today - today 2

How we spend our days is,
of course, how we spend our lives.

Annie Dillard

I have always been delighted at the prospect of
a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps
a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.

J.B. Priestley

   

There is only one way really to live, and that is to start out every morning
with a firm resolution to get the most out of that day, to live it to the full.
No matter what happens or does not happen, what comes or does not come,
resolve that you will extract from every experience of the day something good,
something that will make you wiser and show you how to make fewer mistakes
tomorrow.  Say to yourself, "This day I begin a new life.  I will forget everything
in the past that caused me pain, grief, or disgrace."

Orison Swett Marden

  

Most mornings when I awake, I am pleasantly surprised to find
I’m still alive.  On occasion I have been known to wake up
mean and irritable, but even then I can choose not to stay
that way.  Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow may not come.
Today is the only slot of time I really have.  What a shame to blow it.
I want to make today the very best possible. . . . Before I
crawl out of bed, I thank the Lord for another day and ask
for strength.  Maybe I’m to clean the house, or work at
the office, or talk with a friend over lunch.  The tasks
aren’t the issue; my attitude is.

Marabel Morgan

   

  
We can fill each day with grasping or with giving;
with griping or with gratitude.

William Arthur Ward
  

When one cannot be
sure that there are many
days left, each single day
becomes as important
as a year, and one does
not waste an hour
in wishing that the hours
were longer, but simply
fills it, like a smaller cup,
as high as it will go
without spilling over.

Natalie Kusz

  

As yesterday is history, and tomorrow may never come,
I have resolved from this day on, I will do all the business
I can honestly, have all the fun I can reasonably, do all
the good I can willingly, and save my digestion
by thinking pleasantly.

Robert Louis Stevenson

   

I think, what has this day brought me,
and what have I given it?

Henry Moore

Nothing today need conform to anything of yesterday.

Jesse Jennings

Today is a new day.  You will get out of it just what you put into it.

Mary Pickford

Light tomorrow with today.

Elizabeth Browning

   

We can stop waiting for life to become perfect and start working
with what we’ve got to make it as satisfying as we can.  We can accept,
bless, give thanks, and get going.  Today, we can begin to call forth the
riches from our everyday life.  Procrastination has robbed us of too
many precious opportunities.  Call a friend for lunch, begin to read
or even write that novel, organize your papers.  Try a new recipe for
dinner, smile at everyone you meet, sit and dream before a blazing fire,
pick up your needlepoint again, act as if you’re grateful to be alive,
scatter joy.  Think of one thing that would give you a genuine
moment of pleasure today and do it.

Sarah Ban Breathnach
   
   
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
  

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No matter what looms ahead, you can eat today, enjoy the
sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today;
enjoy it and bless God for it.  Do not look back
on happiness--nor dream of it in the future.

Henry Ward Beecher

  
Sufficient it is to know that the way we lived our yesterday
has determined for us our today.  And, again, when the
morning with its fresh beginning comes, all tomorrows should
be tomorrows, with which we have nothing to do.  Sufficient
to know that the way we live our today determines our tomorrow.

Ralph Waldo Trine

  
   

Let's concentrate on today; it's all we have.  Within this day,
we have many choices and a rich texture of experience.  We
can't control the outcome; the moment is within our grasp.
We must seize it, savor it, learn from it; it is life itself.

unattributed

   

You've been given today.  Will you use it or will you miss out
on today's wonder because you're too preoccupied with
holding on to things that are beyond your control?

Melody Beattie

   
How many of us get up in the morning feeling truly grateful for the day?  Most of us wish we could turn the clock back and keep sleeping.  The truth is, when you are happy to wake up and are grateful for the day, your life does change.
   Each new day is an opportunity to pray for your loved ones and to act in a loving manner towards them.  I start out by saying my prayer of thanks and asking for guidance and help from all available resources.  I find I am always grateful for the new day, no matter how hard it is or will be, because I know I am not ready for my days to end.  After all, the alternative to waking up and facing another difficult day is death.  For all I know, after death the unenlightened may be sent back to wake up to the glory of the new day and its opportunities.
   I want to experience more days and the difficulties and opportunities they will bring.  I want the chance to test myself.  Maybe this makes me a glutton for punishment, but if I can help one living thing get through the day and not hurt anyone else in the process, I go to sleep thankful for the time I have been given and eager to awaken to tomorrow.

Bernie Siegel

  
   

The posture we take while
performing our tasks today,
and the attitude we project
toward those who cross our
path, will emphatically
influence what the day brings.
No one else can decide for
any of us what we'll feel or
think about the day.  We
have the power to be as
content or as discontent
as we make up
our minds to be.

unattributed

   

Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand-new
hours to live.  What a precious gift!  We have the capacity to live in a way
that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others.

Thich Nhat Hanh

   

Always begin anew with the day, much as nature does;
it is one of the sensible things that nature does.

George E. Woodberry

   

   

Each day we can wake up and choose to see life as a gift and to be
fully present in that day.  We cannot always control the outcome,
but we can control our reactions.  Each day we can bring all we have
to that day, choosing to live it fully, seeing it as a great gift.  Each day
we can train our mind not to obsess on regret, nor to worry for tomorrow
but to be in this present moment.  Each day we can be grateful for
what has happened that day.  And we can choose not to judge our lives
from moment to moment (am I happy, successful, unhappy,
a failure, good, bad) but simply to live our life.

John Izzo

    

Happy the people, and happy they alone, who can call today their own;
They who are secure within can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

John Dryden

   
One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the decisive hour.
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

    
   

As soon as I open my eyes I see it--a bright new day has dawned.  The
best thing about this gift is that I get to make it whatever I choose.
I begin with gratitude, giving thanks for my life, my breath and the
possibilities of a new beginning.  I go about my activities with enthusiasm,
noticing love and beauty and laughter.  If a conflict arises, I bring
what I choose to the situation.  I add compassion, forgiveness and
understanding.  Filled with gratitude for the joy of being alive, I
conclude my day with prayer and meditation.  I close my eyes and
I am restored by a night of peaceful rest.

unattributed (
The Daily Word)

   
The first hour of waking is the rudder that guides the whole day.

Henry Ward Beecher

    

If we fill our hours with regrets of yesterday and with the
worries of tomorrow, we have no today in which to be thankful.

unattributed

   
   

Life is slipping away with incredible speed.  We are racing through space
at the rate of nineteen miles every second.  Today is our most precious
possession.  It is our only sure possession.

Dale Carnegie

    

To-Day

With every rising of the sun
Think of your life as just begun.
The past has shrived and buried deep
All yesterdays; there let them sleep,
Nor seek to summon back one ghost
Of that innumerable host.

Concern yourself with but to-day;
Woo it and teach it to obey
Your wish and will.  Since time began
To-day has been the friend of man.
But in his blindness and his sorrow
He looks to yesterday and to-morrow.

You and to-day! a soul sublime
And the great pregnant hour of time.  

With God between to bind the twain!
Go forth, I say--attain, attain.
With God between to bind the twain!

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

    

   

If I could only remember that the days were not bricks to be laid row on row,
to be built into a solid house, where one might dwell in safety and peace,
but only food for the fires of the heart.

Edmund Wilson

   
This, I thought, is how great visionaries and poets see everything--
as if for the first time.  Each morning they see a new world before
their eyes; they do not really see it, they create it.

Nikos Kazantzakis
   

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