Often, she is the glue. ~Dad

“Lincoln’s stepmother probably did not teach him very much, but she kindled his mind and encouraged him. He did the work and put in the hours on his own.”

“Nature, more of a stepmother than a mother in several ways, has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfied with their own lot and envious of another s.”

“To be sure a stepmother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man!”
Elizabeth Gaskell quotes

“It is far from easy to determine whether she (Nature) has proved to man a kind parent or a merciless stepmother”

Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother. ~Oprah Winfrey

You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around - and why his parents will always wave back. ~William D. Tammeus

Now that… my kids are grown, I understand how much work and love it takes to raise and to keep a family together. The example of your strength, devotion, and patience is now rippling through the generations. Thank you! ~Forest Houtenschil

My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone

Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories. ~John Wilmot

Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn’t have anything to do with it. ~Haim Ginott

Are we not like two volumes of one book? ~Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn’t. ~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

Who fed me from her gentle breast
And hushed me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
My Mother.
~Anne Taylor

On Mother’s Day I have written a poem for you. In the interest of poetic economy and truth, I have succeeded in concentrating my deepest feelings and beliefs into two perfectly crafted lines: You’re my mother, I would have no other! ~Forest Houtenschil

Children are a great comfort in your old age - and they help you reach it faster, too. ~Lionel Kauffman

Sing out loud in the car even, or especially, if it embarrasses your children. ~Marilyn Penland

Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children. ~Charles R. Swindoll, The Strong Family

Now the thing about having a baby - and I can’t be the first person to have noticed this - is that thereafter you have it. ~Jean Kerr

There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. ~Chinese Proverb

Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected. ~Red Buttons

If nature had arranged that husbands and wives should have children alternatively, there would never be more than three in a family. ~Lawrence Housman

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. ~William Makepeace Thackeray

Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children. ~Sam Levenson

The one thing children wear out faster than shoes is parents. ~John J. Plomp

Setting a good example for your children takes all the fun out of middle age. ~William Feather, The Business of Life, 1949

Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion-picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word “collectible” as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success. ~Fran Lebowitz, “Parental Guidance,” Social Studies, 1981

This heart, my own dear mother, bends,
With love’s true instinct, back to thee!
~Thomas Moore

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over.
~George Cooper

Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs… since the payment is pure love. ~Mildred B. Vermont

The sweetest sounds to mortals given
Are heard in Mother, Home, and Heaven.
~William Goldsmith Brown

A suburban mother’s role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after. ~Peter De Vries

If the whole world were put into one scale, and my mother in the other, the whole world would kick the beam. ~Lord Langdale (Henry Bickersteth)

All mothers are working mothers. ~Author Unknown

It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge. ~Phyllis Diller

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

Woman in the home has not yet lost her dignity, in spite of Mother’s Day, with its offensive implication that our love needs an annual nudging, like our enthusiasm for the battle of Bunker Hill. ~John Erskine

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother. ~Author Unknown

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly. ~Ambrose Bierce

Women’s Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s the men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one’s likely to do anything about that. ~Golda Meir

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his. ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child. ~Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own. ~Aristotle

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. ~Marion C. Garretty, quoted in A Little Spoonful of Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul

Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries. ~T. DeWitt Talmage

A man’s work is from sun to sun, but a mother’s work is never done. ~Author Unknown

A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest. ~Irish Proverb

The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers. ~Jewish Proverb

Motherhood is priced
Of God, at price no man may dare
To lessen or misunderstand.
~Helen Hunt Jackson

Getting down on all fours and imitating a rhinoceros stops babies from crying. (Put an empty cigarette pack on your nose for a horn and make loud “snort” noises.) I don’t know why parents don’t do this more often. Usually it makes the kid laugh. Sometimes it sends him into shock. Either way it quiets him down. If you’re a parent, acting like a rhino has another advantage. Keep it up until the kid is a teenager and he definitely won’t have his friends hanging around your house all the time. ~P.J. O’Rourke

I don’t care how poor a man is; if he has family, he’s rich. ~Dan Wilcox and Thad Mumford, M*A*S*H, “Identity Crisis,”

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~Dinah Craik

Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. ~Albert Schweitzer

You can always tell a real friend: when you’ve made a fool of yourself he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job. ~Laurence J. Peter

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. ~Marcel Proust

If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden. ~Attributed to Claudia Ghandi

[Spring is] when life’s alive in everything.
Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

If there comes a little thaw,
Still the air is chill and raw,
Here and there a patch of snow,
Dirtier than the ground below,
Dribbles down a marshy flood;
Ankle-deep you stick in mud In the meadows while you sing,
“This is Spring.”
Christopher Pearce Cranch, A Spring Growl

