Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes

First, Understand What IS

2026-06-09T00:30:00.000-04:00

First, Understand What IS!
You can't improve the world until you understand how it functions today.
Especially regarding human nature, understand what is baked-in and what is malleable.
Study psychology; study history of the world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What I recognized is that you can't put it together.
It's already together, and what you have to do
is experience it being together.
- Werner Erhard

If you want reality to be different than it is,
you might as well try to teach a cat to bark.
- Byron Katie

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
- Henry David Thoreau

We don't live in the world of reality,
we live in the world of how we perceive reality.
- Bryan Singer

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious
privilege it is to be alive -
to breathe,
to think, to enjoy, to love.
- Marcus Aurelius

Not what we experience,
but how we perceive what we experience,
determines our fate.
- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Further reading: Seeking

Solitary Cell

Perspective

Set Your Own Course

2026-06-08T00:30:00.000-04:00

I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.
- William Ernest Henley

Having a personal opinion is great.
Believing that one's personal opinion is absolute truth
leads to most of the world's troubles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Steve Jobs' Three Rules of Life ...

1. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

2. Don't be trapped by dogma -
which is living with the results of other people's thinking.
Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.

3. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition -
they somehow already know what you truly want to become.
- Steve Jobs

Take time to contemplate -
away from the opinions and influence of others -
what you really want
and what you believe to be important in your life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's affirmation:
I set my own course through the ocean of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Life and Death: Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005 (video)

Big Dream - Big Adventure

Create Your Masterwork

Fun and Success

To be Courageous is to Face Your Fears

2026-06-07T00:30:00.000-04:00

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
- Edmund Hillary

It is better to conquer yourself
than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.
It cannot be taken from you,
not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
- The Buddha

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear,
but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear.
- Nelson Mandela

I believe that anyone can conquer fear
by doing the things he fears to do,
provided he keeps doing them until he gets
a record of successful experience behind him.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Further reading: Balance Caution With Courage

Don't Try to Please Everyone

Play to win, but be a good loser

Find Something Joyful, TODAY

2026-06-06T00:30:00.000-04:00

Find something to be joyful about, TODAY.

It is good to have an end to journey towards;
but it is the journey that matters in the end.
- Ursula K. Le Guin

Happiness isn't at the end of the rainbow.
Happiness is at the beginning of the rainbow.
Following the rainbow is happiness,
not getting to the end of it.
- Werner Erhard

To live only for some future goal is shallow.
It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.
- Robert M. Pirsig

Come dress yourself in love, let the journey begin.
- Francesca da Rimini

Further reading: Stay Adaptable

The Secret of Happiness

Be Flexible

Choosing to Love Life

Taking Oneself Lightly, Forgiveness, and Acceptance

2026-06-05T00:30:00.000-04:00

Keys to a great life... taking oneself lightly, forgiveness, and acceptance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If we could all just laugh at ourselves,
in hard times or good times, it would be an incredible world.
- Jena Malone

Life's burdens are lighter when I laugh at myself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is no defense against adverse fortune which is
so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.
- Thomas W. Higginson

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
- Mark Twain

Life is not a tragedy, it is a comedy.
To be alive means to have a sense of humor.
- Osho

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
- Mark Twain

Further reading: Power of Laughter

Cherish the Whimsey

Having a Sense of Humor

As a Child Again

Human Nature is Life's Greatest Riddle

2026-06-04T00:30:00.000-04:00

Life is a riddle.
We cannot expect to understand life's twists and turns as they occur each day,
and we greatly frustrate ourselves in the futile attempt.
Be content to appreciate that there is an overarching purpose,
though that purpose be known only to God, and to history.
Choose service. Choose joy. Accept the unknowing.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.
- Jose Ortega Y Gasset

We learn more by looking for the answer
to a question and not finding it
than we do from learning the answer itself.
- Lloyd Alexander

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize
how little we understand about life,
ourselves, and the world around us.
- Socrates

Half of everything you were ever taught is wrong;
the question is which half.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The book of life is filled with incoherent riddles.
(and human nature is perhaps life's greatest riddle.)
Life's true lessons are inscribed in a corner of the margin.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Read more about The Book of Life

