Happiness is always there. You just have to choose to see it. 

There's no point dwelling in the dark and ignoring the light of the stars.

-  Carrie Hope Fletcher b.1992

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We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing?  

- Swami Satchidananda 1914-2002

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Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you like to do,
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?

Talk about the moon, floating in de sky
Looking like a lily on a lake,
Talk about a bird, learning how to fly
Making all the music he can make.

Talk about the star, looking like a toy
Peeking through de branches of a tree,
Talk about de girl, talk about da boy
Counting all de ripples on da sea.

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you like to do.
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?
- Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

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Happiness is only real when shared.
- Jon Krakauer b.1954

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NEXT POST TUESDAY

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The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
- Daniel J. Boorstin 1914-2004

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And I realised a wondrous truth - that knowledge could be our treasure, that there were things humankind knew that we did not, that our conquest need not comprise taking and killing, but could consist of our mutual conquest of ignorance and distrust.

- Rachel Hartman from "Seraphina"

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Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
- Dorothy Parker 1893-1967

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The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject. So this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them. Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced. 

- Seneca the Younger 4BC-65AD

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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot!
- Albert Einstein 1879-1955

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NEXT POST SATURDAY

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Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

- Guillaume Apollinaire 1880=1918

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There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more. 

- Lord Byron, George Gordon 1788-1824

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Out of the night that covers me, 

Black as the Pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate, 

How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate: 

I am the captain of my soul. 

- William Ernest Henley 1849-1903

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I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it - I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself.

I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts.

I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know, but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me.

However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded.

I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am OK.

- Virginia Satir 1916-88

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NEXT POST THURSDAY

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If I can see pain in your eyes then share with me your tears. 

If I can see joy in your eyes then share with me your smile. 

-  Santosh Kalwar b.1982

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Tiny Giggles

Silly giggles of laughter
I store upon a shelf,
I give some to others,
I save some for myself.
I am rich beyond all measure
Though not with worldly wealth,
I store up these treasures
For my heart and soulful health.
- Muse from "Enigmatic Evolution"

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The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you

Don't go back to sleep!

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep!

People are going back and forth 

across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,

The door is round and open

Don't go back to sleep! 

-  Rumi 1207-73

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To hear never-heard sounds,

To see never-seen colours and shapes,

To try to understand the imperceptible

Power pervading the world;

To fly and find pure ethereal substances

That are not of matter

But of that invisible soul pervading reality.

To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul;

To be a lantern in the darkness

Or an umbrella in a stormy day;

To feel much more than know.

To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain;

To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon;

To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves;

To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets

Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching.

To be a smile on the face of a woman

And shine in her memory

As a moment saved without planning.

- Dejan Stojanovic b.1959

Stojanovic is a Serbian poet, essayist, and philosopher. He belongs to a small circle of poets who have been the main creative and artistic force of Serbian poetry over the last few decades.

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NEXT POST TUESDAY

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If you are a dreamer, come in,

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

A hoper, a pray-er, a magic-bean-buyer,

If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire,

For we have some flax golden tales to spin.

Come in! 

Come in! 

- Shel Silverstein 1930-99

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You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body 

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

- Mary Oliver b.1935

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I opened a book and in I strode.

Now nobody can find me.

I've left my chair, my house, my road,

My town and my world behind me.

I'm wearing the cloak, I've slipped on the ring,

I've swallowed the magic potion.

I've fought with a dragon, dined with a king

And dived in a bottomless ocean.

I opened a book and made some friends.

I shared their tears and laughter

And followed their road with its bumps and bends

To the happily ever after.

I finished my book and out I came.

The cloak can no longer hide me.

My chair and my house are just the same,

But I have a book inside me.

- Julia Donaldson b.1948

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There is nothing at all that can be talked about adequately, 

and the whole art of poetry is to say what can't be said. 

- Alan W. Watts 1915-73

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From "Letters to a Young Poet"by Rainer Maria Rilke 1875-1926

How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.

Rainer Maria Rilke was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets", writing in both verse and highly lyrical prose. Several critics have described Rilke's work as inherently "mystical." - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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NEXT POST SATURDAY

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No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge,
 and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.
- L. Frank Baum 1856-1919

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The Nightingale
(from "The Te of Piglet" by Benjamin Hoff

The emperor of China loved to listen to the singing of the nightingale which brought him great contentment. One day he was presented with a mechanical bird covered with jewels and gold. To the emperor's amazement, it sang the nightingale's song with perfect clockwork precision, whenever he wanted it to. It quickly became the sensation of the empire - from peasant children to court officials, everyone (or almost everyone) admired the wonderful bird which sang perfectly over and over. Ignored and forgotten, the real bird flew away.

But after some time, the clockwork bird broke down. Without its song to soothe him, the emperor became ill. His condition grew worse until he was nearly at the point of death. Just then, a nightingale alighted outside the window and began to sing. His will to live restored, the emperor recovered.

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Where the Sidewalk ends
Shel Silverstein 1930-99

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

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El Rio de Luz (The River of Light)  (1877)
Frederic Edwin Church 1826-1900

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NEXT POST THURSDAY

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It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting. 

- Paulo Coelho,

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Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;

They toil not, neither do they spin;

And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory

was not arrayed like one of these.

from The Sermon on the Mount preached by Jesus of Nazareth

One of Master Gasan's monks had spent some time at Tokyo University. When he got back, he asked Gasan if he had ever read the Christian bible. Gasan shook his head but asked the monk to read some of it to him. 

The monk opened the bible at the Sermon on the Mount and read the part which referred to the lilies of the field.

Gasan listened attentively and for a few minutes said nothing. "Yes," he said at last, "Whoever uttered those words is an enlightened being. What you have read to me is the essence of everything I have been trying to teach you here."

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The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind,

but the goodness of a person spreads in all directions.

- Chanakya 371-283 BC

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"Second Waltz" by Dmitri Shostakovich

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The new series of
NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL ART
begins tomorrow
http://nowthatswhaticallart.blogspot.com

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