My thoughts and words about life...
1. The past is over, it can't be changed. Tomorrow is Forever, hope is held within tomorrow and regrets should be buried in the past.
2. Impress yourself and God, other's opinions don't mean much if you know you are living your life with virtue, it becomes worth it. Be honest with yourself and others. Honesty and courage are the two greatest virtues, without them nothing else really matters.
3. Time sometimes dulls the memory, it helps us forget. We may carry wounds and crosses in life but they lessen in time. Use the crosses and wounds as learning tools which teach you to become a better person.
4. Walking a few miles in another's shoes goes a long way in being grateful for the comfortable shoes you wear. Never judge a person's life you do not know of. Some people hide pain better than others. Smile at strangers, it may help them a lot.
5. The passage of time and experience comfort a thinking mind. Wisdom isn't found over night.
6. Happiness comes from peace of mind. Peace of mind comes from doing the right thing all the time, especially when nobody is watching. Never compromise your soul. Integrity is the glue to your soul.
7. Be grateful, somebody most likely is probably suffering a great amount of physical and emotional pain somewhere in a hospital or a nursing home. Do some volunteer work, make another person smile. Helping others smile goes a long way in making you smile.
8. Beware of people who laud you with many compliments and tell you, "you are the best." They most likely say this to a whole bunch of people. Be aware of the phonies.
9. Be an individual, true to yourself and heart/soul. Becoming part of group thought is never healthy.
10. Use logic, reason and common sense when coming to a conclusion. Seek truth and wisdom. Know the difference between confirmation bias and reality.
11. Give humbly and with graciousness. Never expect anything in return or words of praise for doing good and caring about another human being.
12. Respect those who deserve respect. Disconnect from people who don't deserve your respect. You don't need to be a doormat in life.
13. Embrace critical thinking. Be open to new ideas which are based upon merit and not ideological indoctrination and brainwashing.
14. Perseverance and challenging yourself every day keeps you vibrant. We are only as good as our last at bat in a baseball game. Never be content to exist in mediocrity or left mired with excuses. Try and fail but try again and again with the intention of making a difference and becoming better.
15. Know freedom isn't free. Do what is required to maintain freedom and be grateful to those in the past who paid the ultimate price so you can have the opportunity to live free.
16. Live your life and don't settle for existing. Don't be passive toward evil, evil can only thrive when good men and women remain silent. We can all ignore reality at times but we can never ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
And some quotes…
“You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor."
-Aristotle-
“In a free society we're supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.” -Ron Paul-
"Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” -Benjamin Franklin-
“If you want long-term success in business, relationships and life, you have to get better at accepting uncomfortable truths as fast as possible. When you refuse to accept an uncomfortable truth, you’re choosing to accept an uncomfortable future.”
-Steven Bartlett, The Diary of a CEO-
“The human ego is the ugliest part of man. We lift up men who only show us darkness, and put down those brave enough to show us the light. Likewise, people engage in darkness when it is light outside, and acknowledge the light only when it is dark. We abandon those fighting for us to cheer behind those fighting against us. And, we only remember good people and God when it is convenient for us, and take them for granted because their doors are always open - only to chase after closed doors and personalities void of substance and truth.” -Suzy Kassem-
"The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”
-St. Augustine-
“In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
-Mark Twain-
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
-Thomas Paine-
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
-Ronald Reagan-
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
-Edmund Burke-
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer-
"To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul – would you understand why that’s much harder?"
-Ayn Rand-
“The money one gets for selling one’s soul is always spent in deadening one’s conscience, so the net gain at the end of a lifetime is no greater than if the diabolic bargain had not been struck.”
-Thomas A. Edison-
“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers . . . we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn-
“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
-Winston S. Churchill-