Further reading: The Nature of Learning

Lessons from Life

Beyond Understanding

Aspiration AND Pragmatism

2026-06-03T00:30:00.000-04:00

Remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
- Confucius

If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are,
and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going.
And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.
- Terry Pratchett

When you jump for joy, beware that no one
moves the ground from beneath your feet.
- Stanislaw Jerszy Lec

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do,
and the more genuine may be one's appreciation
of fundamental things like home,
and love, and understanding companionship.
- Amelia Earhart

Keep your feet firmly planted on the ground
as you reach for the stars.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Honor Your Roots

Perspective on Tradition: An Open Mind

A Strong Foundation

Fulfill Your Dreams

Be a Thankful Receiver

2026-06-02T00:30:00.000-04:00

Everything is a miracle,
not just the beautiful and lovely things.
- Anonymous

There can be no joy without gratitude.
- Richard Paul Evans

Today I offer a prayer of forgiveness:
forgive the pettiness of my ingratitude...
the absence of profound thankfulness.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter
everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe
that change forever how we experience life and the world.
- John Milton

Look at everything as though you were seeing it
either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
- Betty Smith

Today's affirmation:
I Receive ALL of Life with Thanksgiving -
I have gratitude for EVERYTHING
that has ever occurred to bring me to this moment.
I give thanks for the joys and the sufferings,
the moments of peace and the flashes of anger,
the compassion and the indifference,
the roar of my courage and the cold sweat of my fear.
I accept gratefully the entirety of my past and my present life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading:; Yes, YOU Can Be Happy

Gratitude for All of Life

Tending the Garden of Our Lives

Seek to Understand More and to Fear Less

2026-06-01T00:30:00.000-04:00

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
- Marie Curie

Seek To Understand, Rather Than To Fear.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Who never walks save where he sees
men's tracks, makes no discoveries.
- J. G. Holland

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars,
or sailed to an uncharted land,
or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
- Helen Keller

Seeds of great discoveries are constantly floating around us,
but they only take root in minds well prepared to receive them.
- Joseph Henry

Preparation and Awareness Beget Innovation.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Darkest Night

Choose To Be Fearless

From Your Own Darkness

Seek the Truth

Uncertain Times Can Be Fertile Ground for Social Progress

2026-05-31T00:30:00.000-04:00

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage.
The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
- William Ellery Channing

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.
- Leonard Cohen

If life were predictable
it would cease to be life,
and be without flavor.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Our Lives Expand in Uncertain Times.
If our world were as predictable as we believe it should be,
we would never be inspired to be creative or adventurous.
Let us give thanks that our world is designed to challenge us
and to bring out the best of the human spirit.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The only thing that makes life possible
is permanent, intolerable uncertainty;
not knowing what comes next.
- Ursula K. Le Guin

Further reading: An Uncertain World

Progress of the Human Mind

Never Try To Stop The Music

Predictable?

Is Now a Time to be Reasonable?

Box of Chocolates

Welcome the Unexpected - Cherish Adventure

2026-05-30T00:30:00.000-04:00

Faith means living with uncertainty -
feeling your way through life,
letting your heart guide you like a lantern in the dark.
- Dan Millman

Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates.
You never know what you're gonna get.
- the movie Forrest Gump

The movie character Forrest Gump describing life
as being "like a box of chocolates,"
is such a positive upbeat way of
characterizing the uncertainty of life.
I have no idea what life will give me next,
but whatever it is, it will be sweet.

Welcome the Unexpected.
Most people think of surprises as being something unpleasant.
Consider moving past this instinctive fear of the unknown
and welcoming the unexpected.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Cherish the uncertainty of life's adventures.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Sometimes the things you really want sneak in the back door. Notice.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Further reading: The Edge of All We Know

Finding A Way

Appreciate the Unexpected

Addicted to safety?

