God gave us memories that we might have roses in December. — J.M. Barrie

At every party there are two kinds of people -- those who want to go home and those who don't. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other. — Ann Landers

It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start. — Mother Teresa

Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of to-day...it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its own soul. — Francis Thompson

Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power. A childlike and abiding trust in Providence is its best preventive and remedy. — Unknown

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. — Abraham Lincoln

Christmas is the day that holds all time together. — Alexander Smith

I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses. — Taylor Caldwell

Despair is most often the offspring of ill-preparedness. — Don Williams, Jr

People need trouble -- a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don't mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy. — William Faulkner

There cannot be a crisis today; my schedule is already full. — Henry Kissinger

Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart. — Henry Clay

When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself. — Isak Dinesen (Baroness Karen Blixen)

There are times when a battle decides everything, and there are times when the most insignificant thing can decide the outcome of a battle. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Some businessmen are saying this could be the greatest Christmas ever. I always thought that the first one was. — Art Fettig

Shopping is a woman thing. It's a contact sport like football. Women enjoy the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the danger of being trampled to death, and the ecstasy of the purchase. — Erma Bombeck

One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching. — Unknown

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. — Herm Albright

It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent. — Dave Barry

In the opinion of the world, marriage ends all, as it does in a comedy. The truth is precisely the opposite: it begins all. — Anne Sophie Swetchine

Probably the reason we all go so haywire at Christmas time with the endless unrestrained and often silly buying of gifts is that we don't quite know how to put our love into words. — Harlan Miller

Poisons and medicine are oftentimes the same substance given with different intents. — Peter Mere Latham

When we walk to the edge of all the light we have, and take that step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen—there will be something solid for us to stand on, or God will teach us to fly. — Leiden ‘94 (?)

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge we make promise only; pain we obey. — Marcel Proust

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who'll decide where to go.
— Dr. Seuss

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. — Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist. — St Francis of Assisi

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. — Charles Dickens

When I walk by the wayside, He is along with me. When I enter into company amid all my forgetfulness of Him, He never forgets me. In the silent watches of the night, when my eyelids are closed and my spirit has sunk into unconsciousness, the observant eye of Him who never slumbers is upon me. — Thomas Chalmers

Most grandmas have a touch of the scallywag. — Helen Thomson

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. — Faith Whittlesey

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul. — Michel de Montaigne

The whole value of solitude depends upon one's self; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it. -- John Lubbock

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease. — William Osler

It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men. — C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road. — John Henry Jowett

God is a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade, or only like foam on the sea shore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. — C.S. Lewis: "Screwtape"

One of life's gifts is that each of us, no matter how tired and downtrodden, finds reasons for thankfulness: for the crops carried in from the fields and the grapes from the vineyard — J. Robert Moskin

Except ye become as little children, except you can wake on your fiftieth birthday with the same forward-looking excitement and interest in life that you enjoyed when you were five, "ye cannot enter the kingdom of God." One must not only die daily, but every day we must be born again. — Dorothy L. Sayers

The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes the most urgent thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest. — Ashleigh Brilliant

If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. — Moses (to God), Bible - Exodus 33:15

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle. — Vincent van Gogh

By virtue of being born to humanity, every human being has a right to the development and fulfillment of his potentialities as a human being. — Ashley Montagu

The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you're learning you're not old. — Rosalyn S. Yalow

Always make your presence felt, in such a way that somebody misses you, but let not your absence be so long that somebody starts learning to live without you. — Pope Benedict XVI

Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. If I study hard, will I become a bad person? — Author Unknown

Yet, if he would, man cannot live all to this world. If not religious, he will be superstitious. IF he worship not the true God, he will have his idols. — Theodore Parker

Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age. — William Feather

Kissing is like drinking salted water. You drink, and your thirst increases. — Chinese Proverb

That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger. — George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking. — Jessamyn West

Our current obsession with creativity is the result of our continued striving for immortality in an era when most people no longer believe in an after-life. — Arianna Stassinopoulos

Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity; yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage. — Sydney J. Harris

We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory. — Unknown

If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work. — William Shakespeare

You may think it's easier to de-ice your windshield with a flamethrower, but there are repercussions. Serious repercussions. — Homer Simpson

History as a discipline can be characterized as having a collective forgetfulness about women. — Clarice Stasz Stoll

When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality. — Muriel Spark

For fast acting relief, try slowing down — Lily Tomlin

The only routine with me is no routine at all. — Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Sacrificing your happiness for the happiness of the one you love, is by far, the truest type of love. — Author Unknown

Sorry about the delay—it was my Anniversary!!!

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese

Sorry about the delay—it was my Anniversary!!!

Sometimes it's important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it's essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow. —Douglas Pagels, These Are the Gifts I'd Like to Give to You

Sorry about the delay—it was my Anniversary!!!

