A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.” Albert Einstein

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." Carl Jung

“A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.” Alexander Pope

“Because men believe not in Providence, therefore they do so greedily scrape and hoard. They do not believe in any reward for charity, therefore they will part with nothing.” Isaac Barrow

“For it would have been better that man should have been born dumb, nay, void of all reason, rather than that he should employ the gifts of Providence to the destruction of his neighbor.” Quintilian

“He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright.” Blaise Pascal

“Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.” Mohandas Gandhi

“Providence has nothing good or high in store for one who does not resolutely aim at something high or good. A purpose is the eternal condition of success.” Thornton Wilder

“We failed, but in the good providence of God apparent failure often proves a blessing.” Robert E. Lee

“Who can love to walk in the dark? But providence doth often so dispose.” Oliver Cromwell

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” Buddha

“Life is a long lesson in humility.” James M. Barrie

“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” Robert Byrne

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.” Erma Bombeck

“While there's life, there's hope.” Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it. At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.” Albert Schweitzer

“Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility; for it thinks all things lawful for itself, and all things possible. The acknowledgment of our weakness is the first step in repairing our loss.” Thomas Kempis

“The things that we love tell us what we are.” Thomas Aquinas

“To have courage for whatever comes in life - everything lies in that. To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience.” Teresa of Avila

“For it is in giving that we receive. Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” Francis of Assisi

“With regard to authority, it is the greatest weakness to attribute infinite credit to particular authors, and to refuse his own prerogative to time, the author of all authors, and, therefore, of all authority. For, truth is rightly named the daughter of time, not of authority. It is not wonderful, therefore, if the bonds of antiquity, authority, and unanimity, have so enchained the power of man, that he is unable (as if bewitched) to become familiar with things themselves.” Francis Bacon

“Trust no future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act, - act in the living Present! Heart within and God o'erhead.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Psalm of Life

“I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve.” Igor Stravinsky

“The present offers itself to our touch for only an instant of time and then eludes the senses.” Plutarch

“The past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, nor just for tomorrow, but in the here and now.” Carl Sandburg

“Few of us ever live in the present, we are forever anticipating what is to come or remembering what has gone.” Louis L’Amour  

Meditation - Padre Pio - from a letter to one of his spiritual daughters