“A cup of cold water” -a little thing! But life is made up of little things, and he who would rise to higher usefulness is wise if he cherishes the loving yet seeming trifles of living.
Floyd W. Tomkins

Little self-denials, little honesties, little passing words of sympathy, little nameless acts of kindness, little silent victories over favorite temptations; these are the silent threads of gold which, when woven together, gleam out so brightly in the pattern of life that God approves.
Frederick W. Farrar

Life is given to us in the same way as a child is given to a nanny, so that it can be raised to maturity.

Leo Tolstoy

Everyday happiness means getting up in the morning, and you can’t wait to finish your breakfast. You can’t wait to do your exercises. You can’t wait to put on your clothes. You can’t wait to get out- and you can’t wait to come home, because the soup is hot.
George Burns

Life is what we are alive to. It is not length but breadth…Be alive to…goodness, kindness, purity, love, history, poetry, music, flowers, stars, God, and eternal hope.
Maltbie D. Babcock

The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.
Abraham Joshua Heschel

We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things going from one quick base to another, often with a frenzy that wears us out. We collect data, things, people, ideas, “profound experiences,” never penetrating any of them…But there are other times. There are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper. Then we begin our “going down.”
James Carroll

I live the perfect imperfect life.
Paul Lore

If you want trust, trust others.
If you want respect, respect others.
If you want help, help others.
If you want love and peace in your life, give them away.
If you want great friends, be one.
That’s how it works.
Dan Zadra

Your life is to be lived in such a way as to reflect Him, to show the world the character of God- His love, His peace, His mercy, His gentleness. You are to live for Him, to accomplish His will. To miss this purpose is to miss fulfillment. It is to have existed rather than to have lived.
Kay Arthur

It’s impossible to overestimate the unimportance of most things.
John Lange

Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today.
Unknown

Every thought a person dwells upon, whether he expresses it or not, either damages or improves his life.
Lucy Malory

It’s terribly amusing how many different climates of feeling one can go through in a day.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Think of this- we may live together with Him here and now, a daily walking with Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.
Elisabeth Elliot

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.
Nadine Stair

A monk was asked, “What do you do there in the monastery?” He replied, “We fall and get up, we fall and get up, fall and get up again.”
Esther de Waal

Always new.
Always exciting.
Always full of promise.
The mornings of our lives,
Each is a personal daily miracle.
Gloria Gaither

The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing factory.
Edwin Conkin

Let it not be imagined that the life of a good Christian must be a life of melancholy and gloominess; for he only resigns some pleasures to enjoy others infinitely better.
Blaise Pascal

Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different.
C. S. Lewis

Time, indeed, is a sacred gift, and each day is a little life.
John Lubbock

There are fathers waiting until other obligations are less demanding to become acquainted with their sons.  There are mothers who sincerely intend to be more attentive to their daughters.  There are husbands and wives who are going to be more understanding.  But time does not draw people closer.  When in the world are we going to begin to live as if we understood that this is life?  This is our time, our day…and it is passing.  What are we waiting for?
Richard L. Evans

Your presence is a present to the world.
You’re unique and one of a kind.
Your life can be what you want it to be.
Take the days just one at a time.

Don’t put limits on yourself.
So many dreams are waiting to be realized.
Decisions are too important to leave to chance.
Reach for your peak, your goal, your prize.

Nothing wastes more energy than worrying.
The longer one carries a problem, the heavier it gets.
Don’t take things too seriously.
Live a life of serenity, not a life of regrets.

Count your blessings, not your troubles.
You’ll make it through whatever comes along.
Within you are so many answers.
Understand, have courage, be strong.

Douglas Pagels

Each day the first day:
Each day a life.
Dag Hammarskjold

We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves; we desire to live an imaginary life in the minds of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine.
Blaise Pascal

If he is in a tight spot, he borrows money on the furniture.  If he is low, he lights a cigarette.  If he is lonely, he goes to a movie.  If he is maladjusted, he goes to a psychiatrist.  If he has a headache, he takes an aspirin.  All from the outside in.  The Christian remedy is from the inside out.
E. Stanley Jones

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.
W. M. Lewis

The trouble with life is that there is no background music.
Unknown 
(Editor’s Note:  But in Christianity, perhaps there is.)

