Kindness

Each smallest act of kindness reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it's passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each expression of hatred, each act of evil.
--Dean Koontz

One Life

This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.
--General Omar N. Bradley

Ordinary Moments

Well, that's what life is--this collection of extraordinarily ordinary moments. We just need to pay attention to them all. Wake up and pay attention to how beautiful it all is.
--Alexander Payne

Most Important

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.
--Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Secret

I was a "big success," people told me, but the secret I never spoke in reply or anytime was my belief that I had long ago given up on me--the one whom others, in equations of family, love, and work, relied upon--choosing the easy route over a path toward things they don't necessarily pay you or pat you on the back for.
--Margaret Roach

Dust

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
--Genesis 3:19 (King James Version)

Forgetting

My grandmother showed me that we are more than the sum of our memories. She taught me the vital importance of forgetting; and that sometimes it's only our commitment to remembering that prevents us from accepting the love and peace that surrounds us.
--Robert Leleux

American Dream

For a while, life was good. I married the wonderful man I'd been dating for several years. We bought a house. Saved money. My kids got to take after-school classes. All we needed was the golden retriever, and we would be living the American dream.
--Catherine Lane

Surprises

Life is full of surprises, but never when you need one.
--Bill Watterson

You Never Know

All of us should say "I love you" to the people we care about. We should do it because you never know.
--Jeffrey Zaslow

First Sight

Cynics wil tell you that love at first sight is a myth, but their opinion is not to be respected, and only reveals the sad condition of their hearts.
--Dean Koontz

Public Utility

What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of living might mankind have acquired, if the money spent in wars had been employed in works of public utility; what an extension of agriculture even to the tops of our mountains; what rivers rendered navigable, or joined by canals; what bridges, aqueducts, new roads, and other public works, edifices, and improvements might not have been obtained by spending those millions in doing good, which in the last war have been spent in doing mischief.
--Benjamin Franklin

Animals

Animals make us human.
--Temple Grandin

Innocence

Innocence is neither naive nor unhip; innocence is the condition of deepest bliss.
--Dean Koontz

Product

If God manifested himself to us, he would do so in the form of a product advertised on TV.
--Philip K. Dick

Trapped

Politicians are actors trapped in the same part.
--Maureen Dowd

Tools

Men have become the tools of their tools.
--Henry David Thoreau

I and You

It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case.
--Sydney J. Harris

Set Our Course

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.
--General Omar Bradley

Conservative

I do not know which makes a man more conservative--to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
--John Maynard Keynes