MY FAVORITE QUOTES

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

- Cicero

"The heart has reasons the brain knows nothing of."

- Blaise Pascal

"Mastering others is strength. Mastering oneself
makes you fearless."

- Lao Tzu

"You never know how strong you are
until being strong is your only choice."

- Christina Cuomo

"There is no love, there are only proofs of love."

- Pierre Reverdy

"The true art of memory is the art of attention."

- Samuel Johnson

"The secret of happiness is something to do."

- John Burroughs

"Success is a lousy teacher.
It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose."

- Bill Gates

"Tell, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn."

- Benjamin Franklin

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore,
is not an act but a habit."

- Aristotle

"Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible."

- Tony Robbins

"There is always a barrier between me and someone who does not like dogs."

- Ellen Glasgow

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

- Maya Angelou

"Three o'clock is always too late, or too early, for anything you want to do."

- Jean-Paul Sartre

"She wasn't doing a thing that I could see except standing there, leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."

- J.D. Salinger

"Every charitable act is a step toward heaven."

- Unknown

"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."

- Henry Ward Beecher

"I have simply tried to do what seemed best each day,
as each day came."

- Abe Lincoln

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection,
we can catch excellence."

- Vince Lombardi

"Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost."

- William Ellery Channing

"I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen."

- Frank Lloyd Wright

"Cruel, but composed and bland, dumb, inscrutable and grand. So Tiberius might have sat, had Tiberius been a cat."

- Matthew Arnold

"The hardest thing for me is the sense of impermanence.
All passes; nothing returns."

- Ellen Glasgow

"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Tommy Joe, don't take any wooden nickels."

- Dolly Hale (my Mom)

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

- Albert Einstein

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning how to dance in the rain."

- Vivian Greene

"As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other is for helping others."

- Audrey Hepburn

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."

- Dolly Parton

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

- Chinese Proverb

"An unexamined life is not worth living."

- Socrates

"Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is."

- Vince Lombardi

"Good friends are like stars, you don't always see them, but you know they are there."

- Christy Evans

"You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore."

- Christopher Columbus

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."

- Henry Ford

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why."

- Mark Twain

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

- Anais Nin

"There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing."

- Aristotle

"Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart."

- Ancient Indian Proverb

"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare."

- Mark Twain

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."

- Mark Twain

"How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly."

- Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

- Lewis Carrol

"One of the most adventurous things left us is to go to bed. For no one can lay a hand on our dreams."

- E.V. Lucas

"A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer."

- Unknown

"It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it."

- Albert Einstein

"The years teach me much which the days never knew."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness."

- Unknown

"Forget injuries; never forget kindness."

- Confucius

"Success is going from failure without losing your enthusiasm."

- Winston Churchill

"When they call the roll in the Senate, they don't know whether to answer "present' or "not guilty."

- Theodore Roosevelt (still true today)

"My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers."

- Jimmy Carter

"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."

- Babe Ruth

"Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions."

- Albert Einstein

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."

- Henry David Thoreau

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much."

- Jim Rohn

"If you aren't going all the way, why go at all?"

- Joe Namath

"You can't pour from an empty cup."

- Robin Miget

"I find the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

- Thomas Jefferson

"You've got to try your luck at least once a day because you could be going around lucky all day and not even know it."

- Jimmy Dean

"The secret to a long and happy marriage is not finding someone you can live with for 50 years. It's finding someone you can't live without."

- Frank Caprio

"Truth isn't always easy to find or to face. "

- George T. Conway III

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts."

- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

"Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

- Dale Carnegie

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

- Cicero

"The heart has reasons the brain knows nothing of."

- Blaise Pascal

"Mastering others is strength. Mastering oneself makes you fearless."

- Lao Tzu

"You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice."

- Christina Cuomo

"There is no love, there are only proofs of love."

- Pierre Reverdy

"The true art of memory is the art of attention."

- Samuel Johnson

"The secret of happiness is something to do."

- John Burroughs

"Success is a lousy teacher.
It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose."

- Bill Gates

"Tell, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn."

- Benjamin Franklin

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."

- Aristotle

"Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible."

- Tony Robbins

"There is always a barrier between me and someone who does not like dogs."

- Ellen Glasgow

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

- Maya Angelou

"Three o'clock is always too late, or too early, for anything you want to do."

- Jean-Paul Sartre

"She wasn't doing a thing that I could see except standing there, leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."

-J.D. Salinger

My Current WoW

🎋Cherishing The Little Things🎋

🔱I have been guilty of ignoring “the little things” in life. That does not include,...
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The Paradox of Positivity

🔱 I read recently that a new study found that people with sunny dispositions are...
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Just Go Outside, Please!