Well, spring sprang. We’ve had our state of grace and our little gift of sanctioned madness, courtesy of Mother Nature. Thanks, Gaia. Much obliged. I guess it’s time to get back to that daily routine of living we like to call normal.
David Assael, Northern Exposure, Spring Break, 1991

Listen, can you hear it? Spring’s sweet cantata. The strains of grass pushing through the snow. The song of buds swelling on the vine. The tender timpani of a baby robin’s heart. Spring.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Wake Up Call, 1992

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.
Doug Larson

A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King.
Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), No. 1333

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952)

[Spring is] a true reconstructionist.
Henry Timrod

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)

An optimist is the human personification of spring.
Susan J. Bissonette

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)

O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day!
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, Act 1 scene 3

Mr. Magorium: “Unlikely adventures require unlikely tools. With faith, love, a block of wood, and a counting mutant, you may have all you need.”

Molly: “Are we going on an adventure?”

Magorium: “My dear, we’re already on one.”

======
Henry: “How do you know it’s your time to go?”

Mr. Magorium: “You see these shoes? I found them in a little shop in Tuscany, and I fell so completely in love with them, I bought enough pairs to last my whole lifetime. This is my last pair.”
======

Molly: “37 seconds…great, well done, now we wait.”

Mr. Magorium: “No, we breathe. We pulse. We regenerate. Our hearts beat, our minds create, our souls ingest. 37 seconds well-used is a lifetime.”

======
“And if anyone asks what became of me, I ask that you relate my life and all its wonder, and end it with a simple ‘He died.’”
======

“Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.”

“We love Him because He first loved us.”
1 John 4:9-10

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“And Jesus said unto them … , “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to younder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you.”
Romans 1:17

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“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear … ”
1 John 4:18

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Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6

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The LORD gave this command to Joshua son of Nun: “Be strong and courageous, for you will bring the Israelites into the land I promised them on oath, and I myself will be with you.”Deuteronomy 31:23
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Joshua 1:9

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Then you will have success if you are careful to observe the decrees and laws that the LORD gave Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged.
1 Chronicles 22:13

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Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong.
1 Corinthians 16:13

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But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear what they fear ; do not be frightened.”
Take Courage
1 Peter 3:14

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Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it.”
Ezra 10:4
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Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed,
Mark 6:51

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Will your courage endure or your hands be strong in the day I deal with you? I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it.
The Effects Your Courage Will Have On Others
Ezekiel 22:14

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… say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”
Isaiah 35:4
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So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10

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“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”
Psalm 23

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The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.”
Proverbs 18:10

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“LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
Psalm 16:5-8

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“It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great. You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn.”
Psalm 18:32-36

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“Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O LORD.”
Psalm 25:4-7

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“One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.”
Psalm 27:4-5

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“The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. The LORD is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one. Save your people and bless your inheritance; be their shepherd and carry them forever.”
Psalm 28:7-9

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“Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me; O LORD, be my help. You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.”
Psalm 30:10-12

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“Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him.”
Daniel 2:20-22

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“Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time–God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.”
1 Timothy 6:12-16

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“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3:5-6

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“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.”
Proverbs 16:3

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“The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.”
Psalm 18:2-6

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“The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God my Savior! He is the God who avenges me, who subdues nations under me, who saves me from my enemies. You exalted me above my foes; from violent men you rescued me. Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O LORD; I will sing praises to your name.”
Psalm 18:46-49

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“The LORD is my light and my salvation- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life- of whom shall I be afraid?”
Psalm 27:1

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“That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-this is the gift of God.”
Ecclesiastes 3:13

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“Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.”
1 Timothy 6:12

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“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?”
1 Corinthians 3:16

Christ is Risen: The world below lies desolate
Christ is Risen: The spirits of evil are fallen
Christ is Risen: The angels of God are rejoicing
Christ is Risen: The tombs of the dead are empty
Christ is Risen indeed from the dead,
the first of the sleepers,
Glory and power are his forever and ever
St. Hippolytus (AD 190-236)

Catholic Collect for Easter Sunday

God our Father,
by raising Christ your Son
you conquered the power of death
and opened for us the way to eternal life.
Let our celebration today raise us up
and renew our lives by the Spirit that is within us.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Anglican Collect for Easter Day

O God,
who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son
to the death of the cross,
and by his glorious resurrection
delivered us from the power of our enemy:
Grant us so to die daily to sin,
that we may evermore live
with him in the joy of his resurrection;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Eastern Prayer of Christ Resurrected

Christ, rising again from the dead
dieth now no more:
death shall no more have dominion over him;
for in that he died, he died once:
but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God,
alleluia, alleluia.

