from the pen of C.S. Lewis

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

-C.S. Lewis

Vincent Van Gogh said...

I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.

Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.

Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.

One must work and dare if one really wants to live.

I want to use colors that complement each other, that cause each other to shine brilliantly, that complete each other like a man and a woman.

A commonplace life, we say and we sigh,

But why should we sigh as we say?

The commonplace sun and the commonplace sky

Makes up the commonplace day.

The moon and the stars are commonplace things,

And the flower that blooms and the bird that sings;

But dark were the world and sad our lot,

If the flowers failed and the sun shone not.

And God who studies each separate soul

Out of the commonplace lives makes His beautiful whole.

Anonymous

" To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one's self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded."

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Genuine listening means suspending memory, desire, and judgment —

and, for a moment at least, existing for the other person.

— Michael P. Nichols

"Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory."-

Susan B. Anthony

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought,

and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

~G.K. Chesterton

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

G.K. Chesterton

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love!

Hamilton Wright Mabie

Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.

Mary Ellen Chase

I wish I could put some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.

-Harlan Mill

I'm wishing at this Christmastime that I could but repay a portion

of the gladness that you've strewn along my way.

-Edgar A. Guest

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

Leonardo DaVinci

There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude,

a quiet joy.

Ralph H. Brown

We can only be said to be alive in those

moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

Thornton Wilder

"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event.

You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not

enchantment then where is it to be found?"

~J. B. Priestley

" On motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels..."

Charles Dickens

" I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. so I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air."

N. Hawthorne

" Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand. "

-Mark Twain

"Beauty is one of the rare things which does not lead to doubt of God."

— Jean Anouilh