Scott Johnson > Scott's Quotes

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
― Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

“Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives. They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint...They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody else's experiences or write somebody else's poems.”
― Thomas Merton

“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

“Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.”
― John Updike, A Month of Sundays

“When asked "What do we need to learn this for?" any high-school teacher can confidently answer that, regardless of the subject, the knowledge will come in handy once the student hits middle age and starts working crossword puzzles in order to stave off the terrible loneliness.”
― David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

“Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.”
― Anne Lamott

“You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“There is no greater burden than great potential.”
― Charles M. Schulz

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves and not to twist them to fit our own image.”
― Thomas Merton

“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

“You never know when a moment and a
few sincere words can have an impact on a life.”
― Zig Ziglar

“He who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find Him the rest of the day.”
― John Bunyan

“Maybe that's what we look for in the people we love, the spark of unhappiness we think we know how to extinguish.”
― Tom Perrotta, Election

“Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.”
― Lao Tzu

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
― Wilfred Arlan Peterson

“The best cure for the body is a quiet mind”
― Napoleon

“The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are.”
― Erasmus, Praise of Folly

“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child.”
― Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”
― John Bunyan

“I never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams.”
― H.P. Lovecraft

“You are what you are and you are where you are because of what has gone into your mind. You change what you are and you change where you are by changing what goes into your mind.”
― Zig Ziglar

“Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace

“E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?”
― George Eliot

“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.”
― Colette

“The reason most people fail instead of succeed is they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose”
― Mary Shelley

“It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.”
― George Eliot