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“For things I am not thankful for―experiences I would never volunteer to relive―I recognize how they have changed me. My depth of compassion and humility, the sincerity of my empathy and understanding, and the duration of my patience have all been refined by bitter suffering. I thank God for the lessons learned. I am a better person for it, but I still abhor those awful trials.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Sometimes all you can do is hug a friend tightly and wish that their pain could be transferred by touch to your own emotional hard drive.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Why must you know the details of my troubles to have compassion? Is it not enough to show compassion simply because you know that everyone has troubles?”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“The trait I regard most highly in a man is kindness. Thoughtful, consistent kindness. All other qualities—whether charming, witty, handsome, enterprising, powerful, seductive, or ingenious—wither in comparison to a truly kind man.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“The Devil's Rose
You would never take a rose from a beast.
If his callous hand were to hold out a scarlet flower, his grip unaffected by pricking thorns, you would shrink from the gift and refuse it. I know that is what you would do.
But the cunning beast will have his beauty.
He hunts not in hopeless pursuit, for fear would have you sprint all the day long. Thus, he turns toward the shadows and clutches the rosebud, crunching and twisting until every delicate petal is detached. One falls not far from your feet, and you notice the red spot in the snow.
The color sparkles in the sunlight, catching your curious eye. No beast stands in sight; there is nothing to fear, so you dare retrieve the lone petal. The touch of temptation is velvet against your thumb. It carries a scent you bring to your nose, and both eyes close to float on a cloud of perfume.
As your lashes lift, another scarlet drop stains the snow at a near distance. A glance around perceives no danger, and so your footprints scar the snowflakes to retrieve another rosy leaflet as soft and sweet as the first. Your eyes shine with flecks of golden greed at the discovery of more discarded petals, and you blame the wind for scattering them mere footprints apart. All you want is a few, so you step and snatch, step and snatch, step and snatch.
Soon, there is enough velvet to rub against your cheek like a silken kerchief. Your collection of one-plus-one-more reeks of floral essence.
Distracted, you jump at the sight of the beast in your path. He stands before his lair, grinning without love. His callous hands grip at thorns on a single naked stem, and you look down at your own hands that now cup his rose. But how can it be? You would never take a rose from a beast. You would shrink from the gift and refuse it. He knows that is what you would do.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“A man once believed he could fly—and he did.
Another believed he could walk on the moon—and he did.
Why not believe your wildest dreams can come true?
Why not see the stars as reachable?”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Sometimes while gazing at the night's sky, I imagine stars looking down making wishes on the brightest of us.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Life requires us to do things anyway, despite what sort of fear or monster or tragedy or suffering lurks behind that anyway.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Jesus Christ died to save us from our sins; we tend to concentrate on that merciful fact. But isn't it also true He lived to show us a lifestyle free from sin? So, wouldn't following in his footsteps be something like preventative medicine?”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“We are all guilty of sin, error, and moments of sheer stupidity; none of us should be casting stones. The occasional arced pebble might be overlooked.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Don't judge too harshly, for if your weaknesses were to be placed under your footsteps, most likely you would stumble and fall as well.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Win or lose, good or bad, the experience will change you.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“No one is born a sprinter. We all learn to push ourselves up from the floor and then balance before taking that first, wobbly step. It is an individual choice where to go from there.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Life is not what happens to us; it is what we perceive has happened to us.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“I believe people are more inclined to do their best, not when they feel loved, but when they feel loved regardless.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“A whiff of fresh mint
that tastes like strawberry pie.
Your kisses tempt me.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Even among familiar faces, people often feel invisible and desolate, like an island in cold waters or a shadow apart from the crowd. Be the reason another never feels alone.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Freedom is essential to the pursuit of happiness.
Freedom is essential to artistic evolution and expression.
Freedom is essential to the expansion of the human mind.
Freedom is essential to the development and application of basic humanitarianism.
Freedom is essential to the creation of an individual's will, motivations, preferences, and unique talents.
In essence, freedom is essential to the success and progress of humanity.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Without you there would be no me.
I am everything reflected in your eyes.
I am everything approved by your smile.
I am everything born of your guidance.
I am me only because of you.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“You can't make me be nice.
You can't make me be good.
You can't make me believe.