Let the Jews now tell us,
how the soldiers,
who guarded the sepulchre,
lost the King,
though they had placed a rock over him.
Why kept they not the Rock of Justice?
Either let them restore the buried One,
or adore with us the risen One, saying:
But in that he liveth,
he liveth unto God,
alleluia, alleluia.
The Liturgical Year: Book 7

Easter Prayer of Praise

Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In His great mercy
He has given us a new birth
to a living hope through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead
and to an inheritance
that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.
It is reserved in heaven for you,
who because of your faith in God
are being protected by His power
until the salvation
that is ready to be revealed at the end of time.
New Saint Joseph People’s Prayer Book

Alternate Anglican Collect for Easter Day

O God, who made this most holy night to shine
with the glory of the Lord’s resurrection:
Stir up in your Church that Spirit of adoption
which is given to us in Baptism,
that we, being renewed both in body and mind,
may worship your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
who overcame death
and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
Grant that we,
who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection,
may be raised from the death of sin
by your life-giving Spirit;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Catholic Collect for the 2nd Sunday of Easter

God of mercy,
you wash away our sins in water,
you give us a new birth in the Spirit,
and redeem us in the blood of Christ.
As we celebrate Christ’s resurrection,
increase our awareness of these blessings,
and renew your gift of life within us.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Catholic Opening Prayer for the 3rd Sunday of Easter

God our Father,
may we look forward with hope to our resurrection,
for you have made us your sons and daughters,
and restored the joy of our youth.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Catholic Opening Prayer for the 4th Sunday of Easter

Almighty and ever-living God,
give us new strength
from the courage of Christ our shepherd,
and lead us to join the saints in heaven,
where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Alternate Catholic Collect for the 4th Sunday of Easter

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
though your people walk in the valley of darkness,
no evil should they fear;
for they follow in faith the call of the shepherd
whom you have sent for their hope and strength.
Attune our minds to the sound of his voice,
lead our steps in the path he has shown,
that we may know the strength of his outstretched arm
and enjoy the light of your presence for ever.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Catholic Prayer for the Easter Virtues

Lord,
the resurrection of Your Son
has given us new life and renewed hope.
Help us to live as new people
in pursuit of the Christian ideal.
Grant us wisdom to know what we must do,
the will to want to do it,
the courage to undertake it,
the perseverance to continue to do it,
and the strength to complete it.
New Saint Joseph People’s Prayer Book

Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won’t stay there.  ~Clarence W. Hall

It is the hour to rend thy chains,
The blossom time of souls.  ~Katherine Lee Bates

The joyful news that He is risen does not change the contemporary world.  Still before us lie work, discipline, sacrifice.  But the fact of Easter gives us the spiritual power to do the work, accept the discipline, and make the sacrifice.  ~Henry Knox Sherrill

Could life so end, half told; its school so fail?
Soul, soul, there is a sequel to thy tale!
~Robert Mowry Bell

Easter is the demonstration of God that life is essentially spiritual and timeless.  ~Charles M. Crowe

Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;
Death is strong, but Life is stronger;
Stronger than the dark, the light;
Stronger than the wrong, the right…
~Phillips Brooks, “An Easter Carol”

Let every man and woman count himself immortal.  Let him catch the revelation of Jesus in his resurrection.  Let him say not merely, “Christ is risen,” but “I shall rise.”  ~Phillips Brooks

On Easter Day the veil between time and eternity thins to gossamer.  ~Douglas Horton

Easter spells out beauty, the rare beauty of new life.  ~S.D. Gordon

Celestial spirit that doth roll
The heart’s sepulchral stone away,
Be this our resurrection day,
The singing Easter of the soul -
O gentle Master of the Wise,
Teach us to say: “I will arise.”  ~Richard Le Gallienne

Easter is not a time for groping through dusty, musty tomes or tombs to disprove spontaneous generation or even to prove life eternal.  It is a day to fan the ashes of dead hope, a day to banish doubts and seek the slopes where the sun is rising, to revel in the faith which transports us out of ourselves and the dead past into the vast and inviting unknown.  ~Author unknown, as quoted in the Lewiston Tribune

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.  ~Joseph Addison

Where man sees but withered leaves, God sees sweet flowers growing.  ~Albert Laighton

The fasts are done; the Aves said;
The moon has filled her horn
And in the solemn night I watch
Before the Easter morn.
So pure, so still the starry heaven,
So hushed the brooding air,
I could hear the sweep of an angel’s wings
If one should earthward fare.
~Edna Dean Proctor, “Easter Morning”

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.  ~Walter Raleigh

He takes men out of time and makes them feel eternity.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

