Monday, September 17, 2012

Practice Patience for Patience is the beginning of Mindfulness



Patience is the companion of wisdom. 
-- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)


There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. 
-- Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924)
 
 
 
 
 
If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent. 
- Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)
 

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind. 
-- Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)


Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew. 
-- Saint Francis de Sales (1567 - 1622)
 
 
 
 
Patience is the best remedy for every trouble. 
- Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC - 184 BC), Rudens
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake. 
- Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)
 
 
 
A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience! 
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Love's Labour's Lost, Act I, sc. 1
 
 
 
A very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience
-William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Coriolanus, Act II, sc. 1
 
 
 
Had it pleas'd heaven to try me with affliction... I should have found in some place of my soul a drop of patience. 
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Othello, Act IV, sc. 2
 
 
How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees? 
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Othello, Act II, sc. 3
 
 
How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees. 
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
 
 
I do oppose my patience to his fury, and am arm'd to suffer with a quietness of spirit, the very tyranny and rage of his. 
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, sc. 1
 
 
 
 
 
 
Patience is sottish, and impatience does become a dog that's mad
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV, sc. 15
 
 
Though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod.
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Henry V, Act II, sc. 1
 
 
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience. 
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Hamlet, Act III, sc. 4
 
 

Patience, my lord. Why, 'tis the soul of peace.
Of all the virtues 'tis near'st kin to heaven.
It makes men look like gods; the best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breath'd.

- Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton
The Honest Whore Part One, act V scene II
 
 
Patience is the ballast of the soul, that will keep it from rolling and tumbling in the greatest storms: and he, that will venture out without this to make him sail even and steady will certainly make shipwreck, and drown himself; first, in the cares and sorrows of this world; and, then, in perdition.
- Ezekiel Hopkins,  Death disarmed of it Sting Of Patience under Afflictions.
 
 
Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher of humility; Patience governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues pride; she bridles the tongue, refrains the hand, tramples upon temptations, endures persecutions, consummates martyrdom; Patience produces unity in the church, loyalty in the State, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor and moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful, and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman, and approves the man; is loved in a child, praised in a young man, admired in an old man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age.
- Bishop Horne, Discourses on Several Subjects and Occasions Patience Portrayed




Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim.
Have patience and endure; this unhappiness will one day be beneficial.
- Ovid, Amorum (16 BC), III. 11. 7.


Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis.
Persevere and preserve yourselves for better circumstances.
Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), I. 207.

Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.
Every misfortune is to be subdued by patience.Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), V. 710.



Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains.
- William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims (1682) no. 234.




Font plus que force ni que rage.
By time and toil we sever
What strength and rage could never.
Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, II. 11.



Rule by patience, Laughing Water!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1855), Part X. Hiawatha's Wooing.


Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life, Stanza 9.


All things come round to him who will but wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn, The Student's Tale, Part I.


Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.
James Russell Lowell, Columbus, line 241.


Sua quisque exempla debet æquo animo pati.
Every one ought to bear patiently the results of his own conduct.
Phaedrus, Fables, I. 26. 12.


La patience est amère, mais son fruit est doux.
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.


Nihil tam acerbum est in quo non æquus animus solatium inveniat.
There is nothing so disagreeable, that a patient mind can not find some solace for it.
Seneca, De Animi Tranquilitate, X.


Furor fit læsa sæpius patientia.
Patience, when too often outraged, is converted into madness.
-- Syrus, Maxims. 289.



La patience est l'art d'espérer.
Patience is the art of hoping.
-- Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, Réflexions, CCLI.




It is not necessary for all men to be great in action. The greatest and sublimest power is often simple patience.
- Horace Bushnell, p. 443.


Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear;
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.
- George Croly, p. 444.



Patience! why, it is the soul of peace; of all the virtues it is nearest kin to heaven; it makes men look like gods. The best of men that ever wore earth about Him was a Sufferer,— a soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; the first true gentleman that ever breathed.
- Thomas Decker, p. 443.



Patience is enduring love; experience is perfecting love; and hope is exulting love.
- Alexander Dickson, p. 442.



It is easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient.
- George Eliot, p. 443.



Patience is the ballast of the soul that will keep it from rolling and tumbling in the greatest storms.
- Bishop Hopkins, p. 442.



Dispose thyself to patience rather than to comfort, and to the bearing of the cross rather than to gladness.
- Thomas à Kempis, p. 442.



The holier one is, the more forbearing and loving he is; the more tender and patient and anxious to help others in every way. Think how forbearing and loving Christ is when we do wrong; and there we are to be like Him.
- Arthur Henry Kenney, p. 444.



