Wise Quotes about Presents

There are three hundred and sixty-four days
when you might get un-birthday presents,
and only one for birthday presents, you know.
- Lewis Carroll

A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil;
but it needs a little much of letters and phone calls
and small, silly presents every so often -
just to save it from drying out completely.
- Pam Brown

Your greatest gift to your family and friends is yourself -
your relaxed, happy, and fully-present self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If we open a quarrel between past and present,
we shall find that we have lost the future.
- Winston Churchill

Change is the law of life.
And those who look only to the past or the present
are certain to miss the future.
- John F. Kennedy

Do the small things of life with a relaxed awareness.
When you are eating, eat totally -
chew totally, taste totally, smell totally.
Touch your bread, feel the texture.
Smell the bread, smell the flavor.
Chew it, let it dissolve into your being.
- Osho

Gain happiness by living in the present -
without regret for the past or fear of the future.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

He who spends time regretting the past,
loses the present and risks the future.
- Quevedo

Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition,
is not only a waste of energy
but the worst habit you could possibly have.
- Dale Carnegie

We take care of the future best by taking care of the present now.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

The distinction between the past, present and future
is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
- Albert Einstein

Who controls the past controls the future.
Who controls the present controls the past.
- George Orwell

Whenever you are angry, be assured that
it is not only a present evil,
but that you have increased a habit.
- Epictetus

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way:
on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

For time and the world do not stand still.
Change is the law of life.
And those who look only to the past or the present
are certain to miss the future.
- John F. Kennedy

We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past,
but by the love we're not extending in the present.
- Marianne Williamson

I Receive ALL of Life with Thanksgiving -
I have gratitude for EVERYTHING
that has ever occurred to bring me to this moment.
I give thanks for the joys and the sufferings,
the moments of peace and the flashes of anger,
the compassion and the indifference,
the roar of my courage and the cold sweat of my fear.
I accept gratefully the entirety of my past and my present life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The mind exists in time, in fact the mind is time;
it exists in the past and the future.
And remember, time consists of only two tenses,
the past and the future.
The present is not part of time,
the present is part of eternity.
- Osho

You must live in the present,
launch yourself on every wave,
find your eternity in each moment.
- Henry David Thoreau

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.
- Lao Tzu

Yesterday is history,
tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That is why it is called Present.
- Anonymous

"I" is a non-stop storyteller, spinning tales
of the past, the present and the future -
constantly editing, interpreting
and directing this inner movie.
- Josh Baran

The ability to be in the present moment
is a major component of mental wellness.
- Abraham Maslow

Forgiveness ... is the finishing of old business
that allows us to experience the present,
free of contamination from the past.
- Joan Borysenko

I accept gratefully the entirety of my past and my present life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I choose to live my life in the present, with consciousness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I have become my own version of an optimist.
If I can't make it through one door,
I'll go through another door - or I'll make a door.
Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.
- Rabindranath Tagore

The heart knows nothing of the past,
nothing of the future;
it knows only of the present.
- Osho

Patience is an ever present alternative
to the mind's endemic restlessness and impatience.
Scratch the surface of impatience and what you will find
lying beneath it, subtly or not so subtly, is anger.
It's the strong energy of not wanting things to be the way they are
and blaming someone (often yourself) or something for it.
This doesn't mean you can't hurry when you have to.
It is possible even to hurry patiently, mindfully,
moving fast because you have chosen to.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

You can't change the past,
but you can ruin the present
by worrying about the future.
- Anonymous

How paramount the future is to the present
when one is surrounded by children.
- Charles Darwin

Fill your heart with the creative power
to accept the past,
decorate the present
and transform the future.
- Osho

In rivers, the water that you touch
is the last of what has passed
and the first of that which comes;
so with present time.
- Leonardo da Vinci

One of the illusions of life is that the present hour
is not the critical, decisive hour.
Write it on your heart that
every day is the best day in the year.
No man has learned anything rightly,
until he knows that every day is Doomsday.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is a mark of soulfulness to be present in the here and now.
When we are present, we are not fabricating inner movies.
We are seeing what is before us.
- John Bradshaw

When we come into the present,
we begin to feel the life around us again,
but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding.
We must have the courage to face whatever is present -
our pain, our desires, our grief,
our loss, our secret hopes our love -
everything that moves us most deeply.
- Jack Kornfield

Training yourself to live in the present -
without regretting the past or fearing the future -
is a recipe for a happy life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I do not want to foresee the future.
I am concerned with taking care of the present.
God has given me no control over the moment following.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

