When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude. For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor and author, died July 2nd 2016
Simple flowers from the Mad Hatter Cafe, Castledermot
We need to give up what no longer works
and find new ways of being
that keep us close to what matters
Mark Nepo
Death is not the enemy. Age is not the enemy. These things are inevitable, They happen to everyone. But what we ought to fear is the kind of death that happens in life. It can happen at any time that you are going along, and then, at some point you congeal. You know, like jelly. You’re not fluid anymore. Your solidify at a certain point in your life and from then on your life is doomed to be a repetition of what you have done before. That’s the enemy.
Gail Godwin, The Finishing School
photo silar
As life becomes harder … it also becomes richer,
because the fewer expectations we have,
the more good things of life become unexpected gifts that we accept with gratitude.
Etty Hillesum, born 1914, died in Auschwitz 1943.
The human heart is never still. … There are always new thoughts and experiences emerging in your life; some moments delight and surprise you, others bring you onto shaky ground. …The mind and heart are wanderers who are always tempted by new horizons. … Your longing frequently takes you on inner voyages that no one would ever guess. …longing keeps the door open and calls towards us the gifts and blessings which our lives dream.
John O’Donohue,
In life, nothing dwells. The wind blows and then stops. The blossoms burst forth and then fall. Things come and go. The melody drifts back onto an aching E flat and then back to E again. The song of your life is played on white and black keys. Sadness is … an essential truth of human life. But let’s not dwell there. Not while the song is still playing.
Karen Maizen Miller, Be Sad
Photo alisson felus
