Right Attitudes » Ideas for Impact
» by Nagesh Belludi

Today is the 201st birthday of American physician, professor, lecturer, and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (August 29, 1809 — October 7, 1894.)

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. briefly studied law before turning to the medical profession. As a teacher of medicine at Dartmouth and Harvard, he initiated and advocated far-reaching medical reforms. He is the father of the renowned American jurist and Civil War officer, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Throughout his life, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. wrote poetry, novels, and essays. His peers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell, regarded Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. as one of the best writers of the 19th century. His most famous works include The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858), The Professor of the Breakfast-Table (1860,) and The Poet of the Breakfast-Table (1872) and the biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1884.)

Inspirational Quotations by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Knowledge and timber shouldn’t be much used, till they are seasoned.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Now habit is a labor-saving invention which enables a man to get along with less fuel.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train of associations.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

I talk half the time to find out my own thoughts, as a school-boy turns his pockets inside out to see what is in them. One brings to light all sorts of personal property he had forgotten in his inventory.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don’t make it of wood, you must make it of words . . .
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power; that is all.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Be polite and generous, but don’t undervalue yourself. You will be useful, at any rate; you may just as well be happy, while you are about it.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Knowledge — it excites prejudices to call it science — is advancing as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

He must be a poor creature that does not often repeat himself. Imagine the author of the excellent piece of advice, \Know thyself,\” never alluding to that sentiment again during the course of a protracted existence! “
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

Have you ever realized that most of your adversities never occur? Or that most of your worries like in anticipation of such adversities? That some of life’s most common troubling scenarios never come to pass? That most of your worrying is ultimately fruitless, and life goes on?

Below, I present a simple exercise to help you discover the lifecycle of worry. I encourage you to sit down at a quiet place, a place where you can relax and reflect. If necessary, fetch yourself a journal, special notebook or a piece of scratch paper.

Mindfulness Exercise

Consider a recent upheaval or stressful event. Go back in time and experience that moment for a minute. How do you feel? What preoccupies your mind?

Under the direct influence of your anguish, your mind is bewildered. You feel disoriented. Your mind is preoccupied with the apprehensions. Filled with distress, you cannot take your mind off the apparent ramifications of your suffering. The wounds of your sorrow appear incurable.

Now, fast forward a few days after the stressful event. What do you experience now? Your troubles no longer hold a grip on your life as before. You feel released from the immediate affliction of the moment. As you now investigate the progress of the stressful situation, you feel amazed by how your feelings have changed. What has become of the irreparable hardship?

Storms of Distress

Allow another interval of time to elapse. How do your feelings compare now? The original despair has experienced further diminution. The stressful event appears formless; your apprehensions are no longer recognizable. You are beginning to smile indulgently at the misfortunes.

A few days later, you are surprised how easily these storms of distress passed. You begin to wonder how these depressing emotions could have possessed you. The events are not undone and the external circumstances remain unchanged. What has changed is the condition of your mind.

“This too shall pass”

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”
* Benjamin Franklin

It is your mind that relates the external circumstances to your internal being. Joy and sorrow, hopes and despairs, elation and desolation, pleasures and annoyances are nothing but outcomes of your sensibility. External circumstances are difficult to conquer — our control over the outer world is narrow, and merely illusory. The evolution of your thoughts and feelings, and your responses to distressing situations are within your power.

The next time you experience a hardship — a conflict, a distressing situation, or annoyance, recall what happened with your prior hardships. Recognize that everything happening in your external environment is but impermanent. Say to yourself, “This too shall pass.”