History is a relentless master.
It has no present, only the past rushing into the future.
To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.
- John F. Kennedy

The secret of health for both mind and body
is not to mourn for the past,
nor to worry about the future,
but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.
- The Buddha

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it
is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
- William Arthur Ward

The present is the ever moving shadow
that divides yesterday from tomorrow.
In that lies hope.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Stop wishing and fearing the future
long enough to be fully present in TODAY.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Do not dwell in the past,
do not dream of the future,
concentrate the mind on the present moment.
- The Buddha

Living in the present moment requires discretion toward memory.
Without memory we'd have amnesia. What good would there be in that?
Offer discretion and discernment for our past
with a broad spectrum of forgiveness.
As for our present moment, delight.
And dedication to remain fully present to all the possibility.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

The essence of all religions is One.
Surrender is the main duty of everyone.
Surrender means the feeling of oneness,
I and God are One. Why?
The reason is that the One
who is present in you is present in me.
- Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded.
It's a relationship between equals.
Only when we know our own darkness well
can we be present with the darkness of others.
Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
- Pema Chodron

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects,
and so will continue while the present
order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
- Thomas Jefferson

As in geology, so in social institutions,
we may discover the causes of all past changes
in the present invariable order of society.
- Henry David Thoreau

I am trying to own my own opinions
and offer what I know as an option,
just as I would present a tray of appetizers for my guests.
Here are several choices that I have created -
if one looks good you are welcome to take it.
In other words, I am training myself to say,
"May I tell you how it is for me?"
When I ask the question, it means waiting
for the invitation to share.
It also means being prepared for my friend to say,
"No." They don't want to know.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

On this day, as on every day,
we Receive ALL of Life with Thanksgiving.
We have gratitude for EVERYTHING
that has ever occurred to bring us to this moment.
We give thanks for the joys and the sufferings,
the moments of peace and the flashes of anger,
the compassion and the indifference,
the roar of our courage
and the cold sweat of our fear.
We accept gratefully the entirety
of our past and our present life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is always a present and extant life,
be it better or worse,
which all combine to uphold.
- Henry David Thoreau

If the present Congress errs in too much talking,
how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people
send one hundred and fifty lawyers,
whose trade it is to question everything,
yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
- Thomas Jefferson

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.
The occasion is piled high with difficulty,
and we must rise with the occasion.
As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.
- Abraham Lincoln

On His Blindness:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
- John Milton (1608-1674)

A fool is one who goes on trusting;
a fool is one who goes on trusting against all his experience.
You deceive him, and he trusts you;
and you deceive him again, and he trusts you;
and you deceive him again, and he trusts you.
Then you will say that he is a fool, he does not learn.
His trust is tremendous; his trust is
so pure that nobody can corrupt it.
Be a fool in the Taoist sense, in the Zen sense.
Don't try to create a wall of knowledge around you.
Whatsoever experience comes to you,
let it happen, and then go on dropping it.
Go on cleaning your mind continuously;
go on dying to the past so you remain in the present here-now,
as if just born, just a babe.
- Osho

Instead of being presented with stereotypes
by age, sex, color, class, or religion,
children must have the opportunity
to learn that within each range,
some people are loathsome and some are delightful.
- Margaret Mead

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.
Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind,
and that state of the mind can only be described
by presenting that natural appearance as its picture.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The future has nothing in common with the past -
except natural laws and human nature.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Children are natural Zen masters;
their world is brand new in each and every moment.
- John Bradshaw

Judge your natural character
by what you do in your dreams.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

While it is natural to feel some degree of
need for the approval of others, be careful.
If you find yourself unwilling to
take actions that others disapprove of,
you have lost control of your own life
and have given your destiny to others.
An excessive need-for-approval
is a sign of low self-esteem,
and in severe cases, a condition termed co-dependency.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Being part of the natural world reminds me
that innocence isn't ever lost completely;
we just need to maintain our goodness to regain it.
- Jewel

Ecstasy is our very nature;
not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary.
To be ecstatic is natural, spontaneous.
It needs no effort to be ecstatic,
it needs great effort to be miserable.
That's why you look to tired,
because misery is really hard work;
to maintain it is really difficult,
because you are doing something against nature.
- Osho

Miracles are the natural way of the Universe -
our only job is to move our doubting minds aside
and let the miracles flow.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Confidence is the most important single factor in this game,
and no matter how great your natural talent,
there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.
- Jack Nicklaus

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Wisdom Quotes