Wise Quotes about Decline

If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ
in color for a full hour,
there would be a considerable number of stations
which would decline to carry it on the grounds
that a Western or a quiz show would be more profitable.
- Edward R. Murrow

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort,
should, when young, consider that he may one day become old,
and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.
- Joseph Addison

Do not seek to bring things to pass
in accordance with your wishes,
but wish for them as they are,
and you will find them.
- Epictetus

A wise man will make haste to forgive,
because he knows the true value of time,
and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
- Samuel Johnson

Wonder what opportunities you pass, unwittingly,
because your hands are so busy clasping
what you think you have always known.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

We cling to our own point of view,
as though everything depended on it.
Yet our opinions have no permanence;
like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.
- Zhuangzi

Doubt is the vestibule which we all must pass through
before we can enter the temple of truth.
- Osho

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to Dance in the Rain.
- Vivian Greene

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains,
at the huge waves of the sea,
at the long courses of rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars;
and they pass by themselves without wondering.
- St. Augustine

Dreams pass into the reality of action.
From the actions stems the dream again;
and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.
- Anais Nin

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
its loveliness increases;
it will never pass into nothingness.
- John Keats

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman
in the midst of this world,
where each person is clinging to his piece of debris?
What's the proper salutation between people
as they pass each other in this flood?
- The Buddha

Look closely... See with new eyes...
Don't just pass by what is familiar without a thought.
Pay attention and look closely.
There is beauty - there is discovery -
there in a whole new world hiding
beneath the face of the familiar.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on.
It is never of any use to oneself.
- Oscar Wilde

The world turns aside to let any man pass
who knows where he is going.
- Epictetus

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere,
and many of us will have to pass
through the valley of the shadow of death
again and again before we reach
the mountaintop of our desires.
- Nelson Mandela

Old friends pass away, new friends appear.
It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives.
The important thing is to make it meaningful:
a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

And you would accept the seasons of your heart
just as you have always accepted
that seasons pass over your fields
and you would watch with serenity
through the winters of your grief.
- Khalil Gibran

I expect to pass through this world but once.
Any good therefore that I can do,
or any kindness that I can show to my fellow-creature,
let me do it now.
Let me not defer or neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again.
- William Penn

A great gift requires two people,
the giver and the receiver.
Think of a football pass -
skillfully catching the pass, the gift,
is fully as important, and difficult, as throwing it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A man is a god in ruins.
When men are innocent, life shall be longer,
and shall pass into the immortal,
as gently as we awake from dreams.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary;
new, universal, and more liberal laws
will begin to establish themselves around and within him;
or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor
in a more liberal sense,
and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.
- Henry David Thoreau

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world
must first come to pass in the heart of America.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent
will not pass until there is
an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

I always pass on good advice.
It is the only thing to do with it.
It is never of any use to oneself.
- Oscar Wilde

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show
by what road it will pass to destruction,
to wit: by consolidation of power first,
and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
- Thomas Jefferson

One minute you're in the lunchroom at Glenwood High
and you ... blink and you're 40,
you blink again and you can see movies
at half price on a senior citizen's pass.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, or to put it more accurately,
ask not for whom the toilet flushes.
- the Woody Allen movie Celebrity

The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear,
and not bothering.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession
as they torment us with their loss.
- Epicurus

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
It sings because it has a song.
- Chinese Proverb

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath Tagore

The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson

Stand Tall, Stand Proud.
Know that you are unique and magnificent.
You do not need the approval of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- Andre Gide

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson

Treat those who are good with goodness,
and also treat those who are not good with goodness.
Thus goodness is attained.
Be honest to those who are honest,
and be also honest to those who are not honest.
Thus honesty is attained.
- Lao Tzu

I am not afraid of storms
for I am learning how to sail my ship.
- Louisa May Alcott

You do not need anyone's permission to be your true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

Not everything that casts a long shadow is to be feared.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive,
but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger

Not everything that can be counted counts,
and not everything that counts can be counted.
- Albert Einstein

Humility is not thinking less of yourself,
it's thinking of yourself less.
- Rick Warren (author of The Purpose Driven(R) Life)

There is a secret wisdom-of-the-ages
that holds the key to breaking
our cycle of self-imposed suffering.
The secret wisdom is,
"Life is not supposed to be fair."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We should not pretend to understand the world
only by the intellect.
The judgment of the intellect
is only part of the truth.
- Carl Jung

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John F. Kennedy

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures
is not to hate them,
but to be indifferent to them:
that's the essence of inhumanity.
- George Bernard Shaw

All decisions and all actions
(and inactions) have consequences -
not rightness or wrongness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Remember that not getting what you want
is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

We do not always see what is before our face -
sometimes we see what we hope to see,
or fear we will see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is not my place to doubt the sincere beliefs of others.
My job is to question my own beliefs.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others.
He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.
- The Buddha

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Wisdom Quotes