Suggested Resources

• Four telltale signs of an unhappy employee
• How to create more time
• Self-assessment Quiz: How stressed are you?
• Finding work-life balance
• Seven easy ways to get more done in less time

***See other articles related to stress, worry, anxiety, heath, well-being, happiness, living the good life

Leisure only means a chance to do other jobs that demand attention.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Most of us are aware of and pretend to detest the barefaced instances of that hypocrisy by which men deceive others, but few of us are upon our guard or see that more fatal hypocrisy by which we deceive and over-reach our own hearts.
* Laurence Sterne

Channels are blocked in the mind, from the day. Lie down in blackness of night, forgotten remnants rush to the mind, or creeping slowly appear in the dreams.
* Nathaniel LeTonnerre

Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort which it brings.
* Walter Lippmann

Presence is more than just being there.
* Malcolm S. Forbes

If wisdom and diamonds grew on the same tree we could soon tell how much men loved wisdom.
* Lemuel K. Washburn

Do not value money for any more nor any less than its worth; it is a good servant but a bad master.
* Alexandre Dumas fils

While you cannot resolve what you are, at last you will be nothing.
* Martial

Sickness comes on horseback and departs on foot.
* Dutch Proverb

Lying to yourself about specific actions is easier than re-defining the bounds of your imagined identity… When I see once-ethical men devolve into moral grey, they still identify as upstanding.
* Ben Casnocha

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.
* Nathaniel Hawthorne

Whoever one is, and wherever one is, one is always in the wrong if one is rude.
* Maurice Baring

When looking back, usually I’m more sorry for the things I didn’t do than for the things I shouldn’t have done.
* Malcolm S. Forbes

Take spring when it comes, and rejoice. Take happiness when it comes, and rejoice. Take love when it comes, and rejoice.
* Carl Ewald

You’re not free until you’ve been made captive by supreme belief.
* Marianne Moore

To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.
* Katherine Paterson

Everybody’s 12 years old in an apple orchard.
* Rachael Ray

There is an objective reality out there, but we view it through the spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes, and values.
* David G. Myers

Happiness is often the result of being too busy to be miserable.
* Unknown

You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.
* Ruth E. Renkl

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

Mistakes are the usual bridge between inexperience and wisdom.
* Phyllis Theroux

The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.
* Mike Murdock

That best academy, a mother’s knee.
* James Russell Lowell

Fear and lies fester in darkness. The truth may wound, but it cuts clean.
* Jacqueline Carey

It is no easy thing for a principle to become a man’s own unless each day he maintains it and works it out in his life.
* Epictetus

A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he has lost no time.
* Francis Bacon

To expect happiness without giving up negative action is like holding your hand in a fire and hoping not to be burned. Of course, no one actually wants to suffer, to be sick, to be cold or hungry — but as long as we continue to indulge in wrong doing we will never put an end to suffering. Likewise, we will never achieve happiness, except through positive deeds, words, and thoughts. Positive action is something we have to cultivate ourselves; it can be neither bought nor stolen, and no one ever stumbles on it just by chance.
* Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core strength within you that survives all hurt.
* Max Lerner

I doubt not that in due time, when the arts are brought to perfection, some means will be found to give a sound head to a man who has none at all.
* Voltaire

Misfortunes one can endure – they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one’s own faults – ah! there is the sting of life.
* Oscar Wilde

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action.
* Jawaharlal Nehru

What we forgive too freely doesn’t stay forgiven.
* Mignon McLaughlin

We are but dreams, and dreams possess no life by their own right.
* Gene Wolfe

Having your fate rest in the hands of a jury is the same as entrusting yourself to surgery with a mentally retarded doctor.
* Bill Messing

Hate leaves ugly scars, love leaves beautiful ones.
* Mignon McLaughlin

What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease.
* George Dennison Prentice

The function of values is to give us the illusion of purpose in life.
* John P. Grier

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
* Herm Albright

Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
* Rainer Maria Rilke

Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial.
* Richard Ben Sapir

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

The best brought-up children are those who have seen their parents as they are. Hypocrisy is not the parent’s first duty.
* George Bernard Shaw

Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass the superior, and are disgraced by the inferior.
* George Bernard Shaw

Imprisonment is as irrevocable as death.
* George Bernard Shaw

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.
* George Bernard Shaw

To a mathematician the eleventh means only a single unit : to the bushman who cannot count further than his ten fingers it is an incalculable myriad.
* George Bernard Shaw

