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Continuing with our series on Quotes to Live By, let us explore some quotes on the passage of time.

Does't thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin

How often do we say that "we don't have time" to do the things that really matter?

Here is a quote to reflect on our excuses:

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.
H. Jackson Brown Junior

Ever wonder about how the busy-ness of daily tasks did not distract them from their life's work?

Byron Katie, developer of a method of self-inquiry called The Work, teaches that our time can be occupied worrying about one of three businesses: someone else's business, God's business or OUR business.

To minimize suffering and maximize effectiveness, we want to stay out of other people's business and we want to stay out of God's business and focus exclusively on our own business – things that we have control over, that is only our own thoughts and behaviours.

This reminds me of The Serenity Prayer which is today's "quote to live by":

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

In Daily Wisdom, we talk quite a bit about taking action within the sphere on our circle of control and influence. Here are a couple of favourite quotes on the same subject using images of water and boats.

A ship in harbour Is safe, But that Is not what ships are built for
Attributed to John A. Shedd and also Murray/Grace Hopper

Is your ship safely docked in harbor or is it exploring the seas as it was meant to do?

And here is another quote on taking action within your circle of control:

I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.

Today's is about the value in acknowledging and feeling our emotions – a very modern concept expressed some centuries ago!

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...
Welcome and entertain them all.
Treat each guest honorably.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Here is a great introduction to Rumi's timeless verses:
The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks

Today's is about the potential in generosity and giving without expectation

And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth,
'You owe me'.
Look what happens with love like that.
It lights up the sky.

Here is a great introduction to Rumi's timeless verses:
The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks

This week we are sharing some favourite excerpts from Rumi.

Today's is about the necessity of hardship and difficulty to polish and unearth the diamond within.

Rumi says:
If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?

He also talks about welcoming rather than escaping from sorrow:

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place. (<3)

There is a beautiful passage about the potential of spiritual growth in adversity in Elizabeth's Lesser's delicious book Broken Open. (HIGHLY recommended reading!)

She writes:
May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired.
When you feel yourself breaking down, may you...

This week we will be sharing some favourite excerpts from Rumi.

Here is today's excerpt about yearning and connecting with the Divine:

There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don't you?

Rumi

And another favourite about finding the spiritual amongst the mundane:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Rumi

Here is a great introduction to Rumi's timeless verses:
The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

From Roald Dahl's last children's story, The Minpins. It is the very last line of that very last story.

Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.
Stephen Covey

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic" delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910