Shoot for the moon. by Les Brown

Shoot for the moon.
by Les Brown

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.
Don't bother just to be better than
your contemporaries or predecessors.
Try to be better than yourself.
- William Faulkner

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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Non-violence means avoiding not only external physical violence
but also internal violence of spirit.
You not only refuse to shoot a man,
but you refuse to hate him.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

When I admire the wonders of a sunset
or the beauty of the moon,
my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

We need to find God, and he cannot
be found in noise and restlessness.
God is the friend of silence.
See how nature - trees, flowers, grass-
grows in silence; see the stars,
the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...
We need silence to be able to touch souls.
- Mother Teresa

Three things cannot be long hidden:
the sun, the moon, and the truth.
- The Buddha

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side
which he never shows to anybody.
- Mark Twain

We return thanks to our mother,
the earth, which sustains us.
We return thanks to the rivers and streams
which supply us with water.
We return thanks to all herbs, which furnish medicines
for the cure of our diseases.
We return thanks to the corn, and to her sisters,
the beans and squashes, which give us life.
We return thanks to the bushes and trees,
which provide us with fruit.
We return thanks to the wind,
which, moving the air, has banished diseases.
We return thanks to the moon and the stars,
which have given us their light when the sun was gone.
We return thanks to our grandfather He-no,
that he has protected his grandchildren from witches and reptiles,
and has given us his rain.
We return thanks to the sun,
that he has looked upon the earth with a beneficent eye.
Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit,
in whom is embodied all goodness,
and who directs all things for the good of his children.
- Iroquois traditional

The youth gets together his materials
to build a bridge to the moon,
or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth,
and, at length, the middle-aged man
concludes to build a woodshed with them.
- Henry David Thoreau

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen:
A thief entered the little hut of a Zen Master,
but discovered there was nothing to steal.
The Zen Master discovered the thief.
"You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler,
"and you should not return empty-handed.
Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered,
but he took the clothes and slunk away.
The Zen Master sat naked, watching the moon.
"Poor fellow," he mused,
"I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
- Traditional Zen Koan

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Faith is taking the first step,
even when you don't see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller

Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively,
the basic goods of life, with awe,
pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy,
however stale these experiences may have become to others.
- Abraham Maslow

A true friend is someone who
thinks that you are a good egg
even though he knows that
you are slightly cracked.
- Bernard Meltzer

Praying without ceasing is not ritualized,
nor are there even words.
It is a constant state of awareness of oneness with God.
- Peace Pilgrim

I recognize the delivery of grace to my day,
even if I cannot identify a specific return address.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever,
even if your whole world seems upset.
- Saint Francis de Sales

The most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched,
they must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller

To know even one life has
breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Your example is far more influential and inspiring
than any words of instruction, or threats,
or even words of encouragement.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

He said to them, "Where is your faith?"
And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another,
"Who can this be?
For He commands even the winds and water,
and they obey Him!"
- Luke 8:25

Iron rusts from disuse;
water loses its purity from stagnation...
even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
- Leonardo da Vinci

Be open to the goodness of life -
even in the midst of apparent adversity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Children are born innocent.
Before they are domesticated they live in the moment,
love without fear, and don't even think about the opinions of others.
- don Miguel Ruiz

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips,
be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.
- St. Francis of Assisi

People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand
my complaint about them not understanding me.
- Soren Kierkegaard

You can do what you have to do,
and sometimes you can do it
even better than you think you can.
- Jimmy Carter

It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies,
but even more to stand up to your friends.
- J.K. Rowling

Even the truth, when believed, is a lie.
You must experience the truth, not believe it.
- Werner Erhard

Maturity is the ability to do a job
whether or not you are supervised,
to carry money without spending it,
and to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.
- Ann Landers

God is Within You!
You yourself are the creator.
If you find that place within you
from which you brought this thing about,
you will be able to live with it and affirm it,
perhaps even enjoy it, as your life.
- Joseph Campbell