💫 Well, summer is almost over. The hot weather has diminished some, and going outside...
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🎋 Spiritual Integrity 🎋

"Spiritual secrecy is the protector of spiritual integrity." That quote is from the Trappist monk...
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🎋 Happiness for Beginners 🎋

I watched a movie the other night titled "Happiness for Beginners," and it enticed me...
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🎋 Third Circle of Hell 🎋

In the 14th century, Dante, in his Alighieri's Inferno (14th-century poem, Divine Comedy), condemned to...
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🎋 A Love Song 🎋

💫 I'm a country music fan. Being raised in the mountains of southwest Virginia, I...
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🎋 Retirement 🎋

My wife and I recently celebrated being in our retirement community for two years. It...
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🎋 God is my Boss 🎋

Each day around 6 pm, my wife and I dutifully tread the 500 feet from...
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🎋 Talking to Strangers 🎋

Sometimes, life seems to be chocked full of changes. I have noticed as I've gotten...
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Guest Missives

Car Shopping… by JoAnn

This week, I found myself in need of a new form of transportation. My sweet...
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The Bike… by JoAnn

When I was around 6 or 7 years old, my sister got a new bicycle...
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Mama Boo… by Jane Strebel

She was a diminutive snippet of a woman, falling just short of five feet tall,...
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High-Times on the 4th Floor… by Larry Fields

Two weeks ago, I was released from BRMC (Bristol Regional Medical Center) after an extended...
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Anatomy of a Fall… by Larry Fields

Three weeks ago, I left the house telling my wife I was going to Lowe’s...
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Cookie & Brownie… by JoAnn

Today is Valentine's Day. I woke up feeling rather alone on this holiday. I've always...
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My Favorite Therapy… by JoAnn

A good friend of mine mentioned the other day that she felt blasting loud music...
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Playing Santa Clause… by Larry Fields

I remember tearing across town on my to visit Grandma on the day my big...
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Visiting Grandma… by JoAnn

My only grandmother was my mother's mom when I was a young child. When I...
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Snow Baby… by JoAnn

Yesterday was my granddaughter Taylor's 18th birthday. I still feel a sense of shock at...
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A smiley face wearing a cowboy hat and bandana.

AS MY WORLD TURNS

"A Day of Fun and a Lesson Learned"

My wife and I recently went out of town on a day trip to visit two of her high school classmates. Pat & Paul have been our good friends for several years, and we haven't visited them in almost two years. It was time to make it happen, so we contacted them, set a date and time, piled into our truck, and headed toward their home.
About 1½ hours later, we pulled into their driveway at 10:45 am, disembarking quickly and walking up to the front door of their beautiful new home. Their huge neighborhood was still developing, and new houses were being built everywhere.
Pat met us at the door and welcomed us in. Paul was taking a quick nap and joined us shortly. Wonderful conversations flowed constantly as we tried to catch up on each other's lives. After a delicious lunch, they took us down to the clubhouse and gave us a tour of the facilities, which included a gym. I immediately jumped on one of their treadmills and cranked the speed up to what I thought was the speed of those in our retirement community.
That was not a very well-thought-out idea. Immediately, I was running at a pace that made it impossible to reach the panel to slow down the darn thing. I was running at sprinter's speed, unable to reach the controls, and wondering what I would do to stop this runaway monster that was intent on breaking my body into smaller pieces. Then it dawned on me: I had attached the emergency pull switch to my belt, which I always do, and all I had to do was remove one of my hands from the two arms that extended out for me to hold on to and pull on that string, forcing it to stop immediately.
Unfortunately, the thought continued to course through my brain that if I removed a hand from either support, I was going to be tossed violently somewhere, and my life was going to be consumed by pain. My wife, along with Pat and Paul, were somewhere else in the gym, unaware of my plight, and my hope was they were not bearing witness to my lack of good judgment.
Finally, knowing that exhaustion was galloping with great speed in my direction, I quickly removed my right hand from the treadmill arm and grabbed at the emergency string attached to my belt. My first effort failed, and just as I was preparing for the ultimately violent ending, I made another desperate snatch for the string and struck pay dirt. It stopped immediately, and I disembarked casually, as if nothing unusual had happened. It's just human nature to cover up our poor judgement 😊.
One thing is for sure, I will never, never make that mistake again. Afterward, we sashayed back to our friends' beautiful home and continued our enjoyable conversations. We left around 3 pm, our hearts full of warmth and laughter, reminded of the importance of genuine friendships. I have never mentioned my near disaster; I have told no one but you, so don't you dare ever mention it! 😊

~ Tommy ~

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