There was a man who heard about a very special ox and determined to have it for his own.  He traveled all over the world.  He spent his entire fortune.  He gave his whole life to the search for this ox.  At last, just moments before he died, he realized he had been riding it all the time.
Thomas Aquinas

Go not abroad for happiness.
For see,
It is a flower that
blossoms at thy door.
Minot J. Savage

We want to be saints, but we also want to feel every sensation experienced by sinners; we want to be innocent and pure, but we also want to be experienced and taste all of life; we want to serve the poor and have a simple lifestyle, but we also want all the comforts of the rich; we want to have the depth afforded by solitude, but we also do not want to miss anything; we want to pray, but we also want to watch television, read, talk to friends, and go out.
Ronald Rolheiser

Slow down to look and listen.  Life happens fast.
David Staal

From our limited vantage point, our lives are marked by an endless series of contingencies.  We frequently find ourselves, instead of acting as we planned, reacting to an unexpected turn of events.  We make plans but are often forced to change those plans.  But there are no contingencies with God.  Our unexpected, forced change of plans is a part of His plan.  God is never surprised; never caught off guard; never frustrated by unexpected developments.  God does as He pleases and that which pleases Him is always for His glory and our good.
Jerry Bridges

Every experience God gives us, every person he puts in our lives, is the perfect preparation for the future that only he can see.
Corrie ten Boom

It’s not what you did, but what you could have done if you allowed the Lord to work His will in your life.
A. W. Tozer

I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I slowly discovered that my interruptions were my work.
Henri Nouwen

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.
William Feather

Make a list of twenty-five things you want to experience before you die. Carry it in your wallet or purse and refer to it often.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Blessed is the man who has discovered that there is nothing permanent in life but change.
Unknown

I came from God, and I’m going back to God, and I won’t have any gaps of death in the middle of my life.
George Macdonald

You are what you think about all day long.
Robert Schuller

I was always complaining about the ruts in the road until I realized the ruts are the road.
Unknown

When we understand that He is Lord of our time, we realize that interruptions are of His planning. They become opportunities to serve rather than plagues to keep us from functioning.
Karen Mains

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees, and flowers, and clouds, and stars.
Martin Luther

If you have never heard the mountains singing; or seen the trees of the field clapping their hands, do not think because of that they don’t. Ask God to open your ears so you may hear it, and your eyes so you may see it, because, though few men ever know it, they do, my friend, they do. McCandlish Phillips

Only as man brings his life into harmony with God does that life have balance and meaning. Then man finds that he is not simply a mass of dancing dirt, coming from nowhere and going nowhere.
Henry Schmidt

My objective in life is not to have a spiritual life that is separate from the rest of my life.
Ed McCraken

Life is deep and simple, and what our society gives us is shallow and complicated.
Fred Rogers

Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things – I am tempted to think – there are no little things.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.
John Burroughs

Every day we live is a priceless gift of God, loaded with possibilities to learn something new, to gain fresh insights.
Dale Evans Rogers

Much of what is sacred is hidden in the ordinary, everyday moments of our lives.  To see something of the sacred in those moments takes slowing down so we can live our lives more reflectively.
Ken Gire

Beauty is God’s handwriting.  Welcome it in every fair face, every fair day, every fair flower.
Charles Kingsley

Life is deep and simple, and what our society gives us is shallow and complicated.
Fred Rogers

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.
C. S. Lewis

At different seasons of life, we will be growing in different areas.  I try to see where God is at work in my life, and where he is at work in the lives of my friends, and then I pray for and encourage growth in those particular areas.
Alice Fryling

We need the whole song, all the verses and the choruses to serve us as our own story unfolds because- trust me- life is hard, but God is good.
Gloria Gaither

May life’s greatest gifts always be yours,
Happiness, memories and dreams.
Unknown

Don’t bother much about your feelings.  When they are humble, loving, brave, give thanks for them; when they are conceited, selfish, cowardly, ask to have them altered.  In neither case are they you, but only a thing that happens to you.  What matters is your intentions and your behaviour.
C. S. Lewis

