Great Throughts Treasury

"The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There are no real failures in life, only results. There are no true tragedies, only lessons. And there really are no problems, only opportunities waiting to be recognized as solutions by the person of wisdom." - Robin Sharma

"We have lost touch with our humanity. We have lost touch with our purpose. We have lost sight of the things that matter the most… How many lives will you touch… what legacy will you leave behind… How can I find greater meaning in my life?... My answer always begins the same way: Find your calling. I believe we all have special talents that are just waiting to be engaged in a worthy pursuit. We are all here for some unique purpose, some noble objective that will allow us to manifest our highest human potential, while we, at the same time, add value to the lives around us." - Robin Sharma

"No one, no thing, is without a spirit. The spirit of a man who knows no spiritual things still exists, but is only resting in the reality of spirit, waiting to be awakened and used. All we have to do is to find that spirit through the guidance of Inner Vision and then awaken that spirit. Even those who once showed no spiritual knowledge know their spirit has been touched. If you can then heal the spirit, and heal that spirit with enough belief and power, then the power transcends the spirit and makes itself manifest in the flesh. But remember, we are just a bridge, a vessel, to be used by the Creator, and it is not us who decide to use the power." - Tom Brown, Jr.

"No one, no thing, is without a spirit. The spirit of a man who knows no spiritual things still exists, but is only resting in the reality of spirit, waiting to be awakened and used... We are just a bridge, a vessel, to be used by the Creator, and it is not us who decide to use the power." - Tom Brown, Jr.

"The one fact I would cry from every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us - here and now!... At this very moment we have the necessary techniques, both material and psychological, to create and full and satisfying life." - B. F. Skinner, fully Burrhus Frederic "B.F." Skinner

"What is important is not what someone is but what he is waiting for. Not the events of life but its possibilities." - Dorothee Söelle

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to live the life that is waiting for us. " - E. M. Forster, fully Edward Morgan Forster

"Opportunity ideas do not lie around waiting to be discovered. Such ideas need to be produced. " - Edward de Bono

"Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing. " - G. M. Trevelyan, fully George Macaulay Trevelyan

"You cannot afford to wait for perfect conditions. Goal setting is often a matter of balancing timing against available resources. Opportunities are easily lost while waiting for perfect conditions." - Gary Ryan Blair

"Because anarchism is in its essence an anti-dogmatic and unstructured cluster of related attitudes, which does not depend for its existence on any enduring organization, it can flourish when circumstances are favourable and then, like a desert plant, lie dormant for seasons and even for years, waiting for the rains that will make it burgeon. Unlike an ordinary political faith, in which the church-party becomes the vehicle of the dogma, it does not need a movement to carry it forward." - George Woodcock

"To search means, first, I need Being, Truth; second, I do not know where to find it; and third, an action takes place that is not based on fantasies of certainty— while at the same time a waiting takes place that is rooted not in wishful thinking but in a deep sense of urgency" - Jacob Needleman

"Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing." - John Andrew Holmes

"The workers of the nation were tired of waiting for corporate industry to right their economic wrongs, to alleviate their social agony and to grant them their political rights. Despairing of fair treatment, they resolved to do something for themselves. " - John L. Lewis, fully John Llewellyn Lewis

"The workers of the nation were tired of waiting for corporate industry to right their economic wrongs, to alleviate their social agony and to grant them their political rights. Despairing of fair treatment, they resolved to do something for themselves." - John L. Lewis, fully John Llewellyn Lewis

"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us." - Joseph Campbell

"If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be." - Joseph Campbell

"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning." - Joseph Priestley

"If one were to build the house of happiness, the largest space would be the waiting room." - Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard

"The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt." - Leo Busacaglia

"I would not sit waiting for some vague tomorrow, nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime, and find nothing at the end of the waiting. I would begin here, I would make something happen." - Louis L'Amour, fully Louis Dearborn L'Amour

