Quotes by Annie Dillard

How we spend our days is of course
how we spend our lives.
- Annie Dillard

Related topics: Wisdom

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

Give me six hours to chop down a tree
and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
- Abraham Lincoln

Many people allow their need
for other people's approval to control their lives.
They spend their lives worrying about what others think of them.
- Rick Warren

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Yesterday is a canceled check;
tomorrow is a
promissory note;
today is the only cash you have;
so spend it wisely.
- Kay Lyons

Instead of worrying about what people say of you,
why not spend time trying to accomplish
something they will admire.
- Dale Carnegie

Spend some time alone every day.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree,
I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
- Abraham Lincoln

None is more impoverished than the one who has no gratitude.
Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves,
and spend without fear of bankruptcy.
- Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm,
you'll never enjoy the sunshine.
- Morris West

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil.
If they would only expend the same
amount of energy loving their fellow men,
the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
- Helen Keller

Today, I Will Spend Time In Silence.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To a very young child, mommy and daddy are gods.
We spend our lives looking to regain
that sense of being cared for and protected.
Thus religion.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Spend time every day listening to what your muse is trying to tell you.
- Saint Bartholomew

While most managers spend their time attempting
to predict the future accurately -
and while that's valuable -
the best managers are able to generate a future
which was not going to happen otherwise -
that is, a future which was not predictable.
- Werner Erhard

Too many people spend money they haven't earned,
to buy things they don't want,
to impress people they don't like.
- Will Rogers

Most of us spend our lives as if
we have another one in the bank.
- Ben Irwin

It is your own life, certainly, to spend as you choose.
- Tanya, from Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer

Keep close to Nature's heart...
and break clear away, once in awhile,
and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods.
Wash your spirit clean.
- John Muir

While you can and should keep your composure and happiness
regardless of circumstances - regardless of your friends,
family and co-workers - regardless of gossip, sarcasm, and negativity.
Nonetheless, life is much easier and more pleasant
when you spend as much time as possible
in the company of enthusiastic positive people -
not necessarily those who agree with you,
but those who respect your right to your point of view.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If we spend the time we waste in sighing
for the perfect golden fruit
in fulfilling the conditions of its growth,
happiness will come, must come.
It is guaranteed in the very laws of the universe.
If it involves some chastening and renunciation, well,
the fruit will be all the sweeter for this touch of holiness.
- Helen Keller

"Mother Teresa Prayer"
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
... Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
... Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some
false friends and some true enemies;
... Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
... Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
... Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
... Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
... Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
... Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
We can do no great things - only small things with great love.
- although commonly attributed to Mother Teresa,
who kept a copy of this prayer on
the wall of her Calcutta orphanage,
this prayer was actually written by Kent Keith.

Marriages don't last. When I meet a guy,
the first question I ask myself is:
is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?
- Rita Rudner

Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money
they don't have for something they don't need.
- Will Rogers

A nation that continues year after year
to spend more money on military defense
than on programs of social uplift
is approaching spiritual doom.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never spend your money before you have earned it.
- Thomas Jefferson

Whenever I date a guy, I think,
"Is this the man I want my children
to spend their weekends with?"
- Rita Rudner

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles;
but today it means getting along with people.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
The secret of getting started is
breaking your complex overwhelming tasks
into small manageable tasks,
and starting on the first one.
- Mark Twain

Motivation is the art of getting people to do
what you want them to do because they want to do it.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The indispensable first step to getting
the things you want out of life is this:
Decide what you want.
- Ben Stein

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid
as getting to know how enormously much
he is capable of doing and becoming.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Do not think that love,
in order to be genuine,
has to be extraordinary.
What we need is to love without getting tired.
- Mother Teresa

You create stress in your life by getting angry,
and you can instantly remove
that stress by granting forgiveness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When you keep getting the wrong answers,
try asking better questions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What you don't do daily, you probably won't do weekly either.
What you make a habit of putting-off
just keeps getting pushed away again and again.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Happiness isn't at the end of the rainbow.
Happiness is at the beginning of the rainbow.
Following the rainbow is happiness,
not getting to the end of it.
- Werner Erhard

Besides the noble art of getting things done,
there is the noble art of leaving things undone.
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
- Lin Yutang

