DESIDERATA
Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others - even the dull and ignorant. They too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons for they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career however humble. It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs for the world is full of trickery. But let not this blind you to what virtue there is. Many persons strive for high ideals and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself, especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the Universe no less than the trees and stars. You have a right to be here, and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life - keep peace with your soul.
With all its shame, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be careful.
Strive to be happy.
- Max Ehrmann, 1927
Honest people.
It is not the Critic who Counts
It is not the critic who counts,
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled,
or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena;
whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again;
who knows the great enthusiasms,
the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course;
who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly;
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls
who know neither victory or defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt