Decline Quotes

Give your time and efforts freely or not at all.
When you are tempted to say,
"Oh, if I have to, I'll skip my golf game
and watch my daughter play soccer," don't do it.
Either generate the heart-felt emotion
to make the free-will gift,
"I'd love to watch your game today, Sandy,"
or the honesty to decline the request gracefully.
Martyrdom doesn't create happiness
for any of the parties involved.
An honest, "No" is preferable to a coerced "Yes."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ
in color for a full hour,
there would be a considerable number of stations
which would decline to carry it on the grounds
that a Western or a quiz show would be more profitable.
- Edward R. Murrow

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort,
should, when young, consider that he may one day become old,
and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.
- Joseph Addison

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to Dance in the Rain.
- Vivian Greene

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

Wonder what opportunities you pass, unwittingly,
because your hands are so busy clasping
what you think you have always known.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Doubt is the vestibule which we all must pass through
before we can enter the temple of truth.
- Osho

We cling to our own point of view,
as though everything depended on it.
Yet our opinions have no permanence;
like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.
- Zhuangzi

A wise man will make haste to forgive,
because he knows the true value of time,
and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
- Samuel Johnson

Do not seek to bring things to pass
in accordance with your wishes,
but wish for them as they are,
and you will find them.
- Epictetus

Dreams pass into the reality of action.
From the actions stems the dream again;
and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.
- Anais Nin

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains,
at the huge waves of the sea,
at the long courses of rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars;
and they pass by themselves without wondering.
- St. Augustine

This too, shall pass.
- Bible

The world turns aside to let any man pass
who knows where he is going.
- Epictetus

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on.
It is never of any use to oneself.
- Oscar Wilde

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere,
and many of us will have to pass
through the valley of the shadow of death
again and again before we reach
the mountaintop of our desires.
- Nelson Mandela

And you would accept the seasons of your heart
just as you have always accepted
that seasons pass over your fields
and you would watch with serenity
through the winters of your grief.
- Khalil Gibran

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
its loveliness increases;
it will never pass into nothingness.
- John Keats

A great gift requires two people,
the giver and the receiver.
Think of a football pass -
skillfully catching the pass, the gift,
is fully as important, and difficult, as throwing it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I expect to pass through this world but once.
Any good therefore that I can do,
or any kindness that I can show to my fellow-creature,
let me do it now.
Let me not defer or neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again.
- William Penn

Look closely... See with new eyes...
Don't just pass by what is familiar without a thought.
Pay attention and look closely.
There is beauty - there is discovery -
there in a whole new world hiding
beneath the face of the familiar.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Old friends pass away, new friends appear.
It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives.
The important thing is to make it meaningful:
a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman
in the midst of this world,
where each person is clinging to his piece of debris?
What's the proper salutation between people
as they pass each other in this flood?
- The Buddha

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary;
new, universal, and more liberal laws
will begin to establish themselves around and within him;
or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor
in a more liberal sense,
and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.
- Henry David Thoreau

A man is a god in ruins.
When men are innocent, life shall be longer,
and shall pass into the immortal,
as gently as we awake from dreams.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.
- Robert A. Heinlein

The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent
will not pass until there is
an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world
must first come to pass in the heart of America.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I always pass on good advice.
It is the only thing to do with it.
It is never of any use to oneself.
- Oscar Wilde

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show
by what road it will pass to destruction,
to wit: by consolidation of power first,
and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
- Thomas Jefferson

One minute you're in the lunchroom at Glenwood High
and you ... blink and you're 40,
you blink again and you can see movies
at half price on a senior citizen's pass.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, or to put it more accurately,
ask not for whom the toilet flushes.
- the Woody Allen movie Celebrity

Bringing a childlike wonder
and a beginner's mind to life
maximizes both success and joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is not supposed to be fair.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is a succession of lessons
which must be lived to be understood.
- Helen Keller

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

Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates.
You never know what you're gonna get.
- the movie Forrest Gump

Life is as easy or as hard as you think it is.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is best when I wish neither to hurry the future nor to slow it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is without meaning.
You bring the meaning to it.
The meaning of life is
whatever you ascribe it to be.
Being alive is the meaning.
- Joseph Campbell

Success is failure recycled.
Life is death reborn.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is really simple,
but we insist on making it complicated.
- Confucius

The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson

Life is always lived in the eye-of-the-storm
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The life of inner peace,
being harmonious and without stress,
is the easiest type of existence.
- Norman Vincent Peale

Life is too important to be taken seriously.
- Oscar Wilde

I have found that if you love life,
life will love you back.
- Arthur Rubinstein

The book of life is filled with incoherent riddles.
Life's true lessons are inscribed in a corner of the margin.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Change what you see,
by changing how you see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There are no facts, only interpretations.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

Life's burdens are lighter when I laugh at myself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

He who knows others is wise.
He who knows himself is enlightened.
- Lao Tzu

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow,
you gotta put up with the rain.
- Dolly Parton

Simply do your best, and you will avoid
self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
- don Miguel Ruiz

I Dream This Day of Wondrous Things,
of Peace and Hope and Pride.
I Dance My Dance with Life Today,
I'm Filled with Love Inside.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
- John Lennon

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

A time for work, a time for play -
balance in all things.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Laugh when you can,
apologize when you should,
and let go of what you can't change.
Life's too short to be anything... but happy.
- Anonymous

Happiness cannot thrive within the prison of obligation
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Move out of your comfort zone. You can only
grow if you are willing to feel awkward and
uncomfortable when you try something new.
- Brian Tracy

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.

Life is defined more by its contrasts than its samenesses;
Life is defined more by its risks than the many securities.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Life is a reflection of intent.
Love reflects love.
Hate reflects hate.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We Can Do It!
- WW II US Government Poster

You don't have the power to make life "fair,"
but you do have the power to make life joyful.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences.
No one can eliminate prejudices -
just recognize them.
- Edward R. Murrow

Life is lived in the living.
Set aside convention, caution,
and arbitrary "rules" about how
life is supposed to be lived.
Choose! Explore! Adventure!
Live life to the fullest.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Stand Tall, Stand Proud.
Know that you are unique and magnificent.
You do not need the approval of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared.
- The Buddha

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