For I remember it is Easter morn,
And life and love and peace are all new born.  ~Alice Freeman Palmer

Thou art the Sun of other days.
They shine by giving back the rays.
~John Keble, The Christian Year: Easter Days

We live and die; Christ died and lived!  ~John Stott

Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!  ~Thomas Blackburn, “An Easter Hymn”

Those have a short Lent, who owe money to be paid at Easter.  ~Benjamin Franklin

See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices…  ~Charles Kingsley

‘Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees
Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Spanish Student

Once more to new creation Awake,
and death gainsay,
For death is swallowed up of life,
And Christ is risen today!  ~George Newell Lovejoy

Let the resurrection joy lift us from loneliness and weakness and despair to strength and beauty and happiness.  ~Floyd W. Tomkins

There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou - Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.  ~Emily Bronte

And he departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him.  For He departed, and behold, He is here.  ~St Augustine

Ye sleeping buds, break
Open your green cerements, and wake
To fragrant blossoming for His sweet sake.  ~Margaret French Patton

The story of Easter is the story of God’s wonderful window of divine surprise.  ~Carl Knudsen

Angels, roll the rock away;
Death, yield up thy mighty prey:
See, He rises from the tomb,
Glowing with immortal bloom.  ~Thomas Scott, “Easter Angels”

Unfortunately there is nothing more inane than an Easter carol.  It is a religious perversion of the activity of Spring in our blood.  ~Wallace Stevens, 1916

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.  ~Martin Luther

I think of the garden after the rain;
And hope to my heart comes singing,
At morn the cherry-blooms will be white,
And the Easter bells be ringing!  ~Edna Dean Proctor, “Easter Bells”

Well pleaseth me the sweet time of Easter
That maketh the leaf and the flower come out.  ~Bertran de Born

Easter tells us that life is to be interpreted not simply in terms of things but in terms of ideals.  ~Charles M. Crowe

God expects from men something more than at such times, and that it were much to be wished for the credit of their religion as well as the satisfaction of their conscience that their Easter devotions would in some measure come up to their Easter dress.  ~Robert South, Sermons

Love is often gentle, desire always a rage.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.  ~Benjamin Franklin

It is with our passions as it is with fire and water; they are good servants, but bad masters.  ~Roger L’Estrange, Aesop’s Fables, 1692

Passion and prejudice govern the world, only under the name of reason.  ~John Wesley

Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Passion makes the world go round.  Love just makes it a safer place.  ~Ice T, The Ice Opinion, quoted in Reader’s Digest, “Quotable Quotes,” February 2002

Chase down your passion like it’s the last bus of the night.  ~Glade Byron Addams

Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!  Else it may be their miserable fortune, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Follow your passion, and success will follow you.  ~Arthur Buddhold

Were the passionate visible, all we would go blind.  ~Jareb Teague

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive.  And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.  ~Harold Whitman

Renew your passions daily.  ~Abbe Yeux-verdi

The most beautiful make-up of a woman is passion.  But cosmetics are easier to buy.  ~Yves Saint Laurent

The same passions in man and woman nonetheless differ in tempo; hence man and woman do not cease misunderstanding one another.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.  ~Amiel, Journal, 17 December 1856

But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Passion is universal humanity.  Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.  ~Honoré de Balzac

In music the passions enjoy themselves.  ~Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886

It is a revenge the devil sometimes takes upon the virtuous, that he entraps them by the force of the very passion they have suppressed and think themselves superior to.  ~George Santayana

I hated him with a passion so deep, sometimes it felt like love.  ~The Quote Garden

You taught me to be nice, so nice that now I am so full of niceness, I have no sense of right and wrong, no outrage, no passion.  ~Garrison Keillor

Every civilization is, among other things, an arrangement for domesticating the passions and setting them to do useful work.  ~Aldous Huxley

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.  ~Mother Teresa

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.  ~Albert Einstein

There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved.  It is God’s finger on man’s shoulder.  ~Charles Morgan

You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover’s arms can only come later when you’re sure they won’t laugh if you trip.  ~Jonathan Carroll, “Outside the Dog Museum”

Ah me! love can not be cured by herbs.  ~Ovid

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.  ~Eric Fromm

Love has no desire but to fulfill itself.  To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.  To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.  ~Kahlil Gibran

Infatuation is when you think he’s as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners.  Love is when you realize that he’s as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford - but you’ll take him anyway.  ~Judith Viorst, Redbook, 1975

Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.  ~W. Somerset Maugham, A Writer’s Notebook, 1949

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.  ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, translated from French by Lewis Galantière

When love is not madness, it is not love.  ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river.  ~Malagasy Proverb

You don’t love a woman because she is beautiful, she is beautiful because you love her.  ~Author Unknown

For you see, each day I love you more
Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.
~Rosemonde Gerard

Forget love - I’d rather fall in chocolate!  ~Sandra J. Dykes

Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defense.  ~Mark Overby

Love is a symbol of eternity.  It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.  ~Author Unknown

Love - a wildly misunderstood although highly desirable malfunction of the heart which weakens the brain, causes eyes to sparkle, cheeks to glow, blood pressure to rise and the lips to pucker.  ~Author Unknown

Love is a sweet tyranny, because the lover endureth his torments willingly.  ~Proverb

The lover is a monotheist who knows that other people worship different gods but cannot himself imagine that there could be other gods.  ~Theodor Reik, Of Love and Lust, 1957

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.  ~Peter Ustinov

Hate leaves ugly scars, love leaves beautiful ones.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
~William Shakespeare, Mid-Summer Night’s Dream, 1595

The art of love… is largely the art of persistence.  ~Albert Ellis

Love one another and you will be happy.  It’s as simple and as difficult as that.  ~Michael Leunig

Who would give a law to lovers?  Love is unto itself a higher law.  ~Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, A.D. 524

Who, being loved, is poor?  ~Oscar Wilde

Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame.  ~Henry David Thoreau

Without love, what are we worth?  Eighty-nine cents!  Eighty-nine cents worth of chemicals walking around lonely.  ~Laurence Marks, M*A*S*H, “Love Story,” original air date 7 January 1973, spoken by the character Hawkeye

A baby is born with a need to be loved - and never outgrows it.  ~Frank A. Clark

Shall we compare our hearts to a garden -
with beautiful blooms, straggling weeds,
swooping birds and sunshine, rain -
and most importantly, seeds.
~Grey Livingston

Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.  ~Robert Heinlein

The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it.  You and you alone make me feel that I am alive.  Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.  ~George Moore

We loved with a love that was more than love.  ~Edgar Allan Poe

If I love you, what business is it of yours?  ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The hardest-learned lesson:  that people have only their kind of love to give, not our kind.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire.  ~François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

My debt to you, Belovèd,
Is one I cannot pay
In any coin of any realm
On any reckoning day.
~Jessie B. Rittenhouse

We choose those we like; with those we love, we have no say in the matter.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands.  ~Quoted by Alexandra Penney in Self

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.  ~Jean Anouilh

When a man is in love or in debt, someone else has the advantage.  ~Bill Balance

Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly.  ~Rose Franken

Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat.  ~Ben Hecht

A bell is no bell ’til you ring it,
A song is no song ’til you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasn’t put there to stay -
Love isn’t love
‘Til you give it away.
~Oscar Hammerstein, Sound of Music, “You Are Sixteen (Reprise)”
(Thanks, Krystel)

Love is like dew that falls on both nettles and lilies.  ~Swedish Proverb

Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.  ~Henry Van Dyke

Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia.  ~Judith Viorst, Redbook, 1975

Passion makes the world go round.  Love just makes it a safer place.  ~Ice T, The Ice Opinion, quoted in Reader’s Digest, “Quotable Quotes,” February 2002

Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses.  ~Lord Dewar

When you’re in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks.  ~Natalie Clifford Barney

Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict.  ~Rabindranath Tagore

Love burns across the infinitude.  ~Meriel Stelliger

It is astonishing how little one feels alone when one loves.  ~John Bulwer

‘Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come.  ~Lord ByronA hundred hearts would be too few
To carry all my love for you.
~Author UnknownLove is the thing that enables a woman to sing while she mops up the floor after her husband has walked across it in his barn boots.  ~Author unknown, as printed in The Hoosier Farmer

People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.  ~Author Unknown

And ye, who have met with Adversity’s blast,
And been bow’d to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass’d
Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury -
Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.
~Thomas Hood

Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past.  Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.  ~Brooks Atkinson

Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer.
~Walter Scott

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.  ~Oscar Wilde

Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath given;
While angels sing with tender mirth,
A glad new year to all the earth.
~Martin Luther

A new oath holds pretty well; but… when it is become old, and frayed out, and damaged by a dozen annual retryings of its remains, it ceases to be serviceable; any little strain will snap it.  ~Mark Twain, speech in New York City, 31 March 1885

But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty?  I live according to twenty-year-old habits.  ~Andre Gide

I do think New Year’s resolutions can’t technically be expected to begin on New Year’s Day, don’t you?  Since, because it’s an extension of New Year’s Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system.  Also dieting on New Year’s Day isn’t a good idea as you can’t eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover.  I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second.  ~Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

New Year’s Eve, where auld acquaintance be forgot.  Unless, of course, those tests come back positive.  ~Jay Leno

