It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it. ... The real preparation for education is the study of one's self. --Maria Montessori (in 100 Years of Montessori)

Most people don't recognize opportunity when it comes, because it's usually dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work. --Thomas Edison (in Teen Grocer Revives Community)

To be the agent whose touch changes nature from a wild force to a work of art is inspiration of the highest order. --Bob Rodale (in A 17-year-old's Life-saving Breakthrough)

Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work, risking, and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful: yourself. --Alan Alda (in Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind)

To live more simply is to unburden our lives -- to live more lightly, cleanly, aerodynamically. It is to establish a more direct, unpretentious and unencumbered relationship with all aspects of our lives: the things that we consume, the work that we do, our relationships with others, our connections with nature and the cosmos, and more. --Duane Elgin (in A Dollar A Year CEO)

How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal, and you have to be willing to work for it. --Jim Valvano (in Running A Marathon On Crutches)

Many people are afraid to forgive because they feel they must remember the wrong or they will not learn from it. The opposite is true. Through forgiveness, the wrong is released from its emotional stranglehold on us so that we can learn from it. Through the power and intelligence of the heart, the release of forgiveness brings expanded intelligence to work with the situation more effectively. --David & Bruce McArthur (in The Healthy Art of Forgiving)

Being healthy means a wholeness in the living of one's life -- a dynamic and constantly changing balance that acknowledges the soundness of our physical state, the wholesomeness of lifestyle, the values that define our behavior, our intimate and collective relationships, the meaning and purpose of our work in the world, and the spiritual dimension of our existence. --William B. Stewart (in Seven Simple Health Habits)

In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it. --Marianne Williamson (in A Story of Healing)

Pausing to listen to an airplane in the sky, stooping to watch a ladybug on a plant, sitting on a rock to watch the waves crash over the quayside –- children have their own agendas and timescales. As they find out more about their world and their place in it; they work hard not to let adults hurry them. We need to hear their voices. --Cathy Nutbrown (in So That All May Play)

The work I do to let go of my suffering diminishes the suffering of the whole universe. When I have room for my own pain, I have room for the pain of others. Only then can I be transformed into joy. As I heal, the Earth heals. --Christiane Northrup (in World's Largest Floating Hospital)

You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. --Richard Bach (in The Boy Who Built Windmills)

Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that - one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery. --Oliver Wendell Holmes (in Sewing For Hope In The Favela)

I want to work for a company that contributes to and is part of the community. I want something not just to invest in. I want something to believe in. --Anita Roddick (in Anita Roddick: The Queen of Green)

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at a college -- that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?" --Howard Ikemoto (in Born Free Art School)

To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living. --Henri Amiel (in Secrets of the Very Very Old)

The object behind every true work of art is the attainment of a state of being. --Robert Henri (in Art as Attention to Living)

When you graduate from college, no one is going to care where you went to college. If they do care, you don’t want to work for that boss. --David Smokler (in Less Homework, More Yoga At Needham High)

Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may, at any moment, become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself: What else is the world interested in? What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships? --Dorothy Day (in A Common Word Between Us & You)

Giving time doesn't necessarily take more "time"; rather it requires a shift in one's mindset. The simplest thing everyone can give is the gift of a commitment to a value -- practice meditation daily, work out three times a week, donate money to a charity every month, whatever it is. --Nipun Mehta (in Seven Questions on Giving Time)

Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free. --Starhawk (in Building Communities from the Inside Out)

At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity. --Rachel Naomi Remen (in You Gotta Have Art)

A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves. --Lawrence G. Lovasik (in The Boy Who Gave It All Away)

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison? --Kahlil Gibran (in Redemptive Power of Music & Friendship)

Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe. --Gail Devers (in A Blind Painter's Inner Vision)

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work. --Thich Nhat Hanh (in Measuring Success With A Smile)

Healing is not a matter of technique or mechanism; it is a work of spirit. --Rachel Naomi Remen (in The Paralyzed Yoga Instructor)

Trees outstrip most people in the extent and depth of their work for the public good. --Sara Ebenreck (in Africa's Great Green Wall)

The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes. --Harold B. Lee (in The Green Housing Boom)

I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art. --Madonna Ciccone (in A Month Without Plastic)

The have-nots can be out of sight and even out of mind, but they breathe the same air, drink from the same scant supply of fresh water, and birth children who will grow up to work with our children to finish the job we've barely started; they will have to find a way for ALL of us to live well within the Earth's means. --Vicki Robin (in The Good Life For $5000 a Year)

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work. --Rita Mae Brown (in The Art of Creativity)

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars. --Henry Van Dyke (in Come Out And Play!)

At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity. --Rachel Naomi Remen (in Does Art Heal?)

Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. --Albert Einstein (in Voluntary Simplicity)

There is a difference between seeing and seeing ... The eyes of the spirit have to work in perpetual living connection with those of the body, for one otherwise risks seeing yet seeing past a thing. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (in Andre Agassi's Second Act)

If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. --Antoine de Saint-Exupery (in Homeless Men Dream of Odyssey At Sea)

We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same. --Carlos Castaneda (in 5 Steps To Happiness At Work)

When people go to work, they shouldn't have to leave their hearts at home. --Betty Bender (in Seeking Jobs with Impact)

Play exists for its own sake. Play is for the moment; it is not hurried, even when the pace is fast and timing seems important. When we play, we also celebrate holy uselessness. Like the calf frolicking in the meadow, we need no pretense or excuses. Work is productive; play, in its disinterestedness and self-forgetting, can be fruitful. --Margaret Guenther (in The Fun Theory: Piano Stairs)

When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity. --Linda Naiman (in The Surprising Science of Motivation)

I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness. --Mother Teresa (in 5 Ways to Start a Kindness Revolution at Work)

Retire from work, but not from life. --M.K. Soni (in The Encore Generation)

Our lives are a mixture of different roles. Most of us are doing the best we can to find whatever the right balance is. For me, that balance is family, work, and service. --Hillary Rodham Clinton (in Meet The Boss)

Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter, find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. --Albert Einstein (in Celebrating Earth Day in Tough Times)

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. --Emile Zola (in The Magic Flute)

Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe. --Gail Devers (in Athelete Defies All Odds)

My own experience about all the blessings I've had in my life is that the more I give away, the more that comes back. That is the way life works, and that is the way energy work. --Ken Blanchard (in Random Acts of Kindness Across the Country)

Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe. --Gail Devers (in Quadruple Amputee Swims Across English Channel)

To build toilets is easy, but to shift people's mind and hearts is the real work. Software is more important than hardware. --Ishwar Patel (in Over Ten Thousand People Attend His Funeral)