In the midst of difficulty lies opportunity

2026-05-29T00:30:00.000-04:00

Not what we experience,
but how we perceive what we experience,
determines our fate.
- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Stay Alert, and doors will open.
You can never know when and where a magic door will open for you,
so pay attention, stay watchful, and never give up hope.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution.
If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds.
- Norman Vincent Peale

In the midst of difficulty lies opportunity.
- Albert Einstein

Further reading: Pay Attention

The Door Will Be Opened To You

What We Perceive

To Label a Person is to Diminish Them

2026-05-28T00:30:00.000-04:00

When we label anyone 'bad', we will have more trouble
dealing with him than if we could have settled for a lesser label.
- William Glasser

Labels have the negative value of making smaller boundaries for people.
- Michael Graves

Labels are for cans, not people.
- Anthony Rapp

People always want to put a label on you;
they always want to compare you to something.
- Carrot Top

I try to look for the good in everybody,
regardless of the way they're labeled.
- Richard Thompson

Call a plant beautiful, and it becomes a flower.
Call it ugly, and it becomes a weed.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Read about the power of naming.

Further reading: Categorizing People

Judging Others

Perspective

See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil

What Do You See?

Creat Light for Others - Serve

2026-05-27T00:30:00.000-04:00

As we work to create light for others,
we naturally light our own way.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.
- Henry Ward Beecher

It's about sharing.
You just give what you have to give
wherever you go,
and you let God handle the rest.
- Lindsay Wagner

Good works are links that form a chain of love.
- Mother Teresa

In service, there is clarity and compassion.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

It is high time that the ideal of success
should be replaced by the ideal of service.
- Albert Einstein

The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others
will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.
- Helen Keller

The path to your own happiness is usually found in service.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Become Kinder

Be of Service

Spread Love

Give Thanks - Today

2026-05-26T00:30:00.000-04:00

I thank you God for this most amazing day,
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and for the blue dream of sky
and for everything which is natural,
which is infinite, which is yes.
- e. e. cummings

Thank you, God, for this good life
and forgive us if we do not love it enough.
- Garrison Keillor

Most people are more skilled at begging God than at thanking God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's Affirmation:
I give thanks for the bounties of this world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Gratitude for THIS Moment

Give Thanks and Celebrate

Thankful and Content

Give Thanks for the Commonplace

Breathe; Let Go; Relax; Forgive - and Smile

2026-05-25T00:30:00.000-04:00

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you find peace within yourself,
you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.
- Peace Pilgrim

If in our daily life we can smile,
if we can be peaceful and happy,
not only we, but everyone will profit from it.
This is the most basic kind of peace work.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Breathe; let go; relax; forgive.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

It's not the situation that's causing your stress,
it's your thoughts,
and you can change that right here and now.
You can choose to be peaceful right here and now.
[Inner] Peace is a choice,
and it has nothing to do with what other people do or think.
- Gerald Jampolsky

No one can find inner peace except by working,
not in a self-centered way, but for the whole human family.
- Peace Pilgrim

Further reading: Focus on Peace

A Life of Harmony

Bring Peace

Forgiveness: Path to Inner Peace

Choose Inner Peace

The War Within Yourself

Your Legacy to Future Generations

2026-05-24T00:30:00.000-04:00

We have an obligation to live in harmony with God's creation.
- Bruce Babbitt

Everything you do, and everything you do not do,
is your legacy to future generations.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Treat the earth well.
It was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.
- Native American traditional

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him,
that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men,
and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.
- Albert Schweitzer

Be gentle with the earth.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Further reading:

Plant Trees For Your Grandchildren

The World We Leave Our Children

The Seeds You Plant

All Life

Do What You Can

2026-05-23T00:30:00.000-04:00

If you don't like the way the world is,
you change it.
You have an obligation to change it.
You just do it one step at a time.
- Marian Wright Edelman

Do what you can,
with what you have,
where you are.
- Theodore Roosevelt

Sometimes you get the results you wanted,
sometimes you don't.
What matters is that you did your best.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden

Further reading: Simply Do Your Best

Step Up to the Plate

Take Charge of Your Life

How to Feel Good About Yourself

Ask Yourself What It Means To "Win"

2026-05-22T00:30:00.000-04:00

Be Selective.
Choose to do a few things really well,
and let others do the rest.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If Taoism is a river flowing effortlessly, Zen is a sword cutting through illusion.
- ChatGPT