"We always keep God waiting while we admit more importunate suitors." - Malcolm de Chazal

"Whithersoever they may flee, there is God. Wherever they find themselves, once more they flee away, for God is everywhere. Ever more desperately they flee; but God is already in every place, waiting for them to come...Ever more desperately they fling themselves away, but they can only fling themselves so far, because they have torn themselves away from God...Yet God's power is still manifested in man's tearing himself away from God...They are being hunted by God and they can move so swiftly only because he hunts them. Even this is God's love, that he, he and no other, wills to pursue the fleeing, so that he, the swiftest, may always be the nearest to those in flight." - Max Picard

"Silence contains everything within itself. It is not waiting for anything; it is always wholly present in itself and it completely fills out the space in which it appears." - Max Picard

"A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face." - Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson

"The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next. The difference between the two is the difference between living fully and just existing." - Michael E. Gerber

"Your heart is full of fertile seeds, waiting to sprout." - Morihei Ueshiba

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

"It seems strange to think that my violin was once a tree, but I do not know what else could have caught the music that lies within it, waiting for the touch. It must be centuries old, and through all those years it was the listening and the learning, weaving in with its growth the forest melodies to sing to generations yet unborn. Wind and wave and song of bird, crash of thunder, drip of rain, and mating-call-all these are in the fibre of my violin. And the thousand notes of sea and storm, the music of the waterfall and stream-what wonder that it is so nearly the human voice! There must have been a love story in that forest, for it sings love, love, and only love, though I do not remember of hearing it until I knew you. Perhaps you have taught it a new melody-stranger things have happened-and it has learned your lesson best." - Myrtle Reed

"Most of us go through life as failures, because we are waiting for the "time to be right" to start doing something worthwhile. Do not wait. The time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along." - Napoleon Hill

"Potentially evil. Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality waiting to be shaped." - Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman

"We cannot set aside an hour for discussion with our children and hope that it will be a time of deep encounter. The special moments of intimacy are more likely to happen while baking a cake together, or playing hide and seek, or just sitting in the waiting room of the orthodontist. " - Neil Kurshan

"God is not a thing, it is an attitude, an attitude of celebration and festivity. Drop sadness. He is so close by; dance! Drop long faces, it is sacrilege — because He is so close by. Forget your childish miseries and worries; He is so close by. Don’t go on brooding about immaterial things; He is so close by. Allow Him to hold your hand. He has been waiting for you for long. As your silence grows; your friendliness, your love grows; your life becomes a moment-to-moment dance, a joy, a celebration." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

"The thoughts that predominate at the time of death can bring you either salvation — if your supreme desire is for God — or rebirth. If you are filled with worldly desires, those thoughts impinge themselves on the subtle body and bring the soul back into another earthly incarnation. The sum total of past actions and unfulfilled desires determines what kind of body you will have, and sets the general pattern of your new incarnation. Just as the form of a huge banyan tree lies hidden in a tiny seed, awaiting favorable conditions for germination; or as the sounds of a record are secreted in its grooves, waiting for the touch of the needle to bring them out, so the past-life tendencies carried in the subtle body become manifested through the medium of a new incarnation." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"Dream and love are just words - until you decide to experience them… Dreaming is very pleasant as long as you are not forced to put your dreams into practice. That way, we avoid all the risks, frustrations and difficulties, and when we are old, we can always blame other people - preferably our parents, our spouses or our children - for our failure to realize our dreams… Dreams are the language of God… Dreams nourish the soul just as food nourishes the body. The pleasure of the search and of adventure feeds our dreams… Hurry up: your dreams are waiting for you, but they will not wait forever." - Paulo Coelho

"To the warriors of light, there is no such thing as impossible love. They don’t allow themselves to be intimidated by silence, or by rejection. They know that – behind the icy mask people wear – there is a heart of fire. That is why the warriors risk more than others. They tirelessly seek love – even if this means hearing, many times over, the word ‘no’, returning home defeated, feeling rejected in body and soul. Warriors don’t allow themselves to be discouraged. Without love, live has no meaning… Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering." - Paulo Coelho

"Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meeting are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes directions… Dreams mean work… Go further than you planned. Ask for the moon: you will be surprised how often you get it. " - Paulo Coelho

"For many, negative thinking is a habit, which over time, becomes an addiction... A lot of people suffer from this disease because negative thinking is addictive to each of the Big Three -- the mind, the body, and the emotions. If one doesn't get you, the others are waiting in the wings." - Peter McWilliams, fully Peter Alexander McWilliams

"The daily circumstances of life will afford us opportunities enough of glorifying God in trust, without our waiting for any extraordinary calls upon faith, our faith. Let us remember that the extraordinary circumstances of life are but few; that much of life may slip past without their occurrence; and that if we be not faithful and trusting in that which is little, we are not likely to be so in that which is great... Let our trust be reared in the humble nursery of our own daily experience, with its ever recurring little wants and trials, and sorrows; and then, when need be, it will come forth, to do such great things as are required of it." - Philip Bennett Power

"Since half the human beings who apply to a doctor for care arrive in the waiting room with a psychological cause for their physical complaint, it is necessary only to convince them that the treatment is going to succeed for it to do so." - Philip Wylie, fully Philip Gordon Wylie

"Moses assigned to the body its proper tasks and similarly to the soul what falls to its share, and his earnest desire was, that the two should be waiting to relieve each other. Thus, while the body is working, the soul enjoys a respite, but when the body takes its rest, the soul resumes its work, and thus the best forms of life, the theoretical and the practical, take their turns in replacing each other. The practical life has six as its number allotted for ministering to the body. The theoretical has seven for knowledge and perfection of the mind." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

"For, by your research, your unveiling of the secrets of nature, and your teaching of men to direct the forces of nature toward their own welfare, you preach at the same time, in the language of figures, formulae and discoveries, the inexpressible harmony of the work of an all-wise God. In fact, according to the measure of its progress, and contrary to affirmations advanced in the past, true science discovers God in an ever-increasing degree-as though God were waiting behind every door opened by science. We would even say that from this progressive discovery of God, which is realized in the increase of knowledge, there flow benefits not only for the scientist himself when he reflects as a philosopher-and how can he escape such reflection?-but also for those who share in these new discoveries or make them the object of their own considerations. Genuine philosophers profit from these discoveries in a very special way, because when they take these scientific conquests as the basis for their rational speculations, their conclusions thereby acquire greater certainty, while they are provided with clearer illustrations in the midst of possible shadows and more convincing assistance in establishing an ever more satisfying response to difficulties and objections." - Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli NULL

"Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word it always was. Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. " -

"Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word it always was. Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. " - Rosamunde Pilcher, also pen name Jane Fraser

"The first step is to take weapons off the streets and to put more police on them. The Brady Bill, which my husband signed into law in 1995, imposes a 5-day waiting period for gun purchases; time enough for authorities to check out a buyer's record and for the buyer to cool down about any conflict he might have intended the gun to resolve. Since it was enacted, more than 40,000 people with criminal records have been prevented from buying guns. The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act banned 19 types of military-style assault weapons whose only purpose is to kill people… As part of a zero tolerance policy for weapons, drugs, and other threats to the safety of teachers and students, the President signed an executive order decreeing that any student who comes to school with a gun will be expelled and punished as a condition of federal aid." - Hillary Rodham Clinton

"Life is a Mystery, not a problem waiting to be solved. " - Albert Einstein

"Mozart is the greatest composer of all. Beethoven created his music, but the music of Mozart is of such purity and beauty that one feels he merely found it - that it has always existed as part of the inner beauty of the universe waiting to be revealed." - Albert Einstein

"The cock and the owl both await daylight. The light, says the cock, brings me delight; but what in the world art thou waiting for?" - Rabbinical Proverbs

"How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke