Last Word Archives
Find motivation and encouragement for reaching your goals in these words from authors, visionaries, philosophers and other inspiring individuals.

2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2009 (Back to Top)
Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths. — Etty Hillesum (November) PDF
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth or power, but for the passionate sense of potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. — Søren Kierkegaard (October) PDF
Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much a heart can hold. — Zelda Fitzgerald (September) PDF
Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain. — Carl Jung (July/August) PDF
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. — Rachel Carson (June) PDF
The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained. — David Bohm (May) PDF
"Live simply so that others may simply live." — Mahatma Gandhi (April) PDF
Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all. — Peter Drucker (March) PDF
The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. - Charles DuBois (January/February) PDF
2008 (Back to Top)
Beauty and vitality are gifts from nature for those who live according to her laws. - Leonardo da Vinci (December) PDF
"We can always choose to perceive things differently. You can focus on what's wrong in life, or you can focus on what's right." — Marianne Williamson (November) PDF
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD (October) PDF
A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality. — John Lennon (September) PDF
Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made. — Wayne Dyer (July/August) PDF
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. — Frank Zappa (June) PDF
Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. — Rumi (May) PDF
Doubt can only be removed by action. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (April) PDF
You've got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice. — Steven D. Woodhull (March) PDF
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. — Carl Rogers (January/February) PDF
2007 (Back to Top)
"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do." — Helen Keller (December) PDF
"If you just set people in motion they'll heal themselves." — Gabrielle Roth (November) PDF
"When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid." — Audre Lorde (October) PDF
"The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers." — Thich Nhat Hanh (September) PDF
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. —T.S. Eliot (July/August) PDF
"The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us." — Ashley Montagu (June) PDF
Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world. — George Bernard Shaw (May) PDF
"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself." — William Faulkner (April) PDF
The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it. — Plutarch (March) PDF
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" — Mary Oliver (January/February) PDF
2006 (Back to Top)
"For every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle and a victory." — Mahatma Gandhi (December) PDF
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. — from Desiderata by Max Ehrmann (November) PDF
In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice. — Richard Bach (October) PDF
Call it a clan, call it a netword, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. — Jane Howard (September) PDF
The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. — Madeleine L'Engle (July/August) PDF
A large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life, by him who interests his heart in everything. — Laurence Sterne (June) PDF
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. — Victor Frankl (May) PDF
This is our home, free of human borders and boundaries, a single, integrated whole with a thin ephemeral layer within which life flourishes. — David Suzuki (April) PDF
Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun. — Colleen C. Barrett (March) PDF
There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them. — Denis Waitley (January/February) PDF
2005 (Back to Top)
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. — Aristotle (December) PDF
In order to seek one's own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life. — Plato (November) PDF
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science." — Albert Einstein (October) PDF
To put the world in right order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right. — Confucius (September) PDF
Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please. — Pythagoras (July/August) PDF
When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?" — Sydney Harris (June) PDF
When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less important whether I am afraid. — Audre Lorde (May) PDF
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. — John Muir (April) PDF
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. — Bertrand Russell (March) PDF
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up, again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (January/February) PDF
2004 (Back to Top)
Find expression for sorrow, and it will become dear to you. Find expression for joy, and you will intensify its ecstasy. — Oscar Wilde (December) PDF
Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. It may get tough, but it's a small price to pay for living a dream. — Peter McWilliams (November) PDF
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. — Anais Nin (October) PDF
It seems to me that our three basic needs for food and security and love are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. — M.K. Fisher (September) PDF
The process of maturing is an art to be learned, an effort to be sustained. By the age of fifty you have made yourself what you are, and if it is good, it is better than your youth. — Marya Mannes (July/August) PDF
I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order. — John Burroughs (June) PDF
Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down. — Natalie Goldberg (May) PDF
The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum. — Frances Willard (April) PDF
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances — to choose one's own way. — Victor Frankl (March) PDF
The world is the mountain, and each action, the shout the echoes back. — Rumi (January/February) PDF
2003 (Back to Top)
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or demons, heaven or hell. — The Buddha (November/December) PDF
Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth. — Walt Whitman (September/October) PDF
For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin — real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. — Alfred D. Souza (July/August) PDF