today - today 2
    

It is the saying of holy men that, if we wish to be perfect, we have
nothing more to do that to perform the ordinary duties of the day
well.  A short road to perfection--short, not because easy, but
because pertinent and intelligible.  There are no short ways
to perfection, but there are sure ones.

John Henry Newman
Meditations and Devotions

quotations - contents - welcome page - obstacles
our current e-zine - the people behind the words - articles and excerpts
Daily Meditations, Year One - Year Two - Year Three - Year Four
     
Sign up for your free daily spiritual or general quotation ~ ~ Sign up for your free daily meditation

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

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

HOME - contents - Daily Meditations - abundance - acceptance - achievement - action - adversity - advertising - aging - ambition
anger - anticipation - anxiety - apathy - appreciation - arrogance - art - attitude - authenticity - awakening - awareness - awe
balance - beauty - being yourself - beliefs - body - brooding - busyness - caring - celebration - challenges - change - character
charity - children - choices - Christianity - coincidence - commitment - common sense - community - comparison - compassion
competition - complaining - compliments - compromise - confidence - conformity - conscience - contentment - control - cooperation
courage - covetousness - creativity - crisis - criticism - cruelty -  death - decisions - desire - determination - disappointment
discipline - discouragement - diversity - doubt - dreams - earth - education - ego - emotions - encouragement - enlightenment
enthusiasm - envy - eternity - ethics - example - exercise - experience - failure - faith - fame - family - fate - fathers - fault-finding
fear - feelings - finances - flowers - forgiveness - freedom - friendship - frustration - fun - the future - garden of life - gardening
generosity - gentleness - giving - goals - God - goodness - grace - gratitude - greatness - greed - grief - growing up - guilt - habit
happiness - hatred - healing - health - heart - helpfulness - home - honesty - hope - hospitality - humility - hurry - ideals - identity
idleness  - idolatry - ignorance - illusion - imagination - impatience - individuality - the inner child - inspiration - integrity - intimacy
introspection - intuition - jealousy - journey of life - joy - judgment - karma - kindness - knowledge - language - laughter - laziness
leadership - learning - letting go - life - listening - loneliness - love - lying - magic - marriage - materialism - meanness - meditation
mindfulness - miracles - mistakes - mistrust - moderation - money - mothers - motivation - music - mystery - nature - negative attitude
now - oneness - open-mindedness - opportunity - optimism - pain - parenting - passion - the past - patience - peace - perfectionism
perseverance - perspective - pessimism - play - poetry - positive thoughts - possessions - potential - poverty - power - praise
prayer - prejudice - pride - principle - problems - progress - prosperity - purpose - reading -recreation - reflection - relationships
religion - reputation - resentment - respect - responsibility - rest - revenge - risk - role models - running - ruts - sadness - safety
seasons of life - self - self-love - self-pity - self-reliance - self-respect -  selfishness - serving others - shame - silence - simplicity
slowing down - smiles -solitude - sorrow - spirit - stories - strength - stress - stupidity - success - suffering - talent
the tapestry of life - teachers - thoughts - time - today - tolerance - traditions - trees - trust - truth - unfulfilled dreams - values
vanity - virtue - vulnerability - walking - war - wealth - weight issues - wisdom - women - wonder - work - worry - worship
youth - spring - summer - fall - winter - Christmas - Thanksgiving - New Year - America - Zen sayings - articles & excerpts
Native American wisdom - The Law of Attraction - obstacles to living life fully - e-zine archives - quotations contents
our most recent e-zine - Great Thinkers - the people behind the words

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference,
ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time,
add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

Marion Wright Edelman

today - today 2
  

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

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

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 critical, 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)

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

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

Whatever you envision for your future, it's important not to get
impatient waiting for it to happen.  If you spend your time wishing
your days away, you'll miss out on the wonderful things that today
can bring you.  More importantly, the steps you take today are
the building blocks with which you create your future.
Take a little time today to stop and smell the roses. . . 
and enjoy where and who you are.

Steve Degger and Leslie Ann Gibson

We take spiritual responsibility for our day when we pray that it
be blessed.  More than the way we look, more than the clothes
in our closet, more than whether or not our papers are organized,
this simple request--that our lives be reflections of an eternal
love--releases us from the confines of yesterday and frees us to
unlimited possibilities today.  Every single morning we can receive
from the universe an entirely new day, in every sense of the word.
That's exactly what's available to us, and courage lies in claiming it.

Marianne Williamson

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

This day is all I have and these hours are now my eternity.  I greet
this sunrise with cries of joy as a prisoner who is reprieved from death.
I lift mine arms with thanks for this priceless gift of a new day.  So too,
I will beat upon my heart with gratitude as I consider all who greeted
yesterday's sunrise who are no longer with the living today.  I am
indeed a fortunate man and today's hours are but a bonus, undeserved.
Why have I been allowed to live this extra day when others, far better
than I, have departed?  Is it that they have accomplished their purpose
while mine is yet to be achieved?  Is this another opportunity for me
to become the man I know I can be?  Is there a purpose in nature?
Is this my day to excel?
I will live this day as if it is my last.

Og Mandino
The Greatest Salesman in the World

Tomorrow
Edgar Guest

He was going to be all that a mortal should be tomorrow.
No one should be kinder or braver than he tomorrow.
A friend who was troubled and weary he knew,
Who'd be glad of a lift and who needed it, too;
On him he would call and see what he could do, tomorrow.

Each morning he stacked up the letters he'd write, tomorrow,
And thought of the folks he would fill with delight, tomorrow.
It was too bad, indeed, he was busy today,
And hadn't a minute to stop on his way;
More time he would have to give others, he'd say, tomorrow.

The greatest of workers this man would have been, tomorrow.
The world would have known him, had he ever seen tomorrow.
But the fact is he died and he faded from view,
And all that he left here when living was through
Was a mountain of things he intended to do, tomorrow.

In terms of days and moments lived, you’ll never again be as young
as you are right now, so spend this day, the youth of your future, in a
way that deflects regret. Invest in yourself.  Have some fun.  Do something
important.  Love somebody extra.  In one sense, you’re just a kid, but a
kid with enough years on her to know that every day is priceless.

Victoria Moran
Younger by the Day

today - today 2

From the spiritual side:

Every day we live is a priceless gift from God, loaded with
possibilities to learn something new, to gain fresh insights.

Dale Evans Rogers

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

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