Therefore, let us be patient, patient; and let God our Father teach His own lesson, His own way. Let us try to learn it well and quickly; but do not let us fancy that He will ring the school-bell, and send us to play before our lesson is learnt.
- Charles Kingsley, p. 443.



Be patient, my friends; time rolls rapidly away; our longing has its end. The hour will strike, who knows how soon?— when the maternal lap of everlasting Love shall be opened to us, and the full peace of God breathe around us from the palmy summits of Eden.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Krummacher, p. 613.



When I am about my work, sometimes called unexpectedly and suddenly from one thing to another, I whisper in my heart, " Lord, help me to be patient, help me to remember, and help me to be faithful. Lord, enable me to do all for Christ's sake, and to go forward, leaning on the bosom of His infinite grace."
-- Mary Lyon, p. 444.


We are waiting, Master, waiting,
Wayworn, pressed with toils and strife;
Waiting, hoping, watching, praying,
Till we reach the gates of life.
-- Ray Palmer, p. 613.


Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time, and not be discouraged at the rests. If we say sadly to ourselves, "There is no music in a rest," let us not forget " there is the making of music in it." The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson!
- John Ruskin, p. 443.


Show yourself a Christian by suffering without murmuring. In patience possess your soul — they lose nothing who gain Christ.
- Samuel Rutherford, p. 444.



The disciples of a patient Saviour should be patient themselves.
- Charles Spurgeon, p. 442.



How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
-- William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act II, scene 3, line 376.


Had it pleas'd heaven
To try me with affliction * * *
I should have found in some place of my soul
A drop of patience.
-- William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act IV, scene 2, line 47.


Like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling
Extremity out of act.
- William Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre (c. 1607-08), Act V, scene 1, line 139.


She sat like patience on a monument
Smiling at grief.
- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act II, scene 4, line 117.


He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding.
- William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida Act I, scene i.


Patience is the art of hoping.
- Marquis De Vauvenargues, Reflections and Maxims (1746) no. 251.


Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis.
Persevere and preserve yourselves for better circumstances.
-- Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), I. 207.


Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.
Every misfortune is to be subdued by patience.
-- Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), V. 710.



With strength and patience all his grievous loads are borne,
And from the world's rose-bed he only asks a thorn.
- William R. Alger, Oriental Poetry, Mussud's Praise of the Camel.


I worked with patience which means almost power.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book III, line 205.


And I must bear
What is ordained with patience, being aware
Necessity doth front the universe
With an invincible gesture.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Prometheus Bound.



But there are times when patience proves at fault.
- Robert Browning, Paracelsus, scene 3.



There is however a limit, at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
- Edmund Burke, Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation.



Thus with hir fader for a certeyn space
Dwelleth this flour of wyfly pacience,
That neither by hir wordes ne hir face
Biforn the folk, ne eek in her absence,
Ne shewed she that hir was doon offence.
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Clerkes Tale, V, line 13,254.


Patience is sorrow's salve.
- Charles Churchill, Prophecy of Famine, line 363.


Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
- Benjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming, Part IV, Chapter V.


But the waiting time, my brothers,
Is the hardest time of all.
- Sarah Doudney, Psalms of Life, The Hardest Time of All.


The worst speak something good; if all want sense,
God takes a text, and preacheth patience.
- George Herbert, The Church Porch, Stanza 72.


Durum! sed levius fit patientia
Quicquid corrigere est nefas.
It is hard! But what can not be removed, becomes lighter through patience.
- Horace, Carmina, I. 24. 19.


For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.
- Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes, line 352.









Source: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Patience





Saturday, September 15, 2012

You are the master of your fate and you create your own happiness.


If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?  And if I am only for myself, then what am I?  And if not now, when?

- Hillel the Elder, 1st Century B.C.
 


 It's never the events that happen to us that make us disturbed, but our view of them.
Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.


Happiness and misery depend as much on temperament as on fortune.
- Francois de la Rochefoucauld, 17th Century


Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
- Abe Lincoln


Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.
- Leo Tolstoy


 To be in Hell is to drift; to be in Heaven is to steer.
- Geo. B. Shaw


.................

It is not that someone else is preventing you from living happily;
You yourself do not know what you want.  Rather than admit this,    
you pretend that someone is keeping you from excercising your liberty.
Who is this?  It is yourself.
- Thomas Merton, 1961

.................................


I am responsible for the achievement of my desires.
I am responsible for my choices and actions...
I am responsible for my personal happiness.
- Dr. Nathaniel Branden


 .....................................


"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

- Thomas Jefferson

..................................

If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.

- Ram Dass

 ...............................

Happiness is something you can work at.  It's a matter of identifying the things you do that get in the way of happiness,  and figuring out what positive activities you can do everyday to augment it.