The difference between the shallowest routineer and the deepest thinker appears, to the latter, trifling ; to the former, infinite.
* George Bernard Shaw

A learned man is an idler who kills time with study. Beware of his false knowledge : it is more dangerous than ignorance.
* George Bernard Shaw

Moderation is never applauded for its own sake.
* George Bernard Shaw

The unconscious self is the real genius. Your breathing goes wrong the moment your conscious self meddles with it.
* George Bernard Shaw

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.
* George Bernard Shaw

Man is the only animal which esteems itself rich in proportion to the number and voracity of its parasites.
* George Bernard Shaw

Greatness is the secular name for Divinity : both mean simply what lies beyond us.
* George Bernard Shaw

Those who understand evil pardon it : those who resent it destroy it.
* George Bernard Shaw

The man with toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.
* George Bernard Shaw

No man dares say so much of what he thinks as to appear to himself an extremist.
* George Bernard Shaw

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

For some moments in life there are no words.
* David Seltzer

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
* Albert Einstein

The door to virtue is heavy and hard to push.
* Chinese Proverb

Sooner or later you’ve heard all your best friends have to say. Then comes the tolerance of real love.
* Ned Rorem

Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.
* Swami Vivekananda

It is seldom indeed that one parts on good terms, because if one were on good terms one would not part.
* Marcel Proust

One’s suffering disappears when one lets oneself go, when one yields – even to sadness.
* Antoine de Saint-Exupery

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.
* Frederick Douglass

Every experience, however bitter, has its lesson, and to focus one’s attention on the lesson helps one overcome the bitterness.
* Edward Howard Griggs

I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope I can ask you to share my future pluses.
* Katherine Mansfield

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal.
* Horace Mann

Determined efforts are better than a miracle.
* Tonbo

It is the beautiful bird that gets caged.
* Chinese Proverb

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. … Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.
* Barack Obama

Since we must all die sooner or later, let us enjoy life while we can.
* Otoma no Tabito

The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.
* Stanley J. Randall

Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.
* Elbert Hubbard

Strength is Life, Weakness is Death.
Expansion is Life, Contraction is Death.
Love is Life, Hatred is Death.
* Swami Vivekananda

Courage is sustained by calling up anew the vision of the goal.
* A. G. Sertillanges

The most decisive actions of our life… are most often unconsidered actions.
* Andre Gide

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

Today, we celebrate the birthday of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. Born on 6 July 1935, His Holiness is the secular leader of the Tibetan people and the leader of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism. He lives in exile in Dharamsala, India, ever since the Chinese occupied Tibet in 1959. As one of the most respected men of our times, the Dalai Lama is a champion of the basic human values of compassion, love, altruism, and nonviolence.

His Holiness is the 1989 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize “for his consistent resistance to the use of violence in his people’s struggle to regain their liberty” and “in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi.”

Here is the Dalai Lama’s favorite prayer for your consideration. This is a verse from a translation of “Bodhicaryavatara” by Shantideva, an Indian Buddhist scholar from the 8th century.

For as long as space endures
And as long as sentient beings remain
May I too abide
To dispell the miseries of the world.

“My religion is kindness”

I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion and elimination of ignorance, selfishness and greed.
* The 14th Dalai Lama

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
* The 14th Dalai Lama

All major religions, when understood properly, have the same potential for good.
* The 14th Dalai Lama

Reason well from the beginning and then there will never be any need to look back with confusion and doubt.
* The 14th Dalai Lama

Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility.
* The 14th Dalai Lama

Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.
* The 14th Dalai Lama

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion.
* The 14th Dalai Lama

From the moment of birth every human being wants happiness and freedom and wants to avoid suffering. In this we are all the same; and the more we care for the happiness of others the greater our own sense of each other becomes.
* The 14th Dalai Lama

Because we all share this small planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. That is not just a dream, but a necessity.
* The 14th Dalai Lama

Human happiness and human satisfaction must ultimately come from within oneself. It is wrong to expect some final satisfaction to come from money or from a computer.
* The 14th Dalai Lama

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations