How to be Cheerful

How to be cheerful, do you say,
When the wind is cold and the skies are gray?
How to be cheerful? Just one way:
Forget yourself for a while today.

Never mind self and your irksome cares.
Somebody else greater burden bears.
Stretch out a helping hand and play
The friend to all who may chance your way.

You'll never be cheerful sitting there
Sorrowing over the hurts your bear,
For never a joyous hour is known
By the man who thinks of himself alone.

How to be cheerful?  Scatter cheer;
Share your life with your neighbors here;
Encourage the weary and comfort the sad
And you'll find more joy than you've ever had.

 

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please check out an email i received today.  go to One Summers Day

quote by Eleanor Roosevelt

 You gain strength

courage, and confidence

by every experience in which

you really stop

to look fear in the face.

You are able to say to yourself,

"I lived through this horror.

I can take the next thing

that comes along."

....You must do the thing you

think you cannot do.

 

more random quotes

It is only important to love the world...to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.  --  Hermann Hesse

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.  I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.  --  Louisa May Alcott

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  --  Lao-Tse

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle.  Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.  --  Walt Whitman

To know the truth is easy; but, ah, how difficult to follow it.  --  from the chinese

In the mountains of truth you never climb in vain.  --  Friedrich Nietzsche

 

 

 

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all me doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those tow impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knave to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run--
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

 

Plea for Strength

Grant me the fighting spirit, grant me the rugged heart--
Grant me the inner courage in battle to do my part.
Whether the path be easy or thorny and rough and long,
Let me press on to the evening, willing and brave and strong.

Not from the cares that try me, would I be forever free.
All that I ask is patience for whatever my task may be;
Patience to wait the little brief while, till the work is done,
And the needed strength, and the courage, for the struggle that can be won.

Grant me the fighting spirit, and fashion me stout of will,
Arouse in me that strange something that fearfulness cannot chill.
Let me not whimper at hardship! This is the gift I ask:
Not ease and escape from trial, but srtength for the doubtful task.

quote by Anonymous

Every mountain

means

at least

two valleys.

quote by Smiles

We learn wisdom from failure

much more than

from success.

by Johann Wolfgang VonGoethe

My greatest wealth is

the deep stillness

in which I strive and grow

and win what the world

CANNOT take from me with

fire or sword.

Wordsworth

That best portion of a good man's life,---his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

anonymous

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost;

when health is lost, something is lost;

when character is lost, all is lost.

oscar wilde

What is beautiful

is a joy

for all seasons

and a possession

for all eternity.

by Anne Frank

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

quote by Francis De Sales

Be patient with everyone,
but above all with thyself.
I mean, do not be disheartened
by your imperfections,
but always rise up with fresh courage.

random quotes

Between the house and the store there are little pockets of happiness.  A bird, a garden, a friend's greeting, a child's smile, a cat in the sunshine needing a stroke.  Recognize them or ignore them.  It's always up to you.  --  Pam Brown

Be faithful in little things, for in them our strength lies.  --  Mother Teresa

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and discover they were the big things.  --  author unknown

Happiness is as a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.  --  Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

The Struggle

Life is a struggle for peace,
A longing for rest,
A hope for the battles to cease,
A dream for the best;
And he is not living who stays
Contented with things,
Unconcerned with the work of the days
And all that it brings.

He is dead who sees nothing to change,
No wrong to make right;
Who travels no new way or strange
In search of the light;
Who never sets out for a goal
That he sees from afar
But contents his indifferent sould
With things as they are.

Life isn't rest--it is toil;
It is building a dream;
It is tilling a parcel of soil
Or bridging a stream;
It's pursuing the light of a star
That but dimly we see,
And in wresting from things as they are
The joy that should be.

 

quote by Albert Camus

 In the midst of winter,
I finally learned
that there was
in me
an invincible summer.

untitled

Is it so small a thing
To have enjoyed the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved,
To have thought,
To have done?

