Here are some of my favorite quotations, shared simply to add a little positive perspective, thoughtful inspiration, and motivational wisdom to your day...

Everything flows and nothing abides, 

everything gives way and nothing stays fixed. 

— Heraclitus 

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? 

— Vincent Van Gogh

Man  improves himself as he follows his path; if he stands still, 

waiting to improve before he makes a decision, he'll never move. 

— Paulo Coelho 

When the mighty chains of darkness had me on the ropes, 

everyone said quit now, that's when I found hope. 

— Graham Parker

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, 

then they fight you, then you win.  

— Mahatma Gandhi

Love, and do what you like. 

— Saint Augustine

I like the dreams for the future better than the history of the past. 

— Thomas Jefferson

Everything always works out for the best in the end. 

If it hasn't worked out, it's not the end. 

— Anonymous 

Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.  

— Dale Carnegie

Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future; 

and time future contained in time past. 

If all time is eternally present, all time is nonredeemable. 

— TS Eliot 

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important 

than an idea that only exists as an idea. 

— Buddha

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. 

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Whether you think you can or think you can't---you are right. 

— Henry Ford

Love, and do what you like. 

— Saint Augustine

The difference between the impossible and the possible 

lies in a man's determination.  

— Tommy Lasorda 

If you don't know where you are going, 

you might wind up someplace else. 

— Yogi Berra

Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. 

It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. 

— William Jennings Bryant

Opportunity is missed by most people 

because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. 

— Thomas Edison

Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. 

— Winston Churchill

The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running. 

— Anonymous

The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, 

and is not content with common opinion, 

but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion 

till he grasps the essential nature of things. 

— Plato

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, 

is the only end in life. 

— Baruch Spinoza 

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. 

— Auguste Rodin

Optimism is essential to achievement 

and it is also the foundation of courage and of true progress. 

— Nicholas Murray Butler 

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect 

before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. 

— John Quincy Adams

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen 

and thinking what nobody has thought. 

— Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi

If we do not try, we will not know. 

— Ayya Khema

It's not what you gather, but what you scatter 

that tells what kind of life you have lived. 

— Helen Walton

If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it. 

— Jonathan Winters

Learn as if you were going to live forever. 

Live as if you were going to die tomorrow. 

— Mahatma Gandhi 

Life isn't about finding yourself. 

Life is about creating yourself. 

— George Bernard Shaw

Every man is the architect of his own fortune. 

— Sallust

I'm an idealist. 

I don't know where I'm going but I'm on the way. 

— Carl Sandburg

Our only security is our ability to change. 

— John Lilly

Why not try and see positive things, 

to just touch those things and make them bloom? 

— Thich Nhat Hanh

It ain't bragging if you can do it. 

— Dizzy Dean

The wise man sets no high value on a thing 

simply because it is hard to get. 

— Tao te Ching

Enlightenment, or true happiness, is not a transcendental state. 

It is a condition of broad wisdom, boundless energy, and good fortune, 

wherein we each shape our own destiny, find fulfillment in daily activities, 

and come to understand our ultimate purpose in life. 

— Josei Toda

The fool who knows he is a fool is for that very reason wise. 

The fool who thinks himself wise is the greatest fool of all. 

— Shakymuni

The marble not yet carved can hold the form 

of every thought the greatest artist ever has. 

— Michelangelo

The greatest glory in living lies not in ever falling, 

but in rising every time we fall. 

— Nelson Mandela

If you are not living on the edge, 

you're taking up too much space. 

— Lou Whitaker

Live fully in every moment 

and you will come to every day without regrets. 

— Dr. Carl Hammershlag 

This is the art of courage: to see things as they are 

and still believe that the victory lies not with those who avoid the bad, 

but those who taste, in living awareness, every drop of the good. 

— Victoria Lincoln 

There is nothing that cannot happen today. 

— Mark Twain 

Try not to become a man of success. 

Rather become a man of value. 

— Albert Einstein 

Do not fear mistakes. There are none. 

— Miles Davis 

I get up. I walk. I fall down. Meanwhile, I keep dancing. 

— Hillel 

Only those who will risk going too far 

can possibly find out how far one can go. 

— TS Eliot 

Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. 

— JC Watts 

First thought, best thought. 

— Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Do not look for the truth. 

Only cease to cherish opinions. 

— Sengstan 

If in your mind it was possible to take a year's sabbatical 

from work to reassess your life, 

what would you do and where would you go? 

— David Whyte 

Change is one thing, progress is another. 

'Change' is scientific; 'progress' is ethical; 

change is indubitable, 

whereas progress is a matter of controversy. 

— Bertrand Russell 

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved 

for yourself, or, more correctly, being loved in spite of yourself. 

— Victor Hugo 

What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down. 

— Mary Pickford 

If you're going through hell, keep going! 

— Winston Churchill 

In every man's writings, t

he character of the writer must lie recorded. 

— Thomas Carlyle 

Managing is like holding a dove in your hand. 

Squeeze too hard and you kill it, 

not hard enough and it flies away. 

— Tommy Lasorda 

Be the change your wish to see in the world. 

— Gandhi 

Work like you don't need the money. 

Love like you've never been hurt. 

Dance like nobody's watching. 

— Leroy Satchel Paige 

You will do foolish things 

but do them with enthusiasm. 

— Collette 

The heart, like the mind, has a memory. 

And in it are kept the most precious keepsakes. 

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

Grief can take care of itself: 

but to get the full value of joy 

you must have somebody to divide it with. 

— Mark Twain 

One must still have chaos in oneself 

to be able to give birth to a dancing star. 

— Nietzsche 

The aim of life is to live, 

and to live means to be aware, 

joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. 

— Henry Miller  

In the space between past and future, 

having and losing, knowing and not knowing, 

lies an opportunity for growth and revelation. 

— Francesca Fremantle

Whatever you do or dream you can do — begin it. 

Boldness has genius and power and magic in it. 

— Goethe

Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; 

they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. 

— Marcel Proust

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, 

and you'll help them to become 

what they are capable of becoming. 

— Goethe 

Love what you do. 

— George Hasslein, FAIA, Dean, 

School of Architecture, Cal Poly SLO, 1968-1983

Peace is more important than all justice; 

and peace was not made for the sake of justice, 

but justice for the sake of peace. 

— Martin Luther

May you live in safety, be healthy, 

be happy, and live at ease. 

— Buddhist Metta (Prayer) 

We are not given any promises that, 

because of our noble intentions, 

everything will be okay. 

We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness. 

We need to transform our minds and actions 

for the sake of other people and for the future of the world. 

— Pema Chodron 

Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all. 

— Helen Keller 

Memory is a child walking along the seashore. 

You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up 

and store away among its treasured things. 

— Pierce Harris 

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. 

— John F. Kennedy 

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that 

there was within me an invincible summer. 

— Albert Camus 

Be a light unto yourself, a refuge unto yourself. 

— Buddha 

Proceed as the path allows. 

— Quaker proverb 

Whatever you are, be a good one. 

— Abraham Lincoln 

There are only two ways to live your life. 

One is as though nothing is a miracle. 

The other is as though everything is a miracle. 

— Albert Einstein 

The world breaks everyone and afterward 

many are strong at the broken places. 

— Ernest Hemingway 

So within, without. 

— Susan Shippey 

In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary 

that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. 

In such places love can blossom. 

— Thomas Merton 

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can blossom like a flower, 

and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace. 

— Thich Nhat Hanh 

Faster, faster, faster ─ 

until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death. 

— Hunter S. Thompson 

Never apologize for showing feeling. 

When you do, you apologize for the truth. 

— Benjamin Disraeli 

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. 

Art is knowing which ones to keep. 

— Scott Adams 

Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans. 

— Sylvia Boorstein 

Happiness often sneaks through a door 

you didn't know you left open. 

— John Barrymore 

I joked about every prominent man in my lifetime, 

but I never met one I didn't like. 

— Will Rogers 

If you want creative workers, 

give them enough time to play. 

— John Cleese

You have to do stuff that average people don't understand, 

because those are the only good things. 

— Andy Warhol 

There is no limit what a man can do or where he can go, 

if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit. 

— Robert Woodruff

Experience is something you don't get 

until just after you need it. 

— Sir Laurence Olivier 

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks 

in great an honorable course with sure hope and trust in itself. 

— Cicero 

The beautiful is a phenomenon 

which is never apparent of itself, 

but which is reflected 

in a thousand different works of the creator. 

— Goethe 

This website is dedicated to the memory of my father, Jesse Warren Park, Jr. (1916-1997), a kind and gentle man with an unquenchable thirst for understanding, who taught me the importance of continual learning and sharing new ideas.