The sayings
284 of them, written by John Sarris over thirty years and grouped the way his book groups them. Alfred chooses from these when he writes somebody a page.
A Consequential Life
A Pocket Guide to Being Human
- The true gift leaves no trace on the hand of the giver.
- You will walk more confidently if you watch the road than if you watch your feet.
- There are no empty gestures made with a full heart.
- Before you sharpen your tongue, remember that it spends most of its time in your mouth.
- To have the same conversation with another that you have with yourself takes a pure heart.
- It doesn’t all fit because it’s not all needed.
- How I breathe is how I live.
- It is impossible to breathe slowly and rush anything else.
- You wouldn't hurt this bad if you didn't care this much.
- Up is the place to go, not the thing to give.
- Everyone has a breaking point, which many have gone beyond without breaking.
- The moments I fear most summon the powers I need most.
- It takes a lot inside to match all the outside can throw at you.
- How easy it would be to change, if the people around us would change first!
- You can have a reason to hate someone and not use it.
- When you no longer need to be right, you more often will be.
- Ideas grow best in the space between two minds.
- Your ability to find peace in your heart was not put there for the times things go right.
- Kindness works well with strangers, but even better with those close to you who have ceased to expect it.
- Humility makes you grateful and gratitude makes you kind.
A World Worth Saving
- Don’t curse the clouds, unless you would rather live in a world without rain.
- Whether from cloud, cliff, or crest of wave, water only has to fall to enchant us.
- Plant your flowers, as God does, with a careless hand and a loving eye.
- The feet in warm sand restore a flagging spirit like no salve or caring hand.
- Breathe in the sea and keep its rhythm in your heart.
- A bee that starts building a hive won’t work long alone.
- It is hard to look at the stars and worry about what people think of you.
- Seek your counsel in the night sky.
- A garden needs two forms of sunshine: the kind that comes from the sun and the kind that comes from mouths with upturned corners.
- You don't have to be a god to work miracles in a garden.
- What one can imagine, two can create.
- Every sunrise and sunset shows how breathtaking is the world’s beauty and how fleeting.
- I didn't notice how beautiful the world is until I did, and it changed everything.
- What is a bug to you is the center of the universe to the bug.
- When rough bark can beget tender shoot, where may life not make a fresh start?
- Life is short, but winter is long.
- The universe whispers its deepest secrets when the air turns thin and cold.
- There is much to be undone.
- Changing yourself is easier than changing the world and has the same effect.
- We have enough oars, if we can find enough rowers.
- Trees never worry about pecking birds or burrowing insects but shake a little when a bulldozer comes near.
- To all the questions pondered looking at the moon, one must add, "What does the moon see looking back?"
- We could not have left the sea if we had not carried the sea in our veins.
- What fool named the wonders of the world when every meadow and wood is filled with magic?
- A mountain is an old giant happy to share its perspective with anyone who will rest a while on its shoulder.
- What is less cluttered than the night sky, a star here, a planet there, a sliver of moon, and nothing else but all the space in the universe?
- Spring dissolves life's cares in the amber glow of possibility.
Alfred at Christmas
Before We Were Young
- Oh, for a family like a flock of noisy birds nesting in a nearby wood!
- There are few heavy hearts that an hour building sand castles won't make lighter.
- Life is suffering, especially when you fall out of your chair laughing at it.
- Children should be seen and not herded.
- The children of dreamers dream.
- Family life is a test by campfire.
- Peace at the hearth, peace on earth.
- Life’s a ball if you know how to bounce it.
Breathing Lessons
Freedom and Other Responsibilities
- Is a tree not free because it has a root growing into the earth?
- Is there a star the heavens can do without?
- We may not be the master of our own fate, but we are its chief architect.
- If you’re tired of the same old story, you’re not as tired as you think.
- If it wasn’t your first time, it won’t be your last.
- We hold ourselves less accountable for the things we meant to do otherwise.
Gray Matters
- A closed door has one position; an open door, many.
- The wise welcome confusion as a bridge to understanding.
- The pen is mightier than the sword and it's refillable.
- Science is an inexact science.
- Were there pigeons before there were cities?
- There is no suffering the mind can imagine that the body cannot produce.
- No one ever looked at an animal in the wild and thought, "What poor posture!"
- You walk differently when you walk in the world than when you walk past it.
- The brain is a bundle of nerves.
- Count double the thoughts that precede your actions, half the ones that follow.
- When people say they want to feel better, they usually mean they want to feel less.
- What is spoken barely hints at what is shuttered in.
- If you give a reason for what you’re doing, you’re doing it for a different reason.
- It’s not the evidence you find that matters, but the evidence you find inconvenient.
- Leap to a conclusion and you usually fall short.
- When you are not sure where you are going, you are more likely to keep your eyes open.
- You can take a book on a trip around the world or stay home and let the book take you.
- It takes humility to accept the aging of the body and grace to welcome it.
Leaving No Stone Unthrown
- A single branch on every tree reaches closest to the sky.
- Beware the finger that points the way.
- The first to go beyond where the road ends goes alone.
