Effort and rest

Can you stop the Earth from spinning? Can you stop the progression of the seasons? As preposterous as it may sound, many people try, at least with their own lives.

The Earth spins, and we have day and night. A time for effort, and a time for rest. The slightly tilted Earth orbits the sun, and we have the seasons of the year. A time for planting, for growing, for harvesting, and for rest.

The cycle of effort and rest is deeply ingrained in the world around us, and in us as well. A good night's sleep makes for a good day's work. And a day full of effort, makes for a good night's sleep. Get too far off in either direction -- work with no rest, or rest with no work -- and your efforts become useless.

You cannot avoid the need for balance any more than you can stop the Earth from spinning. Work hard, rest well, and enjoy the optimum performance that comes from a well balanced life.

-- Ralph Marston

Happiness

If you want happiness...

	For an hour - take a nap
	For a day - go fishing
	For a month - get married
	For a year - inherit a fortune
	For a lifetime - help someone else.

- Chinese Proverb

Tenacity

I'd look at one of my stone cutters hammering away at a rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow, it would split in two, and I knew it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

- Jacob A. Riis

Action

Don't think!
Thinking is the enemy of creativity.
It's self conscious, and anything self conscious is lousy.
You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.

- Ray Bradbury

Friends

Live so that friends can defend you, but never have to

- Arnold Glasow

Books

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.

- James Bryce

Character

The best index to a person's character is

(a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and
(b) how he treats people who can't fight back.

- Abigail Van Buren

Confidence

It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.

- Lillian Hellman

Encouragement

Flatter me, and I may not believe you.
Criticize me, and I may not like you.
Ignore me, and I may not forgive you.
Encourage me, and I may not forget you.

- William Arthur

This is it

Always we hope someone else has the answer.
Some other place will be better, some other time it will turn out.

This is it.

No one else has the answer, no other place will be better and it has already turned out.
At the center of your being you have the answer,
You know who you are and you know what you want.
There is no need to run outside for better seeing nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being; for the more you leave it the less you learn.

- Lao-Tzu, Author of the Tao Te Ching