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about
God while one is peeling potatoes.
Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
- Alan Watts

By letting it go, it all gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try,
The world is beyond the winning.
- Lao Tzu

Besides the noble art of getting things done,
there is the noble art of leaving things undone.
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
- Lin Yutang

Be - don't try to become.
Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.
- Osho

The things of this world exist;
they are; you can't refuse them.
- Lao Tzu

Aspiration and Vision certainly have their time and place,
but mostly life consists of choosing to be joyful
while peeling the potatoes and taking out the trash.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Stillness

Paradox

Gratitude for THIS Moment

Stay Adaptable

Heaven is Within Us

2026-05-21T00:30:00.000-04:00

Heaven is within us, and we experience it
to the degree that we become conscious of it.
- Ernest Holmes

Heaven means to be one with God.
- Confucius

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
- Henry David Thoreau

Affirmation:
I am one with Spirit. Spirit is within me.
Spirit permeates me and surrounds me.
Spirit is my comfort and my strength.
I am one with Spirit.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Be at Peace

Attitude of Gratitude

Serving Others

Welcome to Our Family

Value Mystery

2026-05-20T00:30:00.000-04:00

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted,
but beholds it as something
unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.
- Albert Schweitzer

Be thankful that life is a mystery.
There is so much we can never know.
Breathe deeply and relax into the not-knowing.
There is much that we do not have to know in order to live joyfully.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Uncertainty that comes from knowledge
(knowing what you don't know)
is different from uncertainty coming from ignorance.
- Isaac Asimov

Mystery creates wonder,
and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.
- Neil Armstrong

Further reading: Nothing is Certain

Cherish Mystery

Childlike Wonder

Magnificent Mystery

Vision Plus Action

2026-05-19T00:30:00.000-04:00

Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.
- Thomas A. Edison

A dream doesn't become reality through magic;
it takes sweat, determination and hard work.
- Colin Powell

If you dream of something worth doing
and then simply go to work on it
and don't think anything of personalities,
or emotional conflicts, or of money,
or of family distractions;
it is amazing how quickly
you get through those 5,000 steps.
- Edwin Land

Vision without action is merely a dream.
Action without vision just passes the time.
Vision with action can change the world.
- Joel A. Barker

To lead a great life:
Dream, Take Action, Repeat.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Some people dream of success
while others wake up and work hard at it.
- Anonymous

Further reading: You Are What You Do

Walking Your Path

Fulfilling Your Dreams

Action Beats Inaction

Diverse Individuals in a Universe of Oneness

2026-05-18T00:30:00.000-04:00

Try a new perspective on diversity.
Across the country and around the world,
we are all one.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity
are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

It is not our differences that divide us.
It is our inability to recognize, accept,
and celebrate those differences.
- Audre Lorde

In Republics, the great danger is that the majority
may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
- James Madison

Further reading: Oneness

Empathy

Don't Categorize People

Apples and Oranges

Welcome Change, But Apply Change Wisely

2026-05-17T00:30:00.000-04:00

He who rejects change is the architect of decay.
- Harold Wilson

Scientific advancement should aim to affirm and to improve human life.
- Nathan Deal

Knowledge is power.
Information is liberating.
Education is the premise of progress,
in every society, in every family.
- Kofi Annan

Seeds of great discoveries are constantly floating around us,
but they only take root in minds well prepared to receive them.
- Joseph Henry

You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines,
whimpering and complaining.
You make progress by implementing ideas.
- Shirley Chisholm

If we all did the things we are capable of doing,
we would literally astound ourselves.
- Thomas Edison

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
- Stephen Covey

Change is the Inherent Nature of Progress.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Welcome Change

How to Move On and Let Go

Forward Together

Adapt to Change

Consistent Common Sense

2026-05-16T00:30:00.000-04:00

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are,
and doing things as they ought to be done.
- Josh Billings

Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.
- An Wang

Common sense in an uncommon degree
is what the world calls wisdom.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it,
or who said it, no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense.
- The Buddha

A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
- William James

I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal
to reason and is in conflict with morality.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Pause. Take the time to THINK before you act.

Further reading: Take Nothing On Authority

Trust Reason

Consciousness

See, Really See