The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

Recommended reading: On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

Recommended reading: Pragmatism and Other Writings.

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.

Recommended reading: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

When you adopt the viewpoint that there is nothing that exists that is not part of you, that there is no one who exists who is not part of you, that any judgment you make is self-judgment, that any criticism you level is self-criticism, you will wisely extend to yourself an unconditional love that will be the light of the world.

Recommended reading: The Avatar Path: The Way We Came.

Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit the evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now. You are not some disinterested bystander. Participate. Exert yourself.

Recommended reading: Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness.

In every winter’s heart lies a quivering spring, and behind the veil of each night waits a smiling dawn.

Recommended reading: The Prophet.

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving

Recommended reading: Einstein: His Life and Universe.

Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.

Recommended reading: The Complete Works of Lao Tzu: Tao Teh Ching & Hau Hu Ching.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Recommended reading: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.

Recommended reading: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life.