Even if you are a minority of one,
the truth is the truth.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit.
Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever,
even if your whole world seems upset.
- Saint Francis de Sales

Never put passion before principle.
Even if win, you lose.
- Miyagi: character in the movie Karate Kid 2

Let reason trump tradition and the opinions of others,
but let your own sense of what is Right trump even reason.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our creator is the same and never changes
despite the names given Him by people here
and in all parts of the world.
Even if we gave Him no name at all,
He would still be there, within us,
waiting to give us good on this earth.
- George Washington Carver

To kill an error is as good a service as,
and sometimes even better than,
the establishing of a new truth or fact.
- Charles Darwin

Anyone who proposes to do good
must not expect people to roll stones out of his way,
but must accept his lot calmly,
even if they roll a few stones upon it.
- Albert Schweitzer

Never do anything against conscience
even if the state demands it.
- Albert Einstein

If you are possessed by an idea,
you will find it expressed everywhere,
you even smell it.
- Thomas Mann

God is, even though the whole world deny him.
Truth stands, even if there be no public support.
It is self-sustained.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

There are choirs singing in your head.
If you listen, you will hear the music.
It is the song of angels.
Pay no attention to the sounds of the world.
They are just noises, and even when
added up all together
they have no value, make no sense.
Strain to hear the song of angels.
Listen to the melody within your soul.
- Neale Donald Walsch

If you have no confidence in self,
you are twice defeated in the race of life.
With confidence, you have won even before you have started.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

The higher the sun rises, the less shadow it casts;
even so, the greater is the goodness, the less it covets praise;
yet cannot avoid its rewards in honors.
- Lao Tzu

I have found that hollow,
which even I had relied on for solid.
- Henry David Thoreau

If you have health, you probably will be happy,
and if you have health and happiness,
you have all the wealth you need, even if it is not all you want.
- Elbert Hubbard

Even the rich are hungry for love,
for being cared for, for being wanted,
for having someone to call their own.
- Mother Teresa

Truth stands, even if there be no public support.
It is self-sustained.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

In all things and in all ways,
choice impacts virtually every element of our life.
It bears repeating that even those things
which seem out of reach of our choice
are governed by how we choose to perceive them.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Far better is it to dare mighty things,
to win glorious triumphs,
even though chequered by failure,
than to take rank with those poor spirits
who neither enjoy much nor suffer much,
because they live in the grey twilight
that knows not victory or defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt

Belief fuels our decisions -
even when we are not clearly aware of those beliefs.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Doing an injury puts you below your enemy;
revenging one make you but even with him;
forgiving it sets you above him.
- Benjamin Franklin [attributed]

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity
opinions which differ from
the prejudices of their social environment.
Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
- Albert Einstein

We should not let our response to
the people who disagree with us
be dictated by what they say about us
or even how they treat people we care for.
There has to be a chance that we can find love.
- William J. Clinton

Life is a series of experiences,
each one of which makes us bigger,
even though sometimes it is hard to realize this.
- Henry Ford

For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something,
some reason why we're here. What are we doing here? Who are we?
If this is a chance to find out
even just a little part of that answer...
I don't know, I think it's worth a human life. Don't you?
- the Jodie Foster movie Contact (1997)

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens,
you can never regain their respect and esteem.
It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time;
you can even fool some of the people all of the time;
but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
- Abraham Lincoln

Ask today as you consider the many choices in your view -
what is the highest and best use
of your talents, skills and abilities?
When you answer that, seize the opportunity
to sharpen those qualities even more sharply
by applying your focused effort.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Most of us are prisoners of habit,
and don't even notice that we do the same things,
think the same things, want the same things each day -
mostly without conscious thought.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is a magic in the memory of schoolboy friendships;
it softens the heart,
and even affects the nervous system
of those who have no heart.
- Benjamin Disraeli

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Shoot for the moon.by Les Brown

Daily Inspirations

Shoot for the moon.
by Les Brown