- I’m an optimist because I believe the pessimists are right, but not for much longer.
- There are as many reasons to smile as directions to look.
- Snap into it!
- The problem with positive thinking is that somebody else defines positive.
- It is easier to judge a man than to know him.
- There are few judgments made less true by being made less harsh.
- Living in a black-and-white world drains life not only of its color, but its wisdom.
- We expect life to treat us all the same though we each ask for something different.
- Not every light lights the way home.
- Those who are lost try hardest to get others to follow.
- Most men want what most men want.
- An angry leader commands your attention but not your respect.
Life Is Difficult
- More protest when their feet go numb than when their mind does.
- The sea in the day and the stars in the night remind me how small I am and smaller still my troubles.
- If you can't take one more thing, get ready for two.
- Many people have hit bottom and kept falling.
- Saying I can't doesn't mean it won't.
- A man limping is a man moving.
- Life is a partnership between you and all of reality and you don’t have controlling interest.
- How can you take life in stride when every bother bothers you?
- If you want to get over a mountain, some of the time you will have to go uphill.
Lonely in a Crowd
- Dog is man's best friend, which says more for dog than man.
- Animals know when to sniff and when to bristle.
- Waiting for someone else to change gives you a reason not to.
- The world is full of love and lonely people.
- You can rob a person's dignity, but you can't spend it on yourself.
- Dogs possess a skill lacking in their masters, the ability to overlook human shortcomings.
Taking Everything into Account
- The old road has lots of twists and turns but few surprises.
- Better to stumble on the right path than stride forward on the wrong one.
- No matter where you look for it, the sun only rises in the east.
- A know-it-all doesn’t and doesn’t know that he doesn’t.
- We have learned so much about how to make a better world, but not learned enough.
- The beginning of naming is the end of knowing.
- Call it what you will, it will be what it is.
- Life does not come with captions for a reason.
- History is a pendulum in the shape of a mallet.
- Pain has a long life but a short memory.
- The past does not become history until you do something different.
- He has a brain, but he doesn’t have a head on his shoulders.
- We lament the fools we were, but not the fools we are.
- Nothing sinks in when you’re standing in quicksand, except you.
- Man leans two ways, but falls one.
- How did a species that invented war, politics, and parking lots create so much beautiful music?
- Many vow to live lives of virtue as soon as they find the time.
- We confuse the fabric a person wears with the fiber he is made of.
- A dozen confident steps are not the match of one taken fearfully.
- Courage is the fear that takes one step forward.
- A glimpse of the eternal inspires a lifetime of courage.
- The unvarnished truth can give quite a shellacking.
- The truth can be inconvenient and people hate to be inconvenienced.
- I prefer to be told the truth, though flattery takes a close second.
- The truth makes things harder in the beginning and easier in the end.
- We keep looking for more truth, while forgetting to live the truth we have already found.
- The real test of the truth is how knowing it changes you.
- Follow your principles, but not over a cliff.
- To live by your principles, you may have to change some of your plans.
- There are few things as hard as changing directions or as needed.
- Geniuses change everything, sometimes for the better.
- You are more likely to find the truth looking for a flower than to find a flower looking for the truth.
- Necessity is the mother of invention, but it helps if there’s an inventor in the room.
- Every life is a struggle, but not every life is an education.
- The student of history is a student of humility.
- Life is the history lesson you get to experience firsthand.
- The problem with being intelligent is that you have all that intelligence to use against yourself.
- Wisdom is first the wisdom of the child, meeting life innocently, eagerly, without expectation.
The Anticipation of Loss
- The first step of the day leaves the largest footprint.
- You can neither lose what is precious to you nor keep the box it came in.
- You can fly with the wind or be carried away by it.
- The early bird gets a moment to itself.
- It's hard to say thank you when thank you means goodbye.
- Many things are given away, but nothing real is ever lost.
- A strawberry uneaten will not long remain a strawberry.
- A life with endless sunshine would be a life without starry nights.
- Everything is new, but few things are seen anew.
- Looking way ahead is not very farsighted.
- It is hard to be in two places at once and harder to be in one.
- Nothing you do matters if you’re not there when it happens.
- With every step you take, you teach yourself how to walk in the world.
- Your greatest role model is the person you were yesterday.
- There isn’t time to do everything, so don’t save the best for last.
- If life is passing by too fast, you are passing up too much.
- The time goes where you send it.
- You can't get back in an hour what you've thrown away for a day.
- The future is the past we can still do something about.
- Anything is possible tomorrow that you’re doing something about today.
- In the time between this breath and the next, you pass all your days and all your years.
- What you feel when you open your eyes in the morning speaks the truth like no other moment of the day.
- When you meet the same situation twice, you haven’t met it once.
The Beginning Viewed from the End
- Knowledge leaves a well-worn trail, but the path to wisdom is unmarked.
- Dream of the stars, but dream too of a road that takes you there.
- It’s not your path if your feet never touch it.
- The road will change you, if you’re on the right road.
- Even a closed door has a knob you could turn to see what happens.
- Why lengthen your stride when you can shorten the road?
- If you’re willing to take a long enough road, you can get anywhere.
- A butterfly does not elude a pursuing bird by speed or by cunning, but by making smaller moves more often.
- The first time a bird hops out of its nest, it trades everything known for a chance to get closer to the sun.
- That we forget our reason for being here does not mean we don’t have one.
- Some make little of much and others make much of little.
- Life gives us more gifts in a day than we unwrap in a year.
- The lost opportunities that count most are the ones being lost in this moment.
- People race to get to places they have no interest in being.
- If you're getting it done in one lifetime, you’re ahead of schedule.
- Dogs learn to sit more easily than their masters.
- The secret of pacing is erasing.
- When you squeeze something into your day, you squeeze something out.
- The only one-word lie I know is tomorrow.
- Most of the good roads are long roads.
- You can speed up to keep pace with the world or slow down and watch the world keep pace with you.
The Care of the Self
- Birds sing "Stay out of my space!" so sweetly that no one ever takes offense.
- By the time most of us begin to know ourselves, there seems too much to know.
- Others don’t get to define you unless you let them.
- It's hard to win a tug-of-war with yourself.
- We want others to see in us qualities we do not believe we possess.
- If people knew how to be truly selfish, we would live in a more generous world.
- If you fall in love with yourself, you can't leave when it all goes bad.
- A humble person has less to worry about because he has less to live up to.
- It is easier to say yes than to do the things you say yes to.
- It is harder to say no than yes, but hardest to say yes and mean it.
- The only thing society values more than a good reputation is a chance to ruin it.
- If life hasn’t taught you humility, it hasn’t taught you much.
The Easy Virtue
- If your feet are tapping, your heart is beating.
- If you want someone to listen, say something worth listening to.
- If people aren’t stupid, why do they have so much trouble understanding me?
- Good friends can share a laugh at no one's expense.
- Your place in the world does not depend on who acknowledges it.
- Hope is longing made easier by faith.
- Hope draws on a power you cannot see or touch but can feel in still moments.
- Too many run out of hope before they run out of time.
- Hope for a better future, then head that way.
- Everything is possible, because nothing real is ever lost.
- Every kindness extended a stranger reduces a little the strangeness of the world.
- Just because the situation is critical does not mean it is impossible.
The Fears That Bind
- Telling you what you want to hear makes me an echo rather than a mirror.
- There are endless ways to stamp your feet but all that adds is noise.
- Two dogs alone have more fun than two dogs and a bone.
- Fight for every inch and you'll rarely move a foot.
- Rarely does all good sense dwell on one side of a fence.
- A cornered animal does not heed wise counsel.
- A hungry tiger is patient only when waiting for the best moment to attack.
- People fight hardest to defend their right not to say what they are fighting about.
- Louder isn't righter.
- We will go further shoulder to shoulder than nose to nose.
- More take offense than give it.
- It doesn't take much to step on some toes.
- We live in disagreeable times, but that is no reason to be disagreeable.
- Asking who is to blame is like asking which snowflake caused the avalanche.
- When you are facing an adversary, it is not how he responds that matters.
- The unthinkable is not undoable.
- A bully is a sheep in wolf's clothing.
- Practice temperance before you counsel it.
The Force of Attraction
The Soul Without the Story
- As there is one sun, there is one river that courses all our veins.
- The deepest root finds the purest water.
- The wind moves the trees, but what moves the wind?
- No amount of building bridges out will spare you the work of building a bridge in.
- When you know you are going home, you look for a road that leads home.
- Nothing is invisible until someone looks and does not see.
- We do not stand on the surface of the earth, but on roots that go much deeper.
- No one receives the honor of breathing this air who has not prepared to move a mountain.
The Sum of All One's Mistakes
- It's not how far the tree bends in the wind but whether it's uprooted.
- Better to lose your head following your heart than to lose your heart following your head.
- When you have done something well a dozen times, believe it!
- While you are waiting for the perfect moment to act, a garden of good enough moments flower and wilt.
- You don't trust your wings because you don't trust the air.
- It’s good to learn from your mistakes and better to learn from others’.
- Life would be easy if habits weren't easier.
- I've been so busy changing the scenery, I forgot to change the story.
- If we refuse to shake things up now and then, life will do it for us.
- Nothing is worth getting done that isn't worth doing.
- Walking is for walking, not for going.
- After all is said and done, there is more to say and do.
- You don’t get extra credit for the life you meant to live.
- Doing something halfway does not get you halfway there.
- After you ask how much you want something, ask how wise you are to want it.
- Before you start pushing a rock up a hill, make sure it’s a hill you want to climb.
- Ride the current from within if you want to make it all the way to the sea.
- Measure success by how well you have used what you were given and how much you have given back.
- We resolve to do what we lack commitment to do.
- Is there a measure of success that does not include a measure of happiness?
The Things We Pursue
What Consciousness Wants
- The light from every star shines on every path.
- When you see the light of the sun in the light of the moon, you have found the love that fills the universe.
- Some things cannot be sought but can be found.
- We would all have more peace if we would all be more quiet.
- Stillness is the space in which you add nothing but find everything.