Inspirational Quotes

My personal favorite:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Nelson Mandela

My favorite is:

"Two men looked out of their prison bars
The one saw mud . . . the other stars"

Unknown author

Sakeringo, that quote always reminds me of this story....

A man had two sons, and he was very disturbed about them. One was a pessimist beyond recall, and the other one was an optimist beyond reason. He talked to a child psychiatrist who made a suggestion. He said, ``I think we can fix that.'' He said, ``We'll get a room and we'll fill it with the most wonderful toys any boy ever had.'' ``And,'' he said, ``we'll put the pessimist in and when he finds out they're for him, he'll get over being a pessimist.''

His father said, ``What will you do about the optimist?'' ``Well,'' he said, ``I have a friend who's got a racing stable and they clean out the stalls every morning.'' ``And,'' he said, ``I can get quite an amount of manure.'' And he said, ``We'll put that in another room, and when the optimist who's seen his brother get all those toys is then shown into the room full of manure, he'll get over being an optimist.''

Well, they did, and they waited about 5 minutes. And then they opened the door, and the pessimist was sitting there crying as if his heart would break. He said, ``I know somebody's going to come in and take these away from me.''

Then they went down to the other room and they opened the door and there was the kid happy as a clam, throwing manure over his shoulders as fast as he could. And they said, ``What are you doing?''

And he says, ``There's got to be a pony in here somewhere.''