- David Lykken, U of Minnesota

 .....................................

Depressed people are caught in a  feedback loop in which distorted thoughts cause negative feelings, which then distort feelings further.

You can break the cycle by changing the thoughts.

A big part of cognitive therapy is training clients to catch the thoughts and  distortions and then find alternative and more accurate ways of thinking.


Over many weeks,the client's thoughts become more realistic.  The feedback loop is broken and the client's anxiety or depression abates.



- Jonathan Haidt, Psychologist and Happiness Researcher


.............................................

Friday, August 10, 2012

Define Success to properly set your compass on your single definite purpose

I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair. In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.
- Bertrand Russell

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure. ”
― Mark Twain
 
"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins
- not by strength but by perseverance."
- H. Jackson Brown 
 “Don't mistake activity with achievement.”
― John Wooden
 “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
― Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

 
“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”
― Amelia Earhart

“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

Monday, June 25, 2012

Robbie Burns: To A Mouse

A sculpture of a mouse in the garden of the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway
 
 
TO A MOUSE
ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER, 1785
by: Robert Burns (1759-1796)
      I
       
      EE, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
      Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!
      Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
      Wi' bickering brattle!
      I was be laith to rin an' chase thee,
      Wi' murd'ring pattle!
       
      II
       
      I'm truly sorry man's dominion
      Has broken Nature's social union,
      An' justifies that ill opinion
      Which makes thee startle
      At me, thy poor, earth-born companion
      An' fellow-mortal!
       
      III
       
      I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
      What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
      A daimen-icker in a thrave
      'S a sma' request;
      I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
      And never miss't!
       
      IV
       
      Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
      Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!
      An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
      O' foggage green!
      An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
      Baith snell an' keen!
       
      V
       
      Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
      An' weary winter comin fast,
      An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
      Thou thought to dwell,
      Till crash! the cruel coulter past
      Out thro' thy cell.
       
      VI
       
      That wee bit heap o' leaves an stibble,
      Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
      Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
      But house or hald,
      To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
      An' cranreuch cauld!
       
      VII
       
      But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
      In proving foresight may be vain:
      The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
      Gang aft a-gley,
      An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
      For promis'd joy!
       
      VIII
       
      Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!
      The present only toucheth thee:
      But och! I backward cast my e'e,
      On prospects drear!
      An' forward, tho' I cannot see,
      I guess an' fear!
"To a Mouse" is reprinted from English Poems. Ed. Edward Chauncey Baldwin & Harry G. Paul. New York: American Book Company, 1908.

 Source:
 http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/to_a_mouse.html



 Portrait of Robert Burns 
 Robert Burns by Alexander Nasmyth
(By permission of the National Galleries of Scotland) 


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Don't Worry, Be Happy



Uploaded by lover218kity on Aug 22, 201
YouTube License: Standard YouTube License

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Finding Happiness

1. Help someone else find happiness.
Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
Buddha

If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day — go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.
Chinese Proverb

Happiness is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it.
Bernard Meltzer

This is certainly one of the most popular ideas I’ve found about happiness. And it might sound trite and empty. But it works very well. When you make someone else happy – by, for example, helping them with something – you can sense, see, feel and hear it. And that happy feeling flows back to you. And then, if you’d like, you can boost you own ego by thinking something like: ”Wow, I really made him/her happy!”.

And since the Law of Reciprocity is strong there is another upside. People will feel like giving back to you. Or they might feel like helping/sharing it with someone else. And so the two – or more – of you keep spreading the happiness.


2. Get rid of a couple of your less valuable desires.
If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.
Epicurus

You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.
Eric Hoffer

That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.
Henry David Thoreau

If you want less instead of more, more, more then your desires are more likely to be fulfilled. And if you throw away a few of those desires that you may not really want or need that much anyway you’ll probably start to feel less stressed and worried. This is a calmer and better place to be to enjoy your day (tip #2) and to take the time discover the happiness that is already in your life (tip #3).


3. Do what you like to do.
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
Albert Schweitzer

Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

A pretty obvious one. But it’s still easy to trap yourself into doing what you don’t want to for many, many hours. And seldom do what you really love to do. And I guess this one ties into tip #1. You may not be able to choose to do what you want to do right now. Or for many hours each day or week. But you almost always have a choice to do more of what you really want to do. There is always time. Or time you can free up. You have a choice.

4.. Or at least do something.
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Benjamin Disraeli

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain

One of the best ways to not find happiness is just to hold yourself back and do nothing. Seldom show up. Paralyze yourself through over analysis. It’s not always easy to take action, it can be scary and hard and difficult. But if you don’t take action you’ll be missing out on a lot. Including many moments, people and experiences that can bring you a lot of happiness