Bingen

"God created you but God does not control your destiny. It is you who does.
God gave up his control on you by giving you a beautiful mind . You make choices with your mind. You are here today because of choices you made in the past. You and you only are responsible for your destiny "

danielleg

nice ,I spelled her name wrong on my post....how embarrassing

saphira

I'm pasting and copying like a mad woman trying to get all this good stuff down!! Thank you all for helping me with this!! Very inspiring!

wellwisher

This is a rather long one, but I have it framed in my office and refer to it often. It is Rudyard Kipling's, "If". I find it helpful when struggling with humility, respect for others and myself, and the words contained within that address perserverence when the chips are down.

******

If you can keep your head when all about you,
Are losing their's and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make throughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk in on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word of your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the comon touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minutes
With sixty seconds worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

dfw

"I think a lot of cynicism has dropped away from my shoulders since I stopped drinking." -Graham Coxon, former lead singer of Blur