Most of us miss out on life's big prizes. The Pulitzer. The Nobel.Oscars. Tonys. Emmys. But we're all eligible for life's smallpleasures. A pat on the back. A kiss behind the ear. A four-poundbass. A full moon. An empty parking space. A crackling fire. A greatmeal. A glorious sunset. Hot soup. Cold beer. -- Anonymous

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are... Let me notpass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. One day Ishall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in my pillow, orstretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more thanall the world, your return. -- Mary Jean Iron

"Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common." Satchel Paige

What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicingfor this, I was training for this. -- Epictetus (55-135 AD) Greek Philosopher

CV

"Methinks that if you don't take the time to lay down its foundation accordingly, Memory Lane won't be much of a road later in life; not long enough, nor wide enough. One thing is for sure: it is a one-way street and there is no going back. Those carelessly discarded yesterdays will haunt us all."

Chuckie V

Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th. -- J. Andrews

Every man has an obscure respect for courage in others, especially ifit is moral courage, the rarest and most difficult sort of bravery...It makes the very brute understand that this man is more than a man. -- Passage from Life of Christ

Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the greattemptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But thereal struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is beingdecided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, youshall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be madeexcept by a steady, long continued process. -- Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American Bishop

When we are mindful of every nuance of our natural world, we finallyget the picture: that we are only given one dazzling moment of lifehere on Earth, and we must stand before that reality both humbled andelevated, subject to every law of our universe and grateful for ourbrief but intrinsic participation with it. (From her biography ofnaturalist Eustace Conway.) -- Elizabeth Gilbert

The greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising up everytime we fall. -- Confucius (551-479 BC) Chinese Philosopher

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject tohalf the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessnessfor fear of what might happen. -- Herodotus (485 - 425BC) Greek Historian

The self is not something that one finds. It is something that onecreates. -- Thomas Szasz (1920-) American Psychiatrist

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage "coaches"ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory. -- Herbert Kaufman

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to behonorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: tocount, to stand for something, to have made some difference that youlived at all. -- Leo C. Rosten (1908-1977) American Writer

One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as themost beautiful. -- Sigmund Freud

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not actrightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we havethose because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do.Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. -- Aristotle

Hard things are put in our way, not to stop us, but to call out ourcourage and strength. -- Anonymous

The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart. -- Mencius (371-291 B.C.)

Being defeated is often only a temporary condition. Giving up is whatmakes it permanent. -- Marilyn vos Savant 1946-NA

Have the courage and the wisdom and the vision to raise a definitestandard that will appeal to the best that is in man, and then strivemightily toward that goal. -- Harold E. Stassen