Words of Wisdom

Dear Diary,

I have collected quotes and words of wisdom my whole life.  I think I get this from my grandmother who would write such things in her common book.  I have a couple of these books and I cherish them.  As someone who is profoundly influenced by Taoist teaching, I was tickled to see that my grandmother also had Lao Tzu's most famous quote in her little book: The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

The little figure in today's post is one I had hanging by my desk when I taught school.  Fear of failure keeps us from trying so many things.  This reminded me, and my students, that we shouldn't allow it to direct our lives.

The Concord Transcendentalists, especially Thoreau and Emerson, have  been a consistent source of wise words for me through the years. What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another favorite of mine is from Helen Keller:  Keep your face to the sunshine and you can never see the shadow.  And the Dalai Lama offers this bit of wisdom:  The purpose of our lives is to be happy.  That sums it up rather nicely I think. 

When I retired, they asked me for a quote to put on a little party favor for people to take home after my party.  This is what I wrote:  Knowledge is fine as long as everything is going well, but when things start to go wrong, it is your creativity that will save you.  This pretty much summed up what I did as an art teacher.  Knowledge you can acquire as you need it but creativity is something you must nurture your whole life.  I tried to teach my students to always “think outside the box”.  That is often where the best solutions will be found.