Love the beautiful

Love the beautiful,

Seek out the true,

Wish for the good,

And the best do.

quote by Clearwater

each second
you can be reborn.
each second
there can be
a new beginning.
it is choice.
it is your choice.

a Chinese Proverb

                                     

The glory
is not in never failing,
but rising every time
you fall.

quote by Rosanne Ambrose-Brown

Courage is, with love,

the greatest gift.

We are, each of us, defeated

may times--but if we accept

defeat with cheerfulness,

and learn from it,

and try another way--

then we will find

fullfilment.

quote by "Clearwater"

Shrug off the restraints
that you have allowed others
to place upon you.
You are limitless.
There is nothing you cannot achieve.
There is no sadness in life
That cannot be reversed....

a quote by Ninon de L'Enclos

That which is striking and beautiful
is not always good,
but that which is good
is always beautiful.

Peace

With eager heart and will on fire,
I fought to win my great desire
"Peace shall be mine," I said; but life
Grew bitter in the weary strife.

My soul was tired, and my pride
Was wounded deep:  to Heaven I cried,
"God grant me peace or I must die;"
The dumb stars glittered no reply.

Broken at last, I bowed my head,
Forgetting all myself, and said,
"Whatever comes, His will be done;"
And in that moment peace was won.

The Tongue

"The boneless tongue, so small and week,
Can crush and kill," declared the Greek.

"The tongue destroys a greater horde,"
The Turk asserts, "than does the sword."

A Persian proverb wisely saith,
A lengthy tongue--an early death."

Or sometimes takes this form instead,
"Don't let your tongue cut off your head."

"The tongue can speak a word whose speed,"
Says the Chinese, "outstrips the steed";

While Arab sages this impart,
"The tongue's great storehouse is the heard."

From Hebrew with the maxim sprung,
"Though feet should slip, ne'er let the tongue."

The sacred writer crown the whole:
"Who keeps the tongue doth keep his soul."

onestrangecat here: whoever said "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never harm me" was wrong.

What Counts

It isn't the money you're making, it isn't the clothes you wear,
And it isn't the skill of your good right hand which makes folks really care.
It's the smile on your face and the light of your eye and the burdens that you bear.

Most any old man can tell you, most any old man at all,
Who has lived through all sorts of weather, winter and summer and fall,
That riches and fame are shadows that dance on the garden wall.

It's how do you live and neighbor, how do you work and play,
It's how do you say "good morning" to the people along the way,
And it's how do you face your troubles whenever your skies are gray.

It's you, from the dawn to nighttime; you when the day is fair,
You when the storm is raging--how do you face despire?
It is you that the world discovers, whatever the clothes you wear.

You to the end of the journey, kindly and brave and true,
The best and the worst of you gleaming in all that you say and do,
And the ting that counts isn't money, or glory, or power, but YOU!

 

quotes by Rod McKuen

 Each time we show another human being kindness or charity without any thought of gain for ourselves, we become--if not the right arm of our savior--some small extension of God.

No one likes to be locked up or imprisoned.  None of us is happy in a cell, be it one of our own making or sone constructed for us by an enemy.  But it is useless to continuously mistrust people, letting ill-will, cynicism, or non-constructive thoughts clutter up our thinking.  Suspicion and envy can be a cell without a padlock.  Turning the other cheek is not only less difficult than most of us suspect it to be, but it is one of the easiest ways to feel good about ourselves.

Resolution 1:  Out of the sad mistaken belief that as a man I must behave as all men do, I've turned my back a time too often.  God, help me keep a resolution that I make today:  Not to walk head high past someone I can help.

Those who travel gentle in the world are seldom recognized as gentlemen by others.  It matters not, for gentleness toward another human being is the thin line between success and failure for each of us.

quote by George Bernard Shaw

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.

I don't believe in circumstances.  The people who get on in this world are the people

who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them,

make them.

Columbus

Would that we had the fortunes of Columbus,

Sailing his caravels a trackless way,

He found a Universe--he sought Cathay,

God give such dawns, as when, his venture o'er,

The Sailor looked upon San Salvador.

God lead us past the setting of the sun

To wizard islands, of august surprise;

God make our blunders wise.

serene will be our days....

Serene will be our days and bright,

And happy will our nature be,

When love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security.