Christian D. Larsen

Be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
Talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.
Make all your friends feel
there is something in them.
Look at the sunny side of everything.
Think only of the best,
work only for the best,
and expect only the best.
Be as enthusiastic about the success
of others as you are about your own.
Forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements
of the future. Give everyone a smile.
Spend so much time improving yourself
that you have no time left to criticize others.
Be too big for worry
and too noble for anger.
~Christian D. Larsen~

Peter Larson

Despite our efforts to keep him out,
God intrudes. The life of Jesus
is bracketed by two impossibilities:
a virgin's womb and an empty tomb.
Jesus entered our world
through a door marked,
"No Entrance"
and left through a door marked
"No Exit."
~Peter Larson~

Jeanne Marie Laskas

Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. 
I think great things can come out of solitude, 
out of going to a place where all is quiet 
except the beating of your heart. 
~Jeanne Marie Laskas~ 

D. H. Lawrence

When we get out of the glass bottles
of our ego's, and we escape
like squirrels turning in the
cages of our personality,
and get into the forest again,
we shall shiver with cold and fright.
But, things will happen to us
so that we don't know ourselves.
Cool, unlying life will rush in,
and passion will make our bodies
taut with power. We will stamp
our feet with new power and
old things will fall down.
We shall laugh and institutions will
curl up like burnt paper.
~D .H. Lawrence~

Love is the flower of life,
and blossoms unexpectedly and without law,
and must be plucked where it is found,
and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.
~D. H. Lawrence~

One must learn to love,
and go through a good deal of suffering
to get to it, like any knight of the grail,
and the journey is always towards the other soul,
not away from it...
To love you have to learn
to understand the other,
more than she understands herself,
and to submit to her understanding of you.
It is damnably difficult and painful,
but it is the only thing which endures.
~D. H. Lawrence~

No creature is fully itself till it is, 
like the dandelion, 
opened in the bloom of pure relationship 
to the sun, 
the entire living cosmos. 
~D.H. Lawrence~ 

Ursula K. Le Guin

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone,
it has to be made, like bread,
re-made all the time, made new.
~Ursula K. Le Guin~

What was and what may be lie, like children
whose faces we cannot see, in the arms of silence.
All we ever have is here, now.
~Ursula K. Le Guin~

It is above all by the imagination
that we achieve
perception and compassion and hope.
~Ursula K. Le Guin~

It is good to have an end to journey towards;
but it is the journey that matters in the end.
~Ursula K. Le Guin~

We are volcanoes.
When we women offer our experience
as our truth, as human truth,
all the maps change.
There are new mountains.
~Ursula K. Le Guin~

If you see a whole thing -- it seems it's always beautiful. Planets, lives... But close up a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern.
~Ursula K. Le Guin~

I certainly wasn't happy. 
Happiness has to do with reason, 
and only reason earns it. 
What I was given was 
the thing you can't earn, 
and can't keep, and often 
don't even recognize at the time; 
I mean joy. 
~Ursula K. Le Guin~ 

John LeCarre

The only reward for love 
is the experience of loving. 
~John LeCarre~ 

General Robert E. Lee

We failed,
but in the good providence of God
apparent failure often proves a blessing.
~General Robert E. Lee~

What a cruel thing is war:
to separate and destroy families and friends,
and mar the purest joys and happiness
God has granted us in this world;
to fill our hearts with hatred
instead of love for our neighbors,
and to devastate the fair face
of this beautiful world.
~General Robert E. Lee~

There is a terrible war coming, 
and these young men who have never seen war 
cannot wait for it to happen, 
but I tell you, 
I wish that I owned every slave in the South, 
for I would free them all to avoid this war. 
~Robert E. Lee~ 

Jospeh Lelyveld

His laughter ... sparkled 
like a splash of water in sunlight. 
~Jospeh Lelyveld~

Doris Lessing

What's terrible is to pretend 
that the second-rate is first-rate. 
To pretend that 
you don't need love when you do; 
or you like your work when 
you know quite well you're capable of better. 
~Doris Lessing~ 

Michael Leunig

Love one another and you will be happy. 
It's as simple and as difficult as that. 
~Michael Leunig~ 

Eliphas Levi

A good teacher must be able to put himself 
in the place of those who find learning hard.
~Eliphas Levi~

Claude Levi-Strauss

The scientific mind does not so much provide 
the right answers as ask the right questions.
~Claude Levi-Strauss~

Michael Levine

Your friends should be 
of impeccable character. 
They should be honest and reliable; 
they should treat you with respect 
and be tolerant of differences; 
your friends should be accountable 
for their choices and do what they say; 
and most of all they should be 
kind, compassionate, and forgiving. 
~Michael Levine~

Stephen Levine

Safety is the most unsafe
spiritual path you can take.
Safety keeps you numb and dead.
People are caught by surprise
when it is time to die.
They have allowed themselves
to live so little.
~Stephen Levine~

Leonard Louis Levinson

A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, 
and mopes; 
a philosopher sees both sides, 
and shrugs; 
an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - 
he's walking on them. 
~Leonard Louis Levinson~

C. S. Lewis....Clive Staples Lewis

Friendship is unnecessary,
like philosophy, like art...it has
no survival value; rather, it is one
of those things that give value to survival.
~C. S. Lewis....Clive Staples Lewis~

Courage is not simply one of the virtues,
but the form of every virtue
at the testing point.
~C. S. Lewis....Clive Staples Lewis~

You can't get a cup of tea large