But your example, your kindness, your patience and love will affect me perhaps enough that eventually I may choose to do those things.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“You can believe what you've been told. You can imagine in vivid detail the things explained to you. You may even feel emotions assumed to accompany the related experience. But you absolutely cannot know something with any real degree of understanding until you've personally walked the road yourself.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“You are here to make a difference, to either improve the world or worsen it. And whether or not you consciously choose to, you will accomplish one or the other.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“It is neither trials nor relationships nor successes nor failures that define a man, but the choices he makes while handling them.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“A liar deceives himself more than anyone, for he believes he can remain a person of good character when he cannot.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“One of the most critical decisions made in life is choosing with whom to spend your time. For it is those close relationships that gradually mold our character until we become a reflection of the company we keep.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“You need tell me nothing; I already know your heart. Through your simplest choices you've given yourself away.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“There are two kinds of people in this world: those who follow the popular majority, and those who possess good sense. In other words, you can either let the crowd steer you right over a cliff, or you can stop to peer beyond the brink and see how a fall will likely end in tragedy.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Words that should cross your lips with ease: thank you, love you, sorry, please.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“My Floating Sea"
"Pastel colors reflect in my opening eyes and draw my gaze to a horizon where the waters both begin and end. This early in the day I can easily stare without blinking. The pale sea appears calm, but it is stormy just as often. I awe at the grandeur, how it expands beyond my sight to immeasurable depths. In every direction that I twist my neck, a beauteous blue is there to console me.
Flowing, floating ribbons of mist form on these pale waters. In harmony they pirouette, creating a stretch of attractive, soft swirls. Swoosh! The wind, its strength in eddies and twisters, smears the art of dancing clouds, and the white disperses like startled fairies fleeing into the forest. Suddenly all is brilliant blue.
The waters calm and clear. It warms me. Pleases me. Forces my eyes to close at such vast radiance. My day is spent surrounded by this ethereal sea, but soon enough the light in its belly subsides. Rich colors draw my gaze to the opposite horizon where the waters both begin and end. I watch the colors bleed and deepen. They fade into black.
Yawning, I cast my eyes at tiny gleams of life that drift within the darkened waters. I extend my reach as if I could will my arm to stretch the expanse between me and eons. How I would love to brush a finger over a ray of living light, but I know I cannot.
Distance deceives me.
These little breathing lights floating in blackness would truly reduce me to the tiniest size, like a mountain stands majestic over a single wild flower. I am overwhelmed by it all and stare up, in love with the floating sea above my head.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“It's strange how in childhood it feels like tomorrow won't come until the end of forever, but in adulthood it feels like the end of forever could come tomorrow.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Teach me to sing and recite,
To whistle and jingle and strum.
Teach me to color and paint,
To sculpt and weave and create.
Teach me to sway and dance,
To tap and leap and twirl.
Teach me to laugh and giggle,
To tickle and play and pretend.
Teach me that life is beautiful.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Happiness found me alone one day and took me by the hand.
He showed me how the sun gave out its warmth across the land.
Sadness found me content and smiling upward at the sun.
He talked of droughts and blindness and what burning rays had done.
Happiness found me alone again and pointed to the sky.
He showed me how the storms created rainbows way up high.
Sadness found me intrigued and took me to the rainbow’s end.
He showed me how it disappeared to ne’er return again.
Happiness found me alone and taught me how to sing a song.
He sang a dozen melodies as I chirped right along.
Sadness found me singing out and covered up his ears.
He said the noise was deafening, and wished he couldn’t hear.
Happiness found me alone and gave me seven coins of gold.
He showed me many fancy things that merchants often sold.
Sadness found me admiring the pretty things I’d bought.
He pointed out my empty purse and money I had not.
Happiness found me alone and helped me talk to someone new.
He called the boy my friend and said that I was his friend too.
Sadness found me together with my kind, attentive friend.
He whispered of betrayal and how broken hearts don’t mend.
Happiness found me alone and held me tight in his embrace.
He whispered kindness in my ear and kissed me on the face.
Sadness found me with Happiness but before he spoke at all,
I told him he’d have better luck at talking to the wall.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“The bulk of life is discovering who you are—and then reconciling that with who you wish you were.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“This is me today, but take heed; it is not the same me as yesterday, and it will not be the same me tomorrow.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Kind words and tender affections will not save me from this lake of woe and misery, but they may be enough of a buoy to prevent my drowning.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Often we withhold our affections, waiting first for love to be extended to us. The irony is that we are loved for loving.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“You made me laugh at your jokes.
