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ANYWAY
- Kent M. Keith from "The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council"

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centred.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favour underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

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To a Butterfly

William Wordsworth 1770-1850

Stay near me - do not take thy flight!

A little longer stay in sight!

Much converse do I find in thee,

Historian of my infancy!

Float near me; do not yet depart!

Dead times revive in thee:

Thou bring’st, gay creature as thou art!

A solemn image to my heart,

My father’s family!

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,

The time, when, in our childish plays,

My sister Emmeline and I

Together chased the butterfly!

A very hunter did I rush

Upon the prey - with leaps and springs

I followed on from brake to bush;

But she, God love her, feared to brush

The dust from off its wings.

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Two monks were washing their bowls in the river when they saw a scorpion that was drowning. One monk immediately scooped it up and set it upon the bank. In the process he was stung. He went back to washing his bowl and again the scorpion fell in. Again the monk saved it and  again he was stung. The other monk asked him, "Friend, why do you continue to save the scorpion when you know it's in its nature is to sting?"

"Because," the monk replied, "it's in my nature to save it!"

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Please enlarge this YouTube video

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TAKING THE ONE LESS TRAVELLED BY
is updated every Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday

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True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not. - Seneca

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I Love You

Sara Teasedale 1884-1933

When April bends above me

And finds me fast asleep,

Dust need not keep the secret

A live heart died to keep.

When April tells the thrushes,

The meadow-larks will know,

And pipe the three words lightly

To all the winds that blow.

Above his roof the swallows,

In notes like far-blown rain,

Will tell the little sparrow

Beside his window-pane.

O sparrow, little sparrow,

When I am fast asleep,

Then tell my love the secret

That I have died to keep.

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We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth as "wild." Only to the white man was nature a "wilderness" and only to him was the land "infested" with "wild" animals and "savage people."

To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery. Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy heaped injustices upon us and the families we loved was it "wild" for us.

When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his approach, then it was that for us the "Wild West" began. - Luther Standing Bear

Luther Standing Bear 1868-1939, chief of the Oglala Sioux

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A priest was in charge of the garden within a famous Zen temple. Next to the temple there was another, smaller temple where there lived a very old Zen master. One day, when the priest was expecting some special guests, he took extra care in tending to the garden. He pulled up the weeds and spent a long time raking up the fallen leaves. As he worked, the old Zen master watched him with interest from across the wall. 

When he had finished, the priest stood back to admire his work. "Isn't it beautiful," he called out to the old man. "Yes," was the reply, "but there is something missing. Help me over this wall and I'll put it right for you." 

After hesitating, the priest lifted the old fellow over and set him down. Slowly, the master walked to the tree near the centre of the garden, grabbed it by the trunk and shook it. Leaves showered down all over the garden. "There," said the old man, "you can put me back now."

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"Plaisir d'Amour"

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TAKING THE ONE LESS TRAVELLED BY

will be updated every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday

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A new series of this blog begins

on

Saturday 7th March

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ANYONE FOR HAIKU?

http://anyoneforhaiku.blogspot.com

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pictures, poems and pearls of wisdom . . .

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.
Care about other people's approval and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity. - Lao-Tzu

Roses

by George Eliot 

    You love the roses - so do I. I wish
    The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
    From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
    Then all the valley would be pink and white
    And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
    As feathers, smelling sweet: and it would be
    Like sleeping and yet waking, all at once.

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Young and Old

by Charles Kingsley

When all the world is young, lad,
  And all the trees are green,
And every goose a swan, lad,
  And every lass a queen,
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
  And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
  And every dog his day.

When all the world is old, lad,
  And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
  And all the wheels run down,
Creep home, and take your place there,
  The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there
  You loved when all was young.

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TAKING THE ONE LESS TRAVELLED BY

Todays post brings this present series to an end. Perhaps a follow-up will be possible early in 2013.

 So to conclude, more pearls of wisdom, this is from Woody Allen in a more serious mood -

The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have,

instead of what you don't have

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pictures, poems and pearls of wisdom . . .

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I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. - Gilda Radner

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Love Song

Spike Milligan

If I could write words

Like leaves on an Autumn Forest floor,

What a bonfire my letters would make.

If I could speak words of water,

You would drown when I said

"I love you."

- from Small Dreams of a Scorpion

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Better than a thousand
Hollow words
Is one word that brings peace.

Better than a thousand
Hollow verses
Is one verse that brings peace.

Better than a hundred
Hollow lines
Is one line of the law, bringing peace.

- from the Dhammapada
 
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NEXT POST WEDNESDAY 14TH NOVEMBER

pictures, poems and pearls of wisdom . . .



I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men. - Lao-Tzu

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Autobiography in Five Chapters

by Portia Nelson

1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost...
I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in...it's a habit
My eyes are open; I know where I am;
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.

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Leisure

by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

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You will find meaning in life only if you create it. It is not lying there somewhere behind the bushes, so you can go and you search a little bit and find it. It is not there like a rock that you will find. It is a poetry to be composed, it is a song to be sung, it is a dance to be danced.

 (written by the Indian mystic Osho 1931-1990)

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