Sowing Quotes

The season of failure is the best time
for sowing the seeds of success.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Related topics: Motivational Perseverance

Today's acorns grow into the oak trees of thirty years hence.
But what acorns are we sowing today?
Imagine what an acorn-sized bit of prejudice or hatred would grow into.
Imagine what an acorn-sized bit of pollution can become.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
- St. Francis of Assisi

Through violence, you may 'solve' one problem,
but you sow the seeds for another.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

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

If you plan for a year, plant a seed.
If for ten years, plant a tree.
If for a hundred years, teach the people.
When you sow a seed once, you will reap a single harvest.
When you teach the people, you will reap a hundred harvests.
- Kuan Chung

Where there is injury let me sow pardon.
- St. Francis of Assisi

Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower.
Dream your dream to the sky
and it will bring you your beloved.
- Khalil Gibran

As you sow, so shall you reap.
- Galatians 6:7

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
...
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
- attributed to St. Francis of Assisi

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
- although attributed to St. Francis of Assisi,
this prayer first appeared (written in French) in 1912

Who sows virtue reaps honor.
- Leonardo da Vinci

He who sows hurry reaps indigestion.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

There is a good ear, in some men,
that draws supplies to virtue
out of very indifferent nutriment.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue;
Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.
- Lao Tzu

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue,
but the parent of all other virtues.
- Cicero

A thankful heart is the greatest virtue.
- Cicero

There's a point... when you have to choose
whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life,
or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.
- Ursula K. Le Guin

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable
who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.
- Joseph Addison

When virtue is lost, benevolence appears,
when benevolence is lost right conduct appears,
when right conduct is lost, expedience appears.
Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth;
it is the beginning of disorder.
- Lao Tzu

The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.
- Anatole France

The only reward of virtue is virtue;
the only way to have a friend is to be one.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you doubt the virtue in self-honor,
remember what the flight attendant says,
"Put your own oxygen mask on first."
You are of no use to anyone else
if you have not taken care of your own needs first -
this includes your own emotional,
as well as physical, well-being.
In addition, your greatest value to your children,
your family, your friends, and your community
is the example you set, leading a great life that inspires
those around you to emulate your being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes,
but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
- Alfred North Whitehead

Consider a parent who says,
"Look at the sacrifices I'm making so you can have a better life."
Contrast that with another parent who demonstrates
living a great life every day.
Self-sacrifice is not a virtue.
Living a great life and sharing that life with others
is the noble way to live.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge
on their children rather than virtue,
the art of speaking well rather than doing well;
but their manners should be of the greatest concern.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked
than it is loved by the good.
- The Buddha

To enjoy good health,
to bring true happiness to one's family,
to bring peace to all, one must first
discipline and control one's own mind.
If a man can control his mind
he can find the way to Enlightenment,
and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.
- The Buddha

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace,
then progress in virtue is progress in each of these
for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us,
progress is always an approach toward it.
- Epictetus

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth,
so virtue appears from good deeds,
and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind.
To walk safely through the maze of human life,
one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.
- The Buddha

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor,
it covers the natural want of it,
and ends by rendering habitual a substitute
nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
- Thomas Jefferson

The Four Stages of Public Opinion
I (Just after publication): The novelty is absurd
and subversive of Religion and Morality.
The propounder both fool and knave.
II (Twenty years later): The Novelty is absolute Truth
and will yield a full and satisfactory
explanation of things in general -
The propounder a man of sublime genius and perfect virtue.
III (Forty years later): The Novelty won't explain
things in general after all, and therefore is a wretched failure.
The propounder a very ordinary person advertised by a clique.
IV (A century later): The Novelty a mixture of truth and error.
Explains as much as could reasonably be expected.
The propounder worthy of all honor
in spite of his share of human frailties,
as one who has added to the permanent possessions of science.
- Thomas Henry [T. H.] Huxley

The inherent vice of capitalism
is the unequal sharing of blessings;
the inherent virtue of socialism
is the equal sharing of miseries.
- Winston Churchill

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
- Oscar Wilde

As far as I'm concerned, I prefer
silent vice to ostentatious virtue.
- Albert Einstein

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
- George Washington

There is also something excellent in every audience,
the capacity of virtue.
They are ready to be beatified.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dependence begets subservience and venality,
suffocates the germ of virtue,
and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
- Thomas Jefferson

Socialism is a philosophy of failure,
the creed of ignorance,
and the gospel of envy,
its inherent virtue is
the equal sharing of misery.
- Winston Churchill

There is a natural aristocracy among men.
The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
- Thomas Jefferson

It is only the poor who pay cash,
and that not from virtue,
but because they are refused credit.
- Anatole France

No good comes from hurrying.
- Yiddish Proverb

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph
is for enough good men to do nothing.
- Edmund Burke

Write your Sad times in Sand,
Write your Good times in Stone.
- George Bernard Shaw

A good traveler has no fixed plans,
and is not intent on arriving.
- Lao Tzu

You have enemies? Good.
That means you've stood up for something,
sometime in your life.
- Winston Churchill

He who can no longer pause to wonder
and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead;
his eyes are closed.
- Albert Einstein

A true friend is someone who
thinks that you are a good egg
even though he knows that
you are slightly cracked.
- Bernard Meltzer

There is more value in a very good painting
that is completed and on display,
than in an excellent painting
that is still in the artist's studio,
or perhaps still in his mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Treat those who are good with goodness,
and also treat those who are not good with goodness.
Thus goodness is attained.
Be honest to those who are honest,
and be also honest to those who are not honest.
Thus honesty is attained.
- Lao Tzu

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves
to recognize how good things really are.
- Marianne Williamson

The River of Life has no meaning,
no good, no bad, no better, no worse,
no love, no hate, no fear, no anger, no joy.
The River of Life has no judgment, no expectation.
The River of Life just IS.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Many a man fails as an original thinker
simply because his memory is too good.
- Nietzsche

Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
- John D. Rockefeller

Aim above morality.
Be not simply good,
be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau

Be careful not to do your good deeds
when there's no one watching you.
- Tom Lehrer

Great and good are seldom the same man.
- Winston Churchill

In spite of everything, I still believe
that people are really good at heart.
I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation
consisting of confusion, misery and death.
- Anne Frank

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure
in doing good to another.
- Thomas Jefferson

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care
for people will hear them and be influenced
by them for good or ill.
- The Buddha

Play to win, but be a good loser.
Have a plan for your life,
but accept whatever comes your way
with grace and gratitude.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The bad news is time flies.
The good news is you're the pilot.
- Michael Althsuler

It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.
- William Shakespeare

Bad times have a scientific value.
These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

About morals: I know only that
what is moral is what you feel good after
and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
- Ernest Hemingway

Good things happen to those who hustle.
- Anais Nin

It is not enough to have a good mind,
the main thing is to use it well.
- Rene Descartes

A good head and a good heart
are always a formidable combination.
- Nelson Mandela

Sometimes good things fall apart
so better things can fall together.
- Marilyn Monroe

I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything,
I still believe that people are really good at heart.
- Anne Frank

Far from idleness being the root of all evil,
it is rather the only true good.
- Soren Kierkegaard

An ounce of conscious choice is worth a pound of good fortune.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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