Many of the world’s finest Oriental rugs come from little villages in the Middle East, China, or India.  These rugs are hand-produced by crews of men and boys under direction of a master weaver.  They work from the underside of the rug-to-be.  It frequently happens that a weaver absentmindedly makes a mistake and introduces a color that is not according to the pattern.  When this occurs, the master weaver, instead of having the work pulled out in the order to correct the color sequence, will find some way to incorporate the mistake harmoniously into the overall pattern.  In weaving our lives, we can lean to take unexpected difficulties and mistakes and weave them advantageously in the greater overall patterns of our lives.  There is an inherent good in most difficulties.
Norman Vincent Peale

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion.  He hardly knows which is which.  He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.  To him he’s always doing both.
James A. Michener

The reflections on a day well spent furnishes us with joys more pleasing than ten thousand triumphs.
Thomas Kempis

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

Who well lives, long lives; for this age of ours should not be numbered by years, days, and hours.
Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas

Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall.  Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.  Anyone can live sweetly patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down.  And this is all that life really means.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Everything that happens to me can help me along in my Christian life.
E. Stanley Jones

I came from God, and I’m going back to God, and I won’t have any gaps of death in the middle of my life.
George Macdonald

An advisor of President Lincoln suggested a certain candidate for the Lincoln cabinet.  Lincoln refused, saying, “I don’t like the man’s face.”  “But, sir, he can’t be responsible for his face,” insisted his advisor.  “Every man over forty is responsible for his face,” replied Lincoln, and the subject was dropped.
Abraham Lincoln

You may have living and habitual conversation in heaven, under the aspect of the most simple, ordinary life.  Remember that holiness does not consist in doing uncommon things, but in doing every thing with purity of heart.
Henry E. Manning

The Lord of the universe stands ready to pick up your life and give it significance, a sense of fulfillment beyond anything you have ever experienced.  Your heart has got eternity in it…and you will not be fulfilled until you know you are making an eternal difference with the one life you have.
Ron Hutchcraft

Once when Ole Bull, the great violinist, was giving a concert in Paris, his “A” string snapped and he transposed the composition and finished it on three strings.  That is life- to have your “A” string snap and finish on three strings.  How many here have had to test that out!  Some of the finest things in human life have been done that way.  Indeed, so much the most thrilling part of the human story on this planet lies in such capacity victoriously to handle handicaps that, much as I should have liked to hear Ole Bull with all the resources of a perfect instrument at his command, if I could have heard him only once, I should have liked to hear him when the “A” string snapped and, without rebellion or self-pity or surrender, he finished on three strings.
Harry Emerson Fosdick

If life be short, then moderate your worldly cares and projects; do not cumber yourselves with too much provision for a short voyage.
Thomas Manton

As a knot appears unexpectedly in a thread, so disappointment blocks the smoothness of life. If a few deft strokes can untangle the skein, life continues evenly; but if it cannot be corrected, then it must be quietly woven into the design. Thus the finished piece can still be beautiful- though not as perfect as planned.
Unknown

If God took time to create beauty, how can we be too busy to appreciate it?
Randall B. Corbin 

If you want to live twice as long, eat half as much, sleep twice as much, drink water three times as much, and laugh four times at much.
John H. Cable

If only we knew how to look at life as God sees it, we should realize that nothing is secular in the world, but that everything contributes to the building of the Kingdom of God.
Michel Quoist

Life is not given to us that we might live idly without work.  No, our life is a struggle and a journey.  Good should struggle with evil; truth should struggle with falsehood; freedom should struggle with slavery; love should struggle with hatred.  Life is movement, a walk along the way of life to the fulfillment of those ideas which illuminate us, both in our intellect and in our hearts, with divine light.
Giuseppe Mazzini

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

So many of us are blinded to all that is beautiful in life by some ancient hate, fear or sin which haunts us throughout our life.  Like Lot’s wife, we cease to be human.  We dry up like salt and become petrified, imbedded in the ugliness, fright or pain of the past.  “Look not behind thee,” for behind thee lies Sodom and Gomorrah; before thee the land of promise.
Ahron Opher