We meet today
To thank Thee for the era done,
And Thee for the opening one.
~John Greenleaf Whittier

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this:  To rise above the little things.  ~John Burroughs

Of all sound of all bells… most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year.  ~Charles Lamb

A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I’ve played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
~Edgar Guest

It wouldn’t be New Year’s if I didn’t have regrets.  ~William Thomas

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.  Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential.  ~Ellen Goodman

May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions.  ~Joey Adams

He who breaks a resolution is a weakling;
He who makes one is a fool.
~F.M. Knowles

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year.  It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.  Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions.  Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.  ~G.K. Chesterton

I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the year’s.  ~Henry Moore

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year.  Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.  ~Thomas Mann

I made no resolutions for the New Year.  The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.  ~Anaïs Nin

Why won’t they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, can’t they use birth control on time?  I want an interregnum.  The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping - rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas - But, goodness, why need they do it?  ~John Dos Passos, 1917

New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.  ~Mark Twain

Every man regards his own life as the New Year’s Eve of time.  ~Jean Paul Richter

The only way to spend New Year’s Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel.  Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.  ~W.H. Auden

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.  ~Patrick Young

Don’t knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn’t start a conversation if it didn’t change once in a while.  ~Kin Hubbard

There is no season such delight can bring
As summer, autumn, winter and the spring.
~William Browne

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event.  You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?  ~J.B. Priestley

Snowflakes are kisses from heaven.  ~Author Unknown

Any proverbs about weather are doubly true during a storm.  ~Ed Northstrum

The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.  ~e.e. cummings

Where does the white go when the snow melts?  ~Author Unknown

A snowflake is one of God’s most fragile creations, but look what they can do when they stick together!  ~Author Unknown

Snowmen fall from heaven… unassembled.  ~Author Unknown

There’s one good thing about snow, it makes your lawn look as nice as your neighbor’s.  ~Clyde Moore

“Tom Johnson did it all, he played and won six Stanley Cups, he coached Stanley Cups, he won a Norris Trophy, he’s in the Hall of Fame — what else can you do in hockey?” - Don Cherry

“He’ll be missed, we had a lot of fun together. He had a hell of a life in hockey.” - Dickie Moore

The Christmas season has come to mean the period when the public plays Santa Claus to the merchants.  ~John Andrew Holmes

The only gift is a portion of thyself.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall.  We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space.  ~Dave Barry

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.  ~Stephen Butler Leacock, quoted in Michael Jackman, Crown’s Book of Political Quotations, 1982

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.  ~Cree Indian Proverb

Don’t blow it - good planets are hard to find.  ~Quoted in Time

With laissez-faire and price atomic,
Ecology’s Uneconomic,
But with another kind of logic
Economy’s Unecologic.
~Kenneth E. Boulding, in Frank F. Darling and John P. Milton, eds., Future Environments of North America, 1966

But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith’s.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Gifts,” Essays, Second Series, 1844

Christmas is the season when you buy this year’s gifts with next year’s money.  ~Author Unknown

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.  ~George MacDonald

May Peace be your gift at Christmas and your blessing all year through!  ~Author Unknown

A hug is a great gift - one size fits all, and it’s easy to exchange.  ~Author Unknown

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.  ~Mohandas K. Gandhi, quoted in E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful

Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.  ~William Ruckelshaus, Business Week, 18 June 1990

God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the west… keeping the world in chains.  If [our nation] took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts.  ~Mahatma Gandhi

Economic advance is not the same thing as human progress.  ~John Clapham, A Concise Economic History of Britain, 1957

In its broadest ecological context, economic development is the development of more intensive ways of exploiting the natural environment.  ~Richard Wilkinson

U.S. consumers and industry dispose of enough aluminum to rebuild the commercial air fleet every three months; enough iron and steel to continuously supply all automakers; enough glass to fill New York’s World Trade Center every two weeks.  ~Environmental Defense Fund advertisement, Christian Science Monitor, 1990

After a visit to the beach, it’s hard to believe that we live in a material world.  ~Pam Shaw

You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.  ~Vernon Howard

The only reason a great many American families don’t own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments.  ~Mad Magazine

Debt, n.  An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.  ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary, 1911

To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.  ~Elwyn Brooks White

There must be more to life than having everything!  ~Maurice Sendak

Mammon, n.:  The god of the world’s leading religion.  ~Ambrose Bierce

He who buys what he does not need steals from himself.  ~Author Unknown

The hardest thing is to take less when you can get more.  ~Kin Hubbard

The gap in our economy is between what we have and what we think we ought to have - and that is a moral problem, not an economic one.  ~Paul Heyne

