Illinois ladies facing bc

It's not in the DOing, it's in the BEing.
Whatever you do or don't do in your lifetime,
your greatest contribution
to current and future generations
will be the happiness and joy
you generated and radiated to those around you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There are those who give little of the much they have--and they give it
for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
There are those believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving,
nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God speaks,
and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

Khalil Gibran

Peace of mind just can't be bought. Trust me: Even if your conscience doesn't stop you from playing dirty to get what you want, once you get it, it will keep you from enjoying it. As my mother used to say, "A good conscience is God's eye." Which is why I always prefer a loss to an underhanded gain; the one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time. -Patti LaBelle

Tall order at times.

Once we are destined to live out our lives
in the prison of our mind,
our duty is to furnish it well.
- Peter Ustinov

All my experience of the world teaches me that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the safe side and the just side of a question is the generous side and the merciful side. -Anna Brownell Jameson

In our rough and rugged individualism, we think of gentleness as weakness, being soft and virtually spineless. Not so!Gentleness includes such enviable qualities as having strength under control, being calm and peaceful when surrounded by a heated atmosphere, emitting a soothing effect on those who may be angry or otherwise beside themselves, and possessing tact and gracious courtesy that causes others to retain their self-esteem and dignity. Instead of losing, the gentle gain.Instead of being ripped off and taken advantage of, they come out ahead! -Charles Swindoll

In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us.

Flora Edwards

Do not sell your soul in exchange of anything. This is the only thing you have brought into this world. And the only thing you can take back. ~ Rumi

A person's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds will fall therein,
and will continue to produce their kind.
Just as gardeners cultivate their plots, keeping them free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which they require, so may a person tend the garden of his or her mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a person sooner or later discovers that he or she is the master-gardener of his or her soul, the director of his or her life. -James Allen

The ground we walk on, the plants and creatures,
the clouds above constantly dissolving into new formations -
each gift of nature possessing its own radiant energy,
bound together by cosmic harmony.
- Ruth Bernhard

The life of inner peace,
being harmonious and without stress,
is the easiest type of existence.
- Norman Vincent Peale

It need not discourage us if we are full of doubts. Healthy questions keep faith dynamic. In fact, unless we start with doubts we cannot have a deep-rooted faith. One who believes lightly and unthinkingly has not much of a belief. One who has a faith which is not to be shaken has won it through blood and tears--has worked his or her way from doubt to truth as one who reaches a clearing through a thicket of brambles and thorns. -Helen Keller

Better keep yourself clean and bright;
you are the window through which
you must see the world.
- George Bernard Shaw

The people who are unhappy when they are poor would be unhappy if they were rich, and they who are happy in a palace in Paris would be happy in a dug-out on the frontier of Dakota. There are as many unhappy rich people as there are unhappy poor people. Every heart knows its own bitterness and its own joy. Not that wealth and what it brings is not desirable—books, travel, leisure, comfort, the best food and clothing, agreeable companionship—but all these do not necessarily bring happiness and may coexist with the deepest wretchedness, while adversity and penury, exile and privation are not incompatible with the loftiest exaltation of the soul. -John J. Ingalls

Ego could be defined as whatever covers up basic goodness. From an experiential point of view, what is ego covering up? It's covering up our experience of just being here, just fully being where we are, so that we can relate with the immediacy of our experience. Egolessness is a state of mind that has complete confidence in the sacredness of the world. It is unconditional well being, unconditional joy that includes all the different qualities of our experience. -Pema Chodron