Soul Aflame! Quotes, etc.
 

This thread is for beautiful and inspirational quotations/words of wisdom, poems and short stories.

If there is something that has touched your soul, led you to a higher path or given you strength in a time of adversity, then please add it here.

If it has helped you, the chances are it will help others too - and to help each other along is the duty of every soul.

Into the Light! ....

Message From The Stars:
I stood at eventime. The never-ending plain
All empty looked and void. Yet, as I gazed again
An army bivouacked. Unnumbered points of light
Bespoke a force Supreme - invincible for right
- Henry Morley

Man is the gardener of his own soul. The Great Spirit has provided him with all that is necessary for it to grow in wisdom, grace and beauty. The implements are there, he has but to use them wisely and well
- Silver Birch

It is our deeds, the accumulated acts of goodness and kindness, that define us and ultimately are the true measure of our worth.
Service is the coin of the spirit.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares

Hebrews 13:2

Never forget that what you eat and what you think is what you are. The food taken into your body is what gradually, slowly but surely forms your thought patterns, and your thoughts, both conscious and subconscious,
are in absolute control of your body's health or lack of it.



Linda Goodman.

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace
- Albert Schweitzer

To breathe silence into your core, you will hear your smile x

Two men were walking down a busy city street. "Listen," exclaimed one. "What a lovely sound of a cricket." The other looked at him in puzzlement. "How can you hear a cricket amid this din?" he asked. The first man replied, "I’m a zoologist." He took a coin from his pocket and dropped it on the crowed sidewalk. Immediately, the people around stopped and began to look down. "We hear what we listen for," he explained.
unknown

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.


Henry Stanley Haskins.

He who loves knows it. He who loves not, knows it not.
I pity him and make him no answer.


unknown.

Kindness is the greatest wisdom

Always be a little kinder than necessary - J. M. Barrie

Pain is still pain, suffering is still suffering, regardless of whoever, or whatever, is the victim. Everything is worthy of kindness.

No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves
- Amelia Earhart

Happiness can't be traveled to,owned,earned or worn. It is the Spiritual experience of living every minute with love,grace and gratitude.

Denis Waitley…...

I don't regret the things I've done. I regret the things I didn't do when I had the chance.

Unknown.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends…….



Corinthians.

The Greatness of a Nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

Mahatama Gandhi

I wish no living thing to suffer pain
- Percy Bysshe Shelley

To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.
I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body.
I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man
- Mahatma Gandhi

I saw deep in the eyes of the animals the human soul look out upon me. I saw where it was born deep down under feathers or fur, or condemned for a while to roam four footed among the brambles. I caught the clinging mute glance of the prisoner and swore that I would be faithful
- Henry David Thoreau

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened
- Anatole France

I love this thread. It's exactly what I needed to see.

Adversity is a fact of life. It can’t be controlled. What we can control is how we react to it. – Unknown

Like Hope33, I am so pleased to find this thread and to begin to see that this forum really is a safe and nurturing place.

I will post a poem that means a great deal to me, both in the way it faces the reality of the world and, above all, in its joyful hopefulness. I'm not a Christian, but this poem speaks to me deeply.
THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil's bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs
—Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

~ Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margarita

Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go onto the world and do good
- Minor Myers Jr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_of_Saint_Francis

"Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;: Where there is hatred, let me sow love..."

Prayer of St. Francis.

Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success.


Napoleon Hill

“Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love.”

Leo Buscaglia

Each day all previous days forget
Waste not these hours with regret



unknown.

I was in the grocery store today, the couple ahead of me had their groceries all rung in when they didn't have enough money to pay for them, they were deciding what to put back when the man behind me said he would pay for them, he said it quietly to the cashier and told her not to acknowledge him. The couple were thrilled when the cashier told them to have a nice day, everything was taken care of. The amount they saved was over $200.

Any fool can make things bigger and more complex, it takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Albert Einstein...

This story gave me chills...having put back items ( totally embarrassed) myself, I can imagine the couple's sense of gratitude. In a world that at times seems to be so cruel, there's always someone to remind us that humanity is not lost. God bless this angel in disguise.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile

- Albert Einstein

The Mind is everything, What you think you become.



Buddha..

I have no desire to move mountains, construct monuments or leave behind in my wake material evidence of my existence. But in the final recollection, if the essence of my being has caused a smile to have appeared upon your face or a touch of joy within your heart, then in living I have made my mark
- Thomas L. Odem Jr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWA2GbcnJU

That's the 'magic' of kindness. Even small acts of kindness can make a big difference to people's lives. Kindness generates happiness, turns strangers into friends and perhaps greatest of all, inspires others to be kind themselves.

Very inspiring video...this man reminds me of my son who never expects anything in return for his acts of kindness...
Yes, people like this young man still exist and are an example for all of us.
Brought tears of joy...thanks knightofalbion.

(You must be proud of him Hope)

Carry out a random act of kindness,with no expectation of reward safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you..

Diana Spencer…..

There was a passenger on a city bus with plastic bags on his feet, another passenger took his shoes and socks off and gave them to this passenger, then he got off at the next stop in his bare feet. No one knows who he is. I like these kind of stories.