Who covets more, is evermore a slave.  ~Robert Herrick

Advertisers constantly invent cures to which there is no disease.  ~Author Unknown

Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance.  ~Marshall McLuhan, introduction to Wilson Bryan Key, Subliminal Seduction: Ad Media’s Manipulation of a Not So Innocent America, 1974

It used to be that people needed products to survive.  Now products need people to survive.  ~Nicholas Johnson

When the historian of the Twentieth Century shall have finished his narrative, and comes searching for the subtitle which shall best express the spirit of the period, we think it not at all unlikely that he may select “The Age of Advertising” for the purpose.  ~Printers’ Ink, 27 May 1915

The trouble with us in America isn’t that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy.  ~Louis Kronenberger

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying.  The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.  ~Elise Boulding

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.  It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.  ~E.F. Schumacker

Material blessings, when they pay beyond the category of need, are weirdly fruitful of headache.  ~Philip Wylie

Live simply that others might simply live.  ~Elizabeth Seaton

We don’t need to increase our goods nearly as much as we need to scale down our wants.  Not wanting something is as good as possessing it.  ~Donald Horban

The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket.  ~Frank Hubbard

We can tell our values by looking at our checkbook stubs.  ~Gloria Steinem

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this:  most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time.  Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.  ~Douglas Adams

Life shouldn’t be printed on dollar bills.  ~Clifford Odets

Business is the art of extracting money from another man’s pocket without resorting to violence.  ~Max Amsterdam

Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.  ~A.A. Latimer

We have profoundly forgotten everywhere that Cash-payment is not the sole relation of human beings.  ~Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present

…existence has become an unreasoning, wild dance around the golden calf, a mad worship of God Mammon.  In that dance and in that worship man has sacrificed all his finer qualities of the heart and soul - kindness and justice, honor and manhood, compassion and sympathy with his fellowman.  ~Alexander Berkman, What Is Communist Anarchism?

Debt is the worst poverty.  ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

Credit buying is much like being drunk.  The buzz happens immediately and gives you a lift…. The hangover comes the day after.  ~Joyce Brothers

The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago… had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.  ~Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life, 1923

Because we don’t think about future generations, they will never forget us.  ~Henrik Tikkanen

Till now man has been up against Nature; from now on he will be up against his own nature.  ~Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future, 1964

The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty.  The activist is the man who cleans up the river.  ~Ross Perot

The struggle to save the global environment is in one way much more difficult than the struggle to vanquish Hitler, for this time the war is with ourselves.  We are the enemy, just as we have only ourselves as allies.  ~Al Gore

We’re finally going to get the bill for the Industrial Age.  If the projections are right, it’s going to be a big one:  the ecological collapse of the planet.  ~Jeremy Rifkin, World Press Review, 30 December 1989

Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall.  He will end by destroying the earth.  ~Albert Schweitzer, quoted in James Brabazon, Albert Schweitzer

Though our mouths were full of song as the sea,
and our tongues of exultation as the multitude of its waves,
and our lips of praise as the wide-extended firmament;
though our eyes shone with light like the sun and the moon,
and our hands were spread forth like the eagles of heaven,
and our feet were swift as hinds,
we should still be unable to thank thee and bless thy name,
O Lord our God and God of our fathers,
for one thousandth or one ten thousandth part of the bounties which thou has bestowed upon our fathers and upon us.- from the Hebrew Prayer Book
Psalm 100

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the lands!
Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into God’s presence with singing!
Know that the Lord is God! It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him, bless his name!
For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures for ever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.

Psalm 111

Praise the Lord.
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who have pleasure in them.
Full of honor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures for ever.
He has caused his wonderful works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful.
He provides food for those who fear him; he is ever mindful of his covenant.
He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the heritage of the nations.
The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy,
they are established for ever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant for ever. Holy and terrible is his name!
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
a good understanding have all those who practice it. His praise endures for ever!
Moravian Blessing

Come, Lord Jesus, our guest to be
And bless these gifts
Bestowed by Thee.
And bless our loved ones everywhere,
And keep them in Your loving care.

Thanksgiving

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

We Give Thanks

Our Father in Heaven,
We give thanks for the pleasure
Of gathering together for this occasion.
We give thanks for this food
Prepared by loving hands.
We give thanks for life,
The freedom to enjoy it all
And all other blessings.
As we partake of this food,
We pray for health and strength
To carry on and try to live as You would have us.
This we ask in the name of Christ,
Our Heavenly Father.

- Harry Jewell
O God of all Creation: You have cared for the earth, and have filled it with your riches. Abundance flows in your steppes, through the pastures and wilderness. You provide for our land, softening it with showers, bathing it in light, and blessing it with growth.

