How we spend our days is of course
by Annie Dillard

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

Related topics: Wisdom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

We all live with the objective of being happy;
our lives are all different and yet the same.
- Anne Frank

All our dreams can come true,
if we have the courage to pursue them.
- Walt Disney

We have only this moment,
sparkling like a star in our hand -
and melting like a snowflake.
- Marie B. Ray

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson

Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

What we think, we become.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.
- The Buddha

The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe,
our class, and our nation;
and this means we must develop a world perspective.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is our choices ... that show what we truly are,
far more than our abilities.
- J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets)

We cannot choose our external circumstances,
but we can always choose how to respond to them.
- Epictetus

"Hurry up" ranks right up there with "you need to"
as a destroyer of our humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our Joy comes from living our own lives simply -
never from demanding that others live simply -
or from ever making any demands whatsoever upon others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

As we work to create light for others,
we naturally light our own way.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Our faith gives us knowledge of something better.
- E. F. Schumacher

Only when life is difficult,
are we challenged to become our greatest selves.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The winds of grace are always blowing;
all we need to do is raise our sails.
- Anonymous

The greater our knowledge increases
the more our ignorance unfolds.
- John F. Kennedy

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When the vast cathedral of our being
becomes a sanctuary for all creation,
we become the face of God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We censor our actions, but
our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If we would guide by the light of reason
we must let our minds be bold.
- Louis D. Brandeis

We first make our habits, then our habits make us.
- John Dryden

At all times and under all circumstances,
we have the power to transform the quality of our lives.
- Werner Erhard

Could we change our attitude,
we should not only see life differently,
but life itself would be different.
- Katherine Mansfield

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves.
The process never ends until we die.
And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence -
is the key to unlocking our potential.
- Winston Churchill

The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly.
The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

May we so love as never to have occasion
to repent of our love!
- Henry David Thoreau

Love is the great miracle cure.
Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.
- Louise L. Hay

This is our moment, this is our time.
- Bono

We must teach our children to resolve
their conflicts with words, not weapons.
- William J. Clinton

What power there is in our service when our actions
line up with our mission, skills and joy.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

We must be proactive in our love
in order for it to change our lives.
- Marianne Williamson

There is a secret wisdom-of-the-ages
that holds the key to breaking
our cycle of self-imposed suffering.
The secret wisdom is,
"Life is not supposed to be fair."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We cannot solve our problems with the same
thinking we used when we created them.
- Albert Einstein

Our lives are defined not by the challenges we encounter,
but by how we respond to those challenges.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The universe is wider than our views of it.
- Henry David Thoreau

If we don't see a failure as a challenge to modify our approach,
but rather as a problem with ourselves, as a personality defect,
we will immediately feel overwhelmed.
- Anthony Robbins

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection,
not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.
- Martin Luther

The reason why men do not obey us,
is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Most everything in life is about our
point-of-view rather than any absolute.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.
The most certain way to succeed
is always to try just one more time.
- Thomas A. Edison

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