The sun is just rising on the morning of another day.  What can I wish that this day may bring me?  Nothing shall make the world or others poorer, nothing at the expense of other men; but just those few things which in their coming do not stop with me but touch me, rather, as they pass and gather strength.  A few friends, who understand me, and yet remain my friends.  A work to do which has real value, without which the world would feel the poorer.  A return for such work small enough not to tax anyone who pays.  A mind unafraid to travel, even through the trail be not blazed.  An understanding heart.  A sight of the eternal hills, and the unresting sea, and of something beautiful which the hand of man has made.  A sense of humor, and the power to laugh.  A little leisure with nothing to do.  A few moments of quiet, silent meditation.  The sense of the presence of God.  And the patience to wait for the coming of these things, with the wisdom to know them when they come, and the wit not to change this morning wish of mine.
Walter Hunt

Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.
C. S. Lewis

How often do we need to see God’s face, hear His voice, feel His touch, know His power?  The answer to all these questions is the same:  Every day!
John Blanchard

Life is a voyage in which we choose neither vessel nor weather, but much can be done in the management of the sails and the guidance of the helm.
Unknown 

Every day is a messenger of God.
Russian proverb

We do ourselves and others a disservice when we make old age something to be feared.  Life is not a resource to be used up, so that the older we get, the less life we have left.  Life is the accumulation of wisdom, love and experience of people encountered and obstacles overcome.  The longer we live, the more life we possess.
Harold Kushner

Never undertake anything for which you wouldn’t have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.
George Lichtenberg

Each day is a storehouse given you
Fresh every morn from God’s hand;
Do you stop to think of this
When at its door you stand?
Twenty-four empty, waiting hours,
All ready for you to fill with
Worthwhile thoughts and worthwhile deeds
And service, if you will.

You’re given a chance to store
Away treasures of love and joy,
And satisfaction of work well done
That time cannot destroy.
So put your best into all your day
With eyes opened wide to see, and
Eager hands stretched out to grasp
Each opportunity.

Unknown

It is not in life’s chances but in its choices that happiness comes to the heart of the individual.
Unknown

If we live good lives, the times are also good.  As we are, such are the times.
Augustine of Hippo

Christ has given us the most glorious interpretation of life’s meaning that man has ever had.  The fatherhood of God, the fellowship of the Spirit, the sovereignty of righteousness, the law of love, the glory of service, the coming of the Kingdom, the eternal hope- there was never an interpretation of life to compare with that.
Harry Fosdick

One ship drives east and another drives west
With the self-same wind that blows.
‘Tis the set of the sail and not the gale
That tells us which way it goes.
Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate,
As we journey along through life;
‘Tis the set of the soul that determines the goal
And neither the calm nor the strife.
Unknown

The waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence which will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well.
Unknown  

Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.
Antonio Smith

An Outline for Life…
1.  Set high goals for yourself.
2.  Prepare as thoroughly as you can.
3.  Never give into discouragement
4.  Strive for self control.
5.  Go for absolute honesty.
6.  Chose Jesus as a role model.
7.  Look for God’s purpose in your life.
“The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what we want most, for what we want now.”
Nancy Mochel

Life is a big canvas, throw all the paint on it you can.
Danny Kaye

The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop.
Edwin Conklin

As we begin to see the package God is putting together in our lives and discover his purposes for bringing us to our world, it will provide us with the framework we need to make wise choices. In addition, we will find that a sense of purpose gives hope in the midst of tragedy and difficulty, gives meaning to the mundane aspects of our lives, and helps us to make our lives count for God.
R. Ruth Barton

Instead of living a black-and-white existence, we’ll be released into a Technicolor world of vibrancy and emotion when we more accurately reflect His nature to the world around us.
Bill Hybels

If you’re going through difficult times today, hold steady. It will change soon. If you are experiencing smooth sailing and easy times now, brace yourself. It will change soon. The only thing you can be certain of is change.
James Dobson

One-half the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.
Josh Billings