The hills sing with joy; the meadows are covered with flocks; the fields deck themselves with wheat; and together they glorify your name!

On this occasion of our Thanksgiving, we as a nation take rest from our labors to consider your many blessings. We thank you for our freedoms, and for the opportunity to contribute our skills, our attributes and our values toward the good of society.

We thank you for the mixture of our cultures, blending us into one people under God. Help us to be a light unto other nations, and to further the cause of freedom and justice all over the world.

We remember those who are less fortunate than we. We lift up in prayer the victims of poverty and racism, and all those who suffer from forms of political and economic oppression. Let the word that goes forth from our mouths speak of your peace, and let us proclaim our hope in Christ as Savior of all humankind.

We pray that you will bless all those who gather here, as we have come to experience your presence among us. Give us your guidance, O God, and empower us for your work. For we claim nothing for ourselves, but return all honor and glory unto you, and offer our thanks and praise. Amen.

From “Prayers for God’s People”
Thomas P. Roberts, editor

The Canticle of the Creatures
Most High, all-powerful, all-good Lord,
All praise is Yours, all glory, honor and blessings.
To you alone, Most High, do they belong;
no mortal lips are worthy to pronounce Your Name.

We praise You, Lord, for all Your creatures,
especially for Brother Sun,
who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor,
of You Most High, he bears your likeness.

We praise You, Lord, for Sister Moon and the stars,
in the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.

We praise You, Lord, for Brothers Wind and Air,
fair and stormy, all weather’s moods,
by which You cherish all that You have made.

We praise You, Lord, for Sister Water,
so useful, humble, precious and pure.

We praise You, Lord, for Brother Fire,
through whom You light the night.
He is beautiful, playful, robust, and strong.

We praise You, Lord, for Sister Earth,
who sustains us
with her fruits, colored flowers, and herbs.

We praise You, Lord, for those who pardon,
for love of You bear sickness and trial.
Blessed are those who endure in peace,
by You Most High, they will be crowned.

We praise You, Lord, for Sister Death,
from whom no-one living can escape.
Woe to those who die in their sins!
Blessed are those that She finds doing Your Will.
No second death can do them harm.

We praise and bless You, Lord, and give You thanks,
and serve You in all humility.

-St. Francis of Assisi

Thoughts about Thanksgiving

Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.
- Estonian proverb

Do not get tired of doing what is good. Don’t get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time.
- Galatians 6:9

We give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
- ritual chant

Our wedding was many years ago. The celebration continues to this day. ~Gene Perret

A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year. ~Paul Sweeney

Love is the thing that enables a woman to sing while she mops up the floor after her husband has walked across it in his barn boots. ~Hoosier Farmer

The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds - they mature slowly. ~Peter De Vries

Love is one long sweet dream, and marriage is the alarm clock. ~Author Unknown

Spouse: someone who’ll stand by you through all the trouble you wouldn’t have had if you’d stayed single. ~Author Unknown

It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life. ~Rita Rudner

Marriage, n: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two. ~Ambrose Bierce

The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but must live with a character. ~Peter Devries

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. ~Mignon McLaughlin

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. ~Phyllis Diller, Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints, 1966

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? ~Source Unknown

Infatuation is when you think he’s as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he’s as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford - but you’ll take him anyway. ~Judith Viorst, Redbook, 1975

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end. ~Author Unknown

Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and as difficult as that. ~Michael Leunig

An anniversary is a time to celebrate the joys of today, the memories of yesterday, and the hopes of tomorrow. ~Author Unknown

The highest happiness on earth is marriage. ~William Lyon Phelps

Trip over love, you can get up. Fall in love and you fall forever. ~Author Unknown

Are we not like two volumes of one book? ~Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

Without love, what are we worth? Eighty-nine cents! Eighty-nine cents worth of chemicals walking around lonely. ~M*A*S*H, Hawkeye

Love is not singular except in syllable. ~Marvin Taylor

Love is a sweet tyranny, because the lover endureth his torments willingly. ~Proverb

A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short. ~Andre Maurois

A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy. ~George Jean Nathan

True love stories never have endings. ~Richard Bach

Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold. ~Zelda Fitzgerald

We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love. ~Author Unknown

Remember, if you smoke after sex you’re doing it too fast. ~Woody Allen

Sex on television can’t hurt you unless you fall off. ~Author Unknown

No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens. ~Abraham Lincoln

If two stand shoulder to shoulder against the gods,
Happy together, the gods themselves are helpless
Against them while they stand so.
~Maxwell Anderson

Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin - it’s the triumphant twang of a bedspring. ~S.J. Perelman

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~Dinah Craik

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. ~Marcel Proust