More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse. — Doug Larson

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!!! (26)

Chains do not hold a marriage together.  It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. — Simone Signoret

In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce.  The trick is to find, and continue to find, grounds for marriage. — Robert Anderson, Solitaire & Double Solitaire

Nobody succeeds beyond his or her wildest expectations unless he or she begins with some wild expectations. — Ralph Charell

Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth! — Jim Elliot

Letting go is one of the most bittersweet, God-given challenges a parent will ever face. — Elisa Morgan

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance. — Confucius

The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts. — Henry Moore

An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing. — Samuel Smiles

Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times. — Anonymous

Grandchildren don't make a man feel old; it's the knowledge that he's married to a grandmother. — G. Norman Collie

History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.— Winston Churchill

It's amazing how grandparents seem so young once you become one. — Author Unknown

Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation. — Charlotte Bronte

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning "Good morning" at total strangers. — Maya Angelou

For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire. — William Butler Yeats

It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men.— C.S. Lewis

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. — Author Unknown

Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still. — Robert Sternberg

I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by. — Douglas Adams

Every time you date someone with an issue that you have to work to ignore, you're settling. — Author Unknown

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while. — Kin Hubbard

Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end. — Author Unknown

Whatever we worship, short of God, is sure to be our undoing. — Mignon McLaughlin

American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers. — William Somerset Maugham

In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read.—S. I. Hayakawa

When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have. -- Stephen Hawking

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.— T.S. Eliot

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. — C. S. Lewis

Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment. — Pearl S. Buck

Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.—Edward Young

All that I know of tomorrow is that Providence will rise before the sun. — Jean Baptiste Lacordaire

For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three. — Alice Kahn

People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable. Actually, all human problems, excepting morals, come into the gray areas. Things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. — John Lubbock

The important thing is this, to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. — Charles DuBois

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. — Doug Larson

That thing, that moment, when you kiss someone and everything around becomes hazy and the only thing in focus is you and this person and you realize that that person is the only person that you're supposed to kiss for the rest of your life, and for one moment you get this amazing gift and you want to laugh and you want to cry because you feel so lucky that you found it and so scared that that it will go away all at the same time. — Drew Barrymore

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men. — Herman Melville

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it. — Soren Kierkegaard

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. — C. S. Lewis

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. — Henry David Thoreau

There is no greater excitement than to support an intellectual wife and have her support you. Marriage is a partnership in which each inspires the other, and brings fruition to both of you. — Millicent Carey McIntosh

Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone's task is unique as his specific opportunity. — Viktor Frankl

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. — C. S. Lewis

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting. — Samuel Johnson

You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake. — Bob Hope

It is not our circumstances that create our discontent or contentment. It is us. — Vivian Greene

My favorite color is chocolate. — Homer Simpson

Worship is first and foremost for His [God's] benefit, not ours, though it is marvelous to discover that in giving Him pleasure, we ourselves enter into what can become our richest and most wholesome experience in life. — Graham Kendrick

Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy. — Robert Anthony

Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen? — Friedrich Nietzsche

What makes us discontented with our condition is the absurdly exaggerated idea we have of the happiness of others. — French Proverb

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it. — Henry Ford

As you begin changing your thinking, start immediately to change your behaviour. Begin to act the part of the person you would like to become. Take action on your behaviour. Too many people want to feel, then take action. This never works. — John Maxwell

No one, ever, wrote anything as well even after one drink as he would have done with out it. — Ring Lardner

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. — C. S. Lewis

If you feel like you have something to hide, it's because you know inside that something isn't right with the situation. — Author Unknown

If you come to a fork in the road, take it. — Yogi Berra

There is no remedy for love but to love more. — Henry David Thoreau

Enjoy yourself—it's later than you think. — Chinese saying

Did you know babies are nauseated by the smell of a clean shirt? — Jeff Foxworthy

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: The last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. — Victor Frankl

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way." — C. S. Lewis

Our problem in American today is that we expect the organization to do what the organism used to do. We are hiring out the work of loving our neighbors! — Roger Ciskie

You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea. — Pearl S. Buck

Everything is okay in the end. And if it's not okay, then it's not the end. — Author Unknown

Life has become a little less sweet, death a little less bitter, heaven a little more real. — Puritan Proverb (variation)

God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one person I can change, and the wisdom to know it's me. — Author Unknown

If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job. — Donald D. Quinn

Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos. — Charles M. Schulz

It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much. — Yogi Berra

(In honor of a family gathering!)

I cannot look into the future...and say, "This is going to happen to me and I'm so scared." I can't wake up every morning and say, "Oh, my gosh, I'm going to die." You know, I wake up every morning and I say, "I'm going to live," and I strive to meet that goal. — Abraham Cherrix (16-year-old with cancer)

To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour. — Winston Churchill

Boy, (noun):  a noise with dirt on it. — Not Your Average Dictionary

She laughs at everything you say. Why? Because she has fine teeth. — Benjamin Franklin

A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year. — Paul Sweeney

An anniversary says, "Think of the dreams you have weathered together. They are intimate accomplishments." — Charles R. Swindoll

Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted. — Paul Pearshall

I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them. — Mark Twain

We have a God who is infinitely good and who knows what He is doing. He will come and deliver you from your present trouble in His perfect time and when you may least expect it. Hope in Him more than ever....Encourage yourself with His love and thank Him for everything. — Brother Lawrence

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance. — Jane Austen

Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man. — Leon Trotsky

...We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. You were born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us.... — Nelson Mandela

You are worried about seeing him [your child] spend his early years in doing nothing.  What!  Is it nothing to be happy?  Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long?  Never in his life will he be so busy again. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it, you may be smart enough to see, is what you would have wanted had you known. — Garrison Keillor

There will be a time when loud-mouthed, incompetent people seem to be getting the best of you. When that happens, you only have to be patient and wait for them to self destruct. It never fails. — Richard Rybolt

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise. — Robert Fritz

When facing a crisis, a simple tactic of the Enemy is to convince us we have to focus on the whole war. — Zoe Seed