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If I am not for myself,
by Hillel

If I am not for myself,
who will be for me?
Yet if I am for myself alone,
of what good am I?
- Hillel

Related topics: Wisdom Life Human-Nature Psychology Inspirational

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
- Henry David Thoreau

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot

Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom.
- Rabindranath Tagore

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Love means not ever having to say you're sorry.
- Erich Segal

Do not blame the thistle that you see no beauty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Everything has beauty,
but not everyone sees it.
- Confucius

I am not afraid of storms
for I am learning how to sail my ship.
- Louisa May Alcott

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
It sings because it has a song.
- Chinese Proverb

The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

Lord, grant that I might not so much
seek to be loved as to love.
- St. Francis of Assisi

The mind is not a vessel to be filled
but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch

Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession
as they torment us with their loss.
- Epicurus

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
- Lao Tzu

We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past,
but by the love we're not extending in the present.
- Marianne Williamson

Stand Tall, Stand Proud.
Know that you are unique and magnificent.
You do not need the approval of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear,
and not bothering.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- Andre Gide

A good traveler has no fixed plans,
and is not intent on arriving.
- Lao Tzu

Life is not supposed to be fair.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu

You do not need anyone's permission to be your true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
- Edmund Hillary

The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson

A ship in harbor is safe -
but that is not what ships are for.
- John A. Shedd

To the people who love you,
you are beautiful already.
This is not because they're
blind to your shortcomings
but because they so clearly see your soul.
- Victoria Moran

Love one another but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.
- Khalil Gibran

I am not a slave to my thoughts or emotions.
- Richard Carlson

The ache for home lives in all of us,
the safe place where we can
go as we are and not be questioned.
- Maya Angelou

Sometimes we need the fog to remind ourselves
that all of life is not black and white.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Let parents bequeath to their children
not riches, but the spirit of reverence.
- Plato

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.
If we did not sometimes taste of adversity,
prosperity would not be so welcome.
- Anne Bradstreet

One can not reflect in streaming water.
Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.
- Lao Tzu

Self-respect is not a function of size, age, or wealth.
Breathe deep, sing loud and sweet,
"I am me, I am unique, I am magnificent."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I do not need anyone's permission to be my true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You will not be punished for your anger,
you will be punished by your anger.
- The Buddha

Treat those who are good with goodness,
and also treat those who are not good with goodness.
Thus goodness is attained.
Be honest to those who are honest,
and be also honest to those who are not honest.
Thus honesty is attained.
- Lao Tzu

The possession of knowledge does not
kill the sense of wonder and mystery.
There is always more mystery.
- Anais Nin

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek,
but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The essence of life is not in
the great victories and grand failures,
but in the simple joys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty,
believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
- Louisa May Alcott

Am I not destroying my enemies
when I make friends of them?
- Abraham Lincoln

The beauty does not live out there;
the beauty's in my eyes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition,
is not only a waste of energy
but the worst habit you could possibly have.
- Dale Carnegie

"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly,
"one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
- Hans Christian Andersen

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared.
- The Buddha

When dealing with people, remember you are
not dealing with creatures of logic,
but creatures of emotion.
- Dale Carnegie

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Do not let Sunday be taken from you.
If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.
- Albert Schweitzer

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
- Oscar Wilde

No man is free who is not master of himself.
- Epictetus

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words;
it is expressed in the choices one makes...
and the choices we make
are ultimately our responsibility.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

I surrender to life as it is, not as it should be.
- Richard Carlson

Know that you do not need anyone's permission
to be your true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

An idea that is not dangerous is
unworthy of being called an idea at all.
- Oscar Wilde

Great leadership is not the visit of an unexpected fate
but rather a flame which is kept burning
in spite of the winds of risk and opposition.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Circumstance does not make the man: it reveals him to himself.
- James Allen

I have not failed.
I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas Edison

I'm not on this trip as a tourist.
- Bono

I will not be governed by the tyranny of immediacy.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Aim above morality.
Be not simply good,
be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau

We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.
- Will Durant (commonly attributed to Aristotle)

Love that does not renew itself every day
becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.
- Khalil Gibran

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new
continents and worlds within you,
opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
- Henry David Thoreau

Let us not look back in anger
or forward in fear,
but around in awareness.
- James Thurber

CHOOSE your future, and take ACTION -
be the hammer, not the nail.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Increase of material comforts,
it may be generally laid down,
does not in any way whatsoever
conduce to moral growth.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Too many people overvalue what they are not,
and undervalue what they are.
- Malcolm S. Forbes

Try not to become a man of success,
but rather try to become a man of value.
- Albert Einstein

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie