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Volume 29, # 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 2014 |
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![inspiration, motivation, Apple Seeds, [Apple]](AppleSeeds-1c.jpg)
![inspiration, motivation, Apple Seeds, [Apple]](AppleSeeds-2c.jpg)
Plant these "seeds" well and water often. Enjoy!
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Goal of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Gardner
"The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his own education."
Wisdom Seeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Arthur Ward
"Blessed is he who has learned to admire but not envy,
to follow but not imitate,
to praise but not flatter,
and to lead but not manipulate."
To Recognize Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alan McGinnis,
"Bringing Out the Best in People""Elbert Hubbard said, ‘There is something that is much more scarce, more rare than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.’ Average people have a way of accomplishing extraordinary things for teachers and leaders who are patient enough to wait until ability becomes apparent.…
Different people develop at different rates, and the best motivators are always on the lookout for hidden capacities."
Future of Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tyler Cowen
, Economist"The future of our civilization is based on prudence, critical self reflection, belief in higher values, and wisdom in matters of ordinary, everyday life. It is not about grabbing as much as possible, as quickly as possible."
Good Thoughts Emerge
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
"Nothing ever happens in the world that does not first happen inside a mind. When one meditates and fills the mind for an hour a day with thoughts and resolutions bearing on the love of God and neighbor above all things, there is a gradual seepage of love down to the level of what is called the subconscious, and finally these good thoughts emerge, of themselves in the form of effortless and good actions."
Excellence – a Habit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Earl Nightingale
"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."
To Preserve Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samuel Johnson
"To preserve health is a moral and religious duty, for health is the basis of all social virtues. We can no longer be useful when not well."
Metaphors and Similes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Goethe
"Words and pictures are correlatives which are continually in quest of each other, as is sufficiently evident in the case of metaphors and similes."
Merton on Prayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Luke Tobin
"Prayer is work, but it’s a very special kind of delicate work in which we have to let God work; the dead spots in prayer are important. The fact that you may not be able to pray for days on end doesn’t matter; it may be worthwhile. It’s just like the winter in the life of a plant.
The plants are not wasting time in the winter; they’re not losing anything. Winter is very important for the plant and these periods of stillness and incapacity may be, actually, the best things in your life of prayer."
A Good Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mannie Reed Crowel
"There’s an easy rule to keep a fire burning brightly that applies easily to a marriage: keep the logs together, near enough to share their warmth and far enough apart for breathing room. Good fire, good marriage, same rule."
True Listening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M. Scott Peck, MD,
The Road Less Traveled, p. 125
"Most may think they are truly listening when all they are dong is pretend listening, or at best selective listening, but this is self-deception, designed to hide from themselves their laziness. For true listening no matter how brief, requires tremendous effort.
First of all, it requires total concentration. You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything at the same time.…If you are not willing to put aside everything, including your own worries and preoccupation for such a time, then you are not willing to truly listen.
While it is true that one’s capacity to truly listen may improve gradually with practice, it never becomes an effortless process."
An Open Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.K. Chesterton
"Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid."
Lessons for Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kouses & Pozner,
The Leadership Challenge, p. 46"The lessons for leadership are clear. First, for leaders to perform at their personal best, they must experience the project itself as enjoyable and challenging. They must feel that it is one that calls upon them to use all their skills and talents to the fullest. Second, if leaders wish to get the best from others, they must search for opportunities for people to create or to outdo themselves. Leaders must find opportunities for people to solve problems, make discoveries, explore new ground, reach a difficult goal, or figure out how to deal with an external threat. And they must make it fun. Third, leaders must know the skills of their people.…leaders must know what others can do and what they find personally challenging."
To Do Nothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Henry Cardinal Newman
"A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one at all would find fault with what he has done."
Speak Clearly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . St. Bernadine of Siena
"Speak clearly, so that the hearer may go away happy and illuminated, and not made dizzy."
Virtue of Docility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Donald DeMarco,
The Many Faces of Virtue, p.20
"Aquinas teaches that there are two obstacles in particular that lie in the path of acquiring the virtue of docility. One is laziness, the other is pride. Pride, however, is far more insidious than laziness. The lazy person has difficulty concealing his laziness, even from himself. Perhaps part of the reason is that he is even too lazy to think up ingenious excuses! The lazy person usually knows that he is lazy. Therefore, he recognizes his laziness as a vice, not a virtue.
But the proud person, who often has contempt for those who knows things that he does not know, is not only able to conceal his indocility (as well as his pride) from himself, but is able to misinterpret his vice as a virtue. Thus, the indocile person who is proud may think that, by his stubborn refusal to allow other’s to ‘impose’ their ideas on him, he is maintaining an open mind."
Where Have All the Sermons Gone?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Sower’s Seeds of Encouragement, # 55When a preacher died, it was discovered that he had tied together copies of all his sermons and placed a card on top of them with this inscription: "Where has the influence gone of all these sermons I’ve preached?"
Underneath he had scribbled in large letters – "Over."
On the other side this answer was found: "Where are last year’s sunrays? They have gone into fruits and grain and vegetables to feed people. Where are last year’s raindrops? Forgotten by most people, of course, but they did their refreshing work, and their influence still abides. So, too, my sermons have gone into people’s lives and made them nobler, more Christ-like, and better fitted for Heaven."
Think Before Answering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . L
EADERSHIP, 3/17/92In the early days of the western frontier, a new Army officer had a conference with a Native American chief at a frontier fort. He asked the chief quite a few questions through a sign language interpreter but got no reply.
After the meeting, he asked the translator why.
"That’s what is called Indian time," the interpreter replied. "He has enough respect for your questions to go away and think about them before giving you his response."
Perhaps we should all practice more Indian time.
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