When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.  ~– Lao Tzu

The nobler sort of man emphasizes the good qualities in others, and does not accentuate the bad. The inferior does the reverse.   ~ — Confucius (551-479 BC) Chinese Philosopher

There are far too many people willing to be inferior….let’s be the nobler sort.  ~ Kirk

I loved the above picture…

Rise to your greatness….there I said it and I expect it…now your troubles are over! 

Make it a great day - It’s Your CHOICE

Someone sent me this first quote from Clint Eastwood and it got me wanting to look for more.  When I was young I loved his early westerns, now I find myself appreciating some of his accumulated wisdom and perspective.  Not because it’s new or novel, but because of his delivery of it.  My search dug up some real nuggets.  I hope you enjoy them and that they … MAKE YOUR DAY.  

“I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.”  ~ Clint Eastwood
“The less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.”  ~ Clint Eastwood

“If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.”  ~ Clint Eastwood

“”A good man always knows his limitations”  ~ Clint Eastwood

“We boil at different degrees.”  ~ Clint Eastwood

“Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.”  ~ ~ Clint Eastwood

“Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.”

“Hollywood, as everyone knows, glamorizes physical courage. . . . if I had to define courage myself, I wouldn’t say it’s about shooting people. I’d say it’s the quality that stimulates people, that enables them to move ahead and look beyond themselves.”  ~ Clint Eastwood

“It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people’s lives.”

 ”I’d like to be a bigger and more knowledgeable person 10 years from now than I am today. I think that, for all of us, as we grow older, we must discipline ourselves to continue expanding, broadening, learning, keeping our minds active and open.”   ~ Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood…. Actor, Director, Politician, Academy Award Winner, and LIFE LONG LEARNER

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”  Martin Luther King, Jr.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

The sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

The time is always right to do what is right.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.   Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.   Martin Luther King, Jr.

We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

When asked to draw a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up, second-grader “Sarah” turned in the lovely drawing shown below.  Needless to say, the teacher was a bit surprised — Mrs. Smith had always seemed like such a conservative woman. So she sent a note home to the girl’s mother asking for clarification as to the picture’s meaning. (read Mom’s reply below the picture)

(Here’s the reply the teacher received the following day)
Dear Mrs. Jones,
I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer.
The truth is I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn’t show me dancing around a pole. It’s supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot.
>From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Smith

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Seeing is not always believing.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Martin Luther King, Jr.

That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Martin Luther King, Jr.

One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thank you Dr. King

I submit to you that if a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’   ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.   ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.   ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I love Googles personlization of their Logo … did you see yesterdays?

In celebration of not Martin Luther King and his life (not just the day yesterday)  I began looking at few quotes attributed to him.  They are wonderful and my attempt to edit them done to under a hundred left me felling like I was hiding something or trying not to share.  So each day this week - I will send out several - surely there will be one just for you!

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

A right delayed is a right denied.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.   ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.  ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Thank you Dr. King!