You made me cry at your criticism.
You made me shout at your lies.
Then I noticed how in every case someone else was present,
hearing you without laughter or tears or anger.
I alone reacted.
I see now; you never made me laugh or cry or rage.
I chose to find humor.
I chose to take offense.
I chose to feel scorned.
The truth is, you never had power over me.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Years ago, a group of good, wise, brave, God-fearing men stood up to claim and defend the human right for independence. Those men are now dead. Their work is not. If good, wise, brave, God-fearing men fail to stand up in their stead, that independence will cease to exist.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Freedom is the atmosphere in which humanity thrives. Breathe it in.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Some say freedom is a gift placed in our hands by our forefathers.
Some say freedom is a human right that none should be denied.
Some say freedom is a privilege that can and will be seized if taken for granted.
Some say freedom is the key that opens doors otherwise meant to imprison.
Some say freedom is power to do, to be, to say, and to accomplish what the oppressed cannot.
Some say freedom is a responsibility—a weight to be carried and shared by those willing to protect it.
Perhaps freedom is all these things.
But in my eyes, I see freedom as a treasure. It is a gem so rare and precious the fiercest battles rage over it. The blood of thousands is spilled for it—past, present, and future. Where true and unblemished freedom exists, it shines with perfect clarity, drawing the greedy masses, both those who desire a portion of the spoils and those who would rob the possessor of the treasure, hoping to bury it away.
Without freedom I am a slave in shackles on a ship lost at sea.
With freedom I am a captain; I am a pirate; I am an admiral; I am a scout; I am the eagle souring overhead; I am the north star guiding a crew; I am the ship itself; I am whatever I choose to be.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“The denial of assistance is sometimes the greatest assistance. The trick is recognizing when this is the case.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“The Jealous Sun
The sunlight whispers in my ear, his breath a warm, sultry tease. I shrink and duck beneath a tree. My eyes squint to scan the horizon for a glimpse of the wind, but there are no ashen ribbons or golden waves in sight. He is missing.
Trickling, tinkling notes reflect loudly off a chandelier of glimmering droplets. The rain sings to me, and I shield my eyes, admiring the song. Far off in my western view I expect to see snow, but the sun grows hot with jealousy, knowing this. He refuses my snowman a place to set.
My sight drops to search for the man in the moon. Normally he rises dripping wet from out of the lake, often pale and naked, supple and soft to my caressing gaze. On rare occasions he dons a pumpkin robe as luminous as fire. Today he is draped in silks of the saddest blue. My heart weeps as he steals up and away.
An army of stars in shining armor come to my aid, and they force the sun into the ground—a temporary grave. I am fed with a billion bubbles of laughter until I feel I will burst. But the stars will not stop giving, and I will not stop taking.
A kiss brands my cheek, and I turn abruptly to find my snowman. He landed safely in the dark. We hide from the man in the moon behind a curtain of flurries to dance on polished rainbows and feast on stars until I hear a fire-red growl. The sun claws its way out of the soil, and everyone scatters.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“It's silly to think the left eye would envy the right or that one foot would be jealous of the other, and yet so often it is the case.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“If only you would kiss me.
Press your lips to mine like a searing iron. Wrap me in your arms as if you were a monarch claiming a kingdom. Hold me close until I warm through to the core. Do this, and I promise to melt into you, no longer a cold and frozen figure in your narrowed sight. How devoted I would be if only your lips burned for mine!
If only you would kiss me.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“The actual secret to success: Be a better friend today than you were yesterday.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“The most irresistible beauty is the radiant glow from a kind and gentle heart.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Always be good, but be wickedly beautiful.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“It is an incapacitating emotion one feels upon hearing the whispered words "I still love you" after deeply hurting that soul.
Forgiveness isn't weakness.
It is power.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Though I love you to the core of my being, so thoroughly that every cell comprising me aches to be near you, I must accept that we can never be together. For our existence parallels the sun and the moon—a temptation in constant, beautiful view, yet if the sun were ever to kiss the moon it would devour the heavenly orb whole. Oh, my darling, if only I were the moon! Then I would dare taste your lips and be happy for my last and final joy! But alas, I am the sun, and I will not venture to destroy the one I love.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
“Humans are forever discontent—always thinking there are better alternatives to their present circumstances.”
Source: Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year