Remember that not getting what you want
is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

What people often mean by getting rid of conflict
is getting rid of diversity,
and it is of the utmost importance
that these should not be considered the same.
- M. P. Follett

Getting old is a fascination thing.
The older you get, the older you want to get.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Remember that the happiest people
are not those getting more, but those giving more.
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Success is getting what you want;
happiness is wanting what you get.
- Dale Carnegie

Every day in every way I am getting better and better.
- Anonymous

Many important things shouldn't be done half-way.
Think of getting married, having children,
starting a business, changing your career.
There are times to gather your courage
and make the leap, the whole leap.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't
come as a result of getting something we don't have,
but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
- Frederick Koenig

When we hate our enemies, we are
giving them power over us:
power over our sleep, our appetites,
our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.
Our enemies would dance with joy if only
they knew how they were worrying us,
lacerating us, and getting even with us!
Our hate is not hurting them at all,
but our hate is turning our own days
and nights into a hellish turmoil.
- Dale Carnegie

Not getting what you want
is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
- Dalai Lama

We are always getting ready to live but never living.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

In a bad marriage, friends are the invisible glue.
If we have enough friends, we may go on for years,
intending to leave, talking about leaving -
instead of actually getting up and leaving.
- Erica Jong

"Think simple" as my old master used to say -
meaning reduce the whole of its parts
into the simplest terms,
getting back to first principles.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Going with the flow doesn't mean that we don't know where we're going;
it means that we are open to multiple ways of getting there.
Going with the flow means that we are aware of an energy
that is larger than our small selves,
and we are open to working with it, not against it.
- Madisyn Taylor

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes
the greater part of his life getting his living.
- Henry David Thoreau

To let go means to give up coercing, resisting, or struggling,
in exchange for something more powerful and wholesome
which comes out of allowing things to be as they are
without getting caught up in your attraction to or rejection of them,
in the intrinsic stickiness of wanting, of liking and disliking.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Everything that is worthwhile in life is scary.
Choosing a school, choosing a career,
getting married, having kids -
all those things are scary.
If it is not fearful, it is not worthwhile.
- Paul Tornier

Above all, meditation is about letting the mind be as it is
and knowing something about how it is in this moment.
It�s not about getting somewhere else,
but about allowing yourself to be where you already are.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Pain is a difficult companion. There's no getting around that.
But, if pain is to be a companion, searching and discovering
your own best ways to travel with that pain
will lead you to the joy that you long to have.
They are your paths, your ways and while my experience
and the experiences of others may inspire you,
ultimately it will be the choices you discover
and make for yourself that lead you to certain joy
in the midst of your challenges.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

One great thing about getting old is that
you can get out of all sorts of social obligations
just by saying you're too tired.
- George Carlin

Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
- Will Rogers

Getting fired is nature's way to telling you
that you had the wrong job in the first place.
- Hal Lancaster

Getting married is a lot like getting into a tub of hot water.
After you get used to it, it ain't so hot.
- Minnie Pearl

When your friends begin to flatter
you on how young you look,
it's a sure sign you're getting old.
- Mark Twain

To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love.
But then one suffers from not loving.
Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer;
to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love.
To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy.
Therefore, to be unhappy, one must love
or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.
I hope you're getting this down.
- the movie Love and Death

Getting divorced just because you don't love a man
is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.
- Zsa Zsa Gabor

Capitalism tries for a delicate balance:
It attempts to work things out so that
everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from
getting violent and trying to take other people's stuff.
- George Carlin

Leadership is the art of getting someone else
to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

If you don't take full responsibility
for your own happiness,
who do you suppose will?
Your happiness is a one person job -
it begins and ends with you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The right mixture of caring and not caring -
I suppose that's what love is.
- James Hilton

Suppose our gratitude could be zero-based gratitude.
With zero-based gratitude,
we would be grateful for everything we had each day -
regardless of whether it was more or less than yesterday.
With zero-based gratitude, I can be grateful for all the people,
the love, the food, the shelter, the services,
the health, that I am blessed with today,
regardless of what I had yesterday.
With zero-based gratitude,
I can be grateful each day for the gift of life itself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

"Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything."
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

Suppose you were an idiot,
and suppose you were a member of Congress;
but I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie