Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

- Luke 2:14

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And mild and sweet the words repeat,
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
I thought how as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had roll'd along th' unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bow'd my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."
'Til ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be.
With God as our father
Brothers all are we.
Let me walk with my brother
In perfect harmony.


Let peace begin with me
Let this be the moment now.
With every step i take
Let this be my solemn vow.
To take each moment
And live each moment
With peace eternally.
Let ther be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me.

- Vince Gill

Give me love, give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light, give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope, help me cope with this heavy load
Trying to touch and reach you with heart and soul


O My Lord . . .


PLEASE take hold of my hand, that
I might understand you
 
- George Harrison

Peace on Earth? Increasingly, Yes... The reality is that, since the end of the Cold War, armed conflict and nearly all other forms of political violence have decreased. The world is far more peaceful than it was.

- Andrew Mack

Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one.

- John Lennon

I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion, and elimination of ignorance, selfishness, and greed.


- Dalai Lama

We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.

- William E. Gladstone

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.

- Jimi Hendrix

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.

- John Muir

You can't shake hands with a clenched fist.

- Indira Gandhi

If you want to change the world, be that change.

- Mohandas Gandhi

Do your givin' while you're livin'... then you'll be knowin' where it's goin'.

- Ann Landers

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

- Jack London

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

- Margaret Mead

A man there was, though some did count him mad,

The more he cast away, the more he had.

- John Bunyan

Life begets life. Energy becomes energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.


- Sarah Bernhardt

In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.


- Henry Ward Beecher

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.

- Maya Angelou

The desire for power in excess caused angels to fall; the desire for knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity is no excess, neither can man or angels come into danger by it.


- Sir Francis Bacon

It is more blessed to give than to receive.


Acts 20:35

Earlier in this century, philanthropy often flowed from the wills of dead industrialists. In recent decades, it's as likely to have come from a very alive business leader, entertainer, artist or sports star. The most effective of these patrons begin the process of giving by asking what they care about passionately.


- Michael Milken

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.


- Helen Keller

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.


- Andrew Carnegie

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

It's more rewarding to watch money change the world than accumulate.

- Gloria Steinem

Love comes from blindness; friendship from knowledge.

- Comte de Bussy-Rabutin

Friendship is Love without his wings!

- Byron

I count myself in nothing else so happy
As in a soul remembering my good friends.

- Shakespeare, Richard II

Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.

- Yeats

The bird a nest
The spider a web
The human friendship.

- William Blake

What is a friend? A single soul in two bodies.

- Aristotle

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

- Rabindranath Tagore

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.

- Walt Whitman

Sometimes life's Hell. But hey! Whatever gets the marshmallows toasty.

- J. Andrew Helt

Whenever you fall, pick something up.

- Oswald Avery

What is possible? What you will.

- Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare

Say you are well, or all is well with you,
And God shall hear your words and make them true.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

If you don't get everything you want, think of the things you don't get that you don't want.

- Oscar Wilde

Make your optimism come true.

- Author Unknown

I've decided that the stuff falling through the cracks is confetti and I'm having a party!

- Betsy Cañas Garmon

The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.

- Eudora Welty

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.

- Anthony J. D'Angelo

Optimist: someone who isn't sure whether life is a tragedy or a comedy but is tickled silly just to be in the play.

- Robert Brault

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

- Winston Churchill

New York is not a problem. New York is a stroke of genius.

New York!

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can’t do,
Now you're in New York!!!
These streets will make you feel brand new,
the lights will inspire you,
Let's hear it for New York, New York, New York.

- Jay-Z and Alicia Keys

Carrie: There are very few things this New Yorker loves as much as Sunday brunch. You can sleep until noon and still get eggs anywhere in the city, alcohol is often included with the meal, and Sunday is the one day a week you get the single woman's sports pages: the New York Times wedding section.

– from Sex and the City

It's the home of 9-11, the place of the lost towers
We still banging, we never lost power, tell em
Welcome to New York City, welcome to New York City.

- Cam’Ron (with Jay-Z and Juelz Santana)

Carrie: If your tired of New York you take a napa, you don't move to Napa!

- from Sex and the City

Some folks like to get away

Take a holiday from the neighbourhood
Hop a flight to Miami Beach
Or to Hollywood
But I'm taking a Greyhound
On the Hudson River Line
I'm in a New York state of mind.


I've seen all the movie stars
In their fancy cars and their limousines
Been high in the Rockies under the evergreens
But I know what I'm needing
And I don't want to waste more time
I'm in a New York state of mind.


It was so easy living day by day
Out of touch with the rhythm and blues
But now I need a little give and take
The New York Times, The Daily News.


It comes down to reality
And it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide
Don't care if it's Chinatown or on Riverside
I don't have any reasons
I've left them all behind
I'm in a New York state of mind.

- Billy Joel

Samantha to Carrie: Oh don't worry, Sweetie, don't worry -- nobody in New York notices a bus until it's about to hit them.

– from Sex and the City

Water, water, everywhere, Atlantic and Pacific.
But New York City's got them beat, Our aqua is terrific!


- Edward Koch

Overheard in NYC:

Tourist lady: Everyone has been so nice in New York; not what I expected.


Woman: We are nice, just self-absorbed.

New Yorkers say “excuse me” as a command.

- Attributed to more than one person

In a New York minute

Everything can change;
In a New York minute
You can get out of the rain.
In a New York minute
Everything can change
In a New York minute.

- The Eagles

It is a miracle that New York works at all. The whole thing is implausible.

- E.B. White

At night… the streets become rhythmical perspectives of glowing dotted lines, reflections hung upon them in the streets as the wistaria hangs its violet racemes on its trellis. The buildings are shimmering verticality, a gossamer veil, a festive scene-prop hanging there against the black sky to dazzle, entertain, amaze.

- Frank Lloyd Wright

The more I travel, across the gravel,

The more I sail the sea,
The more I feel convinced to the fact,
New York's the town for me.


That crazy skyline
Is right in my line,
And when I'm far away,
I'm able to bear it for several hours
Then I break down and say:


Take me back to Manhattan,
Take me back to New York.
I'm just longing to see once more
My little home on the hundredth floor!
Can you wonder I'm gloomy?
Can you smile when I frown?
I miss the East Side, the West Side ,
the north side, and the south side.
So take me back to Manhattan,
That dear old dirty town!

- Cole Porter

More and more too, the old name absorbs into me Mannahatta, 'the place encircled by many swift tides and sparkling waters.' How fit a name for America's great democratic island city! The word itself, how beautiful! how aboriginal! how it seems to rise with tall spires, glistening in sunshine, with such New World atmosphere, vista and action!

- Walt Whitman

What a lovely view from
Heaven looks at you from the Brooklyn Bridge. 

- Frank Sinatra

When its 100 degrees in New York, it's 72 in Los Angeles. When its 30 degrees in New York, in Los Angeles it's still 72. However, there are 6 million interesting people in New York, and only 72 in Los Angeles.

- Neil Simon

It'll be a great place if they ever finish it.

- O. Henry

You don't have to be born in New York City to be a New Yorker. You have to live here for six months, and if at the end of the six months you find you walk faster, talk faster, think faster, you're a New Yorker.

- Ed Koch

New York remains what it has always been : a city of ebb and flow, a city of constant shifts of population and economics, a city of virtually no rest. It is harsh, dirty, and dangerous, it is whimsical and fanciful, it is beautiful and soaring - it is not one or another of these things but all of them, all at once, and to fail to accept this paradox is to deny the reality of city existence.

- Paul Goldberger

I'm going to show you the real New York - witty, smart, and international - like any metropolis. Tell me this: where in Europe can you find old Hungary, old Russia, old France, old Italy? In Europe you're trying to copy America, you're almost American. But here you'll find Europeans who immigrated a hundred years ago - and we haven't spoiled them. Oh, Gio! You must see why I love New York. Because the whole world's in New York….

- Oriana Fallaci

There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.

- Simone De Beauvoir

First New York was a sort of provincial capital, bigger and richer than Manchester or Marseilles, but not much different in its essential spirit. Then, after the war, it became one among half a dozen world cities. Today it has the appearance of standing alone, as the center of culture in the part of the world that still tries to be civilized.

- Malcolm Cowley

New York is the only real city-city.

- Truman Capote

As for New York City, it is a place apart. There is not its match in any other country in the world.

- Pearl S. Buck

Roaming the streets of New York, we encountered many examples of this delightful quality of New Yorkers, forever on their toes, violently, restlessly involving themselves in the slightest situation brought to their attention, always posing alternatives, always ready with an answer or an argument.

- Jessica Mitford

A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: It is a beautiful catastrophe.

- Le Corbusier

To be a good traveler argues one no ordinary philosopher. A sweet landscape must sometimes be allowed to atone for an indifferent supper and an interesting ruin charm away the remembrance of a hard bed.

- Henry Theodore Tuckerman

If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.

- James A. Michener

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.

- Charles Dudley Warner

Not all those who wander are lost.

- J. R. R. Tolkien

Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.

- Lawrence Block

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.

- Lao Tzu

I am a part of all that I have seen.

- Tennyson

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

- G.K. Chesterton

Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower, and draws all good things toward you.

- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

All good things come to he who waits.

- Proverb

All good things are wild, and free.

- Henry David Thoreau

Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours.


- Swedish Proverb

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends...

- 1 Corinthians

There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life.

- Joseph Campbell

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

- Herman Hesse

For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.

- T.S. Eliot

A dead end is just an opportunity to take a different direction.

- Terry McManus

Every end is a new beginning.

– Proverb

I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.

- Lewis Carroll

Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.

- Fyodor Dostoevski

Almost everything comes from nothing.

- Henry F. Amiel

What appears to be the end may really be a new beginning.

- Anonymous

It's never too late to realize your ambitions. Take the first step by daring to dream big dreams. Then have the confidence to take a few risks and make those dreams a reality. You'll be glad you did.

- Don MacRae

The secret to a rich life is to have more beginnings than endings.

- Dave Weinbaum

Be the change you want to see in the world.

- Mahatma Ghandhi

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.

- Maria Robinson

Note: this is the first post related to January's theme of new beginnings and starting over.