“Much that you learn today won’t be true five years from now; many things you haven’t heard today will be important five or ten years ahead. If I teach you something supposedly ‘relevant,’ I’m guaranteeing irrelevance. If I teach you how to work, to have good attitudes, to take responsibility for your own ideas, to communicate and to think a problem through, no matter what subject matter I use in order to get those basic skills of mind and intellect across, then I’m giving you something you can use for a very long time. Those skills will never change.”

Raising Children . . . . . Abigail van Buren

     “If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put responsibility on their shoulders.”

To Have a Dream . . . . . Robert K. Greenleaf

     “Nothing much happens without a dream. And for something great to happen, there must be a great dream.
     Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams. Much more than a dreamer is required to bring it into reality; but the dream must be there first.”

“Francis [of Assisi] found God within himself. The Lord made a dwelling place of his heart and filled Francis with a light that illuminated his vision. This was his life’s work: to make a fitting dwelling place within himself for the Lord.”

Your Choice . . . . . Leo Buscaglia

     “Choose the way of life. Choose the way of love. Choose the way of caring … Choose the way of goodness. It’s up to you. It’s your choice.”

On Character . . . . . Aristotle

“Character is that which reveals moral purpose,
exposing the class of things a person chooses or avoids.”

     “Fear can be destructive. It can get so out of hand that it can destroy our life and poison personal relationships. It can even smother one’s inner spirit and the motivation to change things for the better.…
     Fear is the enemy of happiness. It can make us suspicious, self-centered, immobile and full of self-pity. In this way we are put in hell little by little.…”

Have Courage . . . . . Anonymous

     “Have the courage to seek truth, the strength to stand alone, and the wisdom to be taught by all experience.”

Each Time You . . . . . Joseph Sugarman

     “Each time you are honest and conduct yourself with honesty, a success force will drive you toward greater success. Each time you lie, even a little white lie, there are strong forces pushing you toward failure.”

A New Opportunity to Choose . . . . . Anonymous

“Choose to love — rather than hate.
Choose to smile — rather than frown.
Choose to build — rather than destroy.
Choose to persevere — rather then quit.
Choose to praise — rather than gossip.
Choose to heal — rather than wound.
Choose to give — rather than grasp.
Choose to act — rather than delay.
Choose to pray — rather than despair.
Choose to forgive — rather than curse.”

The Best Executive . . . . . Theodore Roosevelt

     “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”

Opposite of Courage. . . . . Rollo May

     “The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, but in conformity.”

Stand Up! . . . . . Robert F. Kennedy

     “Each time a person stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.”

A Stranger to Self-Hatred . . . . . Brennan Manning

     “Come to me. Come now. Don’t wait until you have your act cleaned up and your head on straight. Don’t delay until you think you are properly disposed and free of pride and lust, jealousy and self-hatred.
     Come to me in your brokenness and sinfulness with your fears and insecurities and I will comfort you. I will come to you right where you live and love you just the way you are, just the way you are and not the way you think you should be.”

On Proverbs . . . . . Carroll Stuhmueller, C.P.

     “Proverbs and quotable quotes can certainly be misused; a clever turn of the language can silence the other party and so get the speaker off the hook. Proverbs, however, still possess enormous value; they are so universally true that they speak a message for everyone. Yet, for the general statement to become a personal word …, it has to be reflected upon for a long time. A proverb, therefore, is not intended to end discussion and silence the other party, but as Ecclesiastes wrote:

     They are goads to drive us on to harder thinking and practical application. They are spikes on which to hang our own ideas.”

Good and Noble Deeds . . . . .  H.F. Kletzing

     “Clear values are a north star, in life and in leadership: casting light on complex situations, and guiding your decisions when the way forward is anything but obvious. But just as a clear set of values will help you to navigate your lives, you'll also, throughout your lives, need to navigate your values.
     Because deeply felt values can come into tension with each other — and indeed, in any full and richly lived life, they will. And when that happens, we can do one of two things. We can choose to let one value give way wholly to another; or we can do the hard work of managing that tension: seeking a balance that honors both values to the fullest extent possible.”

     “Have you ever wondered why superficial paper cuts often hurt worse than more serious cuts? The reason, doctors tell us, is that sensory nerve endings are close to the skin and are especially numerous on the hands. One square inch of skin on the hand contains 72 feet of nerve fiber. So even though a paper cut does not do much damage, it irritates sensitive nerve endings. As a result, we feel pain out of proportion to the injury.
     Small cutting remarks from those close to us can also cause a disproportionate amount of pain. We are unusually sensitive to injury from people we love and respect. A small slight from them can be more painful than one much worse from people less important to us.”