today 2 - today 3

Today is the only time
we can possibly live.

Dale Carnegie

    

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

William Penn

      
Throw away all ambition beyond that of doing the day's work well.
The travelers on the road to success live in the present,
heedless of taking thought for the morrow.
Live neither in the past nor in the future,
but let each day's work absorb your entire energies.

William Osler
  

Build a little fence of trust
Around to-day;
Fill the space with loving work,
And therein stay;
Look not through the sheltering bars
Upon to-morrow;
God will help thee bear what comes
Of joy or sorrow.

Mary Francis Butts
   

If you let yourself be absorbed completely, if you
surrender completely to the moments as they pass,
you live more richly those moments.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  

Anyone can carry their burden, however hard, until nightfall. 
Anyone can do their work, however hard, for one day.

Robert Louis Stevenson
   
  
  

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us
tend to put off living.  We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden
over the horizon--instead of enjoying the roses
that are blooming outside our windows today.

Dale Carnegie
  

Therefore do not worry about
tomorrow, for tomorrow
will worry about itself.  Each
day has enough trouble of its own.

Luke 10:33,34
  

I have spent my days stringing and unstringing
my instrument, while the song I came to
sing remains unsung to this day.

Rabindranath Tagore

  

Finish every day and be done with it.  You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.  This day is all that is good and fair.
It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

  

The person is happiest who lives from day to day
and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of a life.

Euripedes
  

  

Those who every morning plan the transactions of the day and follow out that plan
carry a thread that will guide them through the labyrinth of the most busy life.
The orderly arrangement of their time is like a ray of light which darts itself
through all their occupations.  But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time
is surrendered merely to the chance of incidents, chaos will soon reign.

Victor Hugo
  
  

You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled
with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the
universe of your life.  It is yours.  It is the most precious of
possessions.  No one can take it from you.  It is unstealable.
And no one receives either more or less than you receive.

Arnold Bennett
  
All ages have said and repeated that one should strive to know one's self.
This is a strange demand which no one up to now has measured up to and,
strictly considered, no one should. With all their study and effort,
people are directed to what is outside, to the world about them,
and they are kept busy coming to know this and to master it to the extent
that their purposes require. . . . How can you come to know yourself?
Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know
right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  

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Do not look back on happiness, or dream of it in the future. 
You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it.

Henry Ward Beecher

today 2 - today 3

  

I am in the present.  I cannot know what tomorrow
will bring forth.  I can know only what the truth
is for me today.  That is what I am
called upon to serve.

Igor Stravinsky

Some people are making such
thorough preparation for rainy days
that they aren't enjoying
today's sunshine.

William Feather
   

Live for today.  Multitudes of people have failed to live for today. . . .
What they have had within their grasp today they have missed entirely,
because only the future has intrigued them.

William Allen White
  
The best preparation for good work tomorrow
is to do good work today.

Elbert Hubbard		 We know nothing of tomorrow; our business
is to be good and happy today.

Sydney Smith
  

  

Each day is a lifetime in miniature.  To awaken each morning is to be born again,
to fall asleep at night is to die to the day.  In between waking and sleeping are
the golden hours of the day.  What we cannot do for a lifetime
we can do for a daytime.
"Anyone," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, "can live sweetly, patiently,
lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down."  Anyone can hold their temper
for a day and guard the words they speak.  Anyone can carry
their burden heroically for one day.  Anyone can strive
to be happy for a day and to spread happiness around.
Anyone can radiate love for a day.  Anyone can rise
above fear for a day and meet each new situation with courage.
Anyone can be kind and thoughtful and considerate for a day.
Anyone can endeavor to learn something new each day
and mark some growth. . . .
The supreme art of living is to strive to live each day well. . . .
Live a day at a time and remember that tomorrow is another today.

Wilferd A. Peterson
 

Take each good day and relish each moment.
Take each bad day and work to make it good.

Lisa Dado
 

We want to live in the present, and the only history
that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.

Henry Ford
 
Those who allow their days to pass by without practicing generosity
and enjoying life's pleasures are like a blacksmith's bellows--
they breathe but they do not live.

anonymous
 

  

Tomorrow's life is too late.  Live today.

Martial
   
 
I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think,
all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read,
and all the friends I want to see.

John Burroughs
  
Each day is a little life; every waking and rising a little birth;
every fresh morning a little youth; every going to rest and sleep a little death.

Arthur Schopenhauer
 

To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with
reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean
mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate
Purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter
on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind and courteous through all
the hours; to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the
joy that comes from work well done--this is how I desire to waste wisely my days.

Thomas Dekker (c. 1570-c. 1641)

 

Yesterday is experience.  Tomorrow is hope.
Today is getting from one to another as best we can.

John M. Henry

  

  

Do, each day, all that can be done that day.  You don’t need to
overwork -– or to rush blindly into your work, trying to do the greatest
possible number of things in the shortest possible amount of time.  Don’t
try to do tomorrow’s –- or next week’s –- work today.  It’s not so much
the number of the things you do but the quality, the efficiency of each
separate action that counts. . . . you need only to succeed in the small
tasks of each day.  This makes a successful day.  With enough of these,
you have a successful week, month, year – and lifetime.

Earl Nightingale

  

Every morning when we wake up we’ve been given a wonderful gift—another
day of life—so let’s make the most of it.  No one can do it for us. . . .
Genuine happiness can only be realized once we commit to making it a
personal priority in our lives.  This may be a new behavior for some of us and
a bit intimidating.  Be gentle with yourself.  It will all unfold.  Like any
new behavior, happiness can be learned.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

   
   
Nothing is worth more than this day.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    

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A normal day!  Holding it in my hand this one last moment, I have come to see it as more than an ordinary rock.  It is a gem, a jewel.  In time of war, in peril of death, people have dug their hands and faces into the earth and remembered this.  In time of sickness and pain, people have buried their faces in pillows and wept for this.  In time of loneliness and separation, people have stretched themselves taut and waited for this.  In time of hunger, homelessness, and want, people have raised bony hands to the skies and stayed alive for this. . . .
    Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.  Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart.  Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.  Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so.  One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want more than all the world your return.  And then I will know what I am now guessing:  that you are, indeed, a common rock and not a jewel, but that a common rock made of the very mass substance of the earth in all its strength and plenty puts a gem to shame.
    The day is over, and now I will sleep.

Mary Jean Irion
in "Let Me Hold You While I May"
from Yes, World.  A Mosaic of Meditation
   
Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities
and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth
The glory of action
The splendor of achievement,
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness
And tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation to the dawn.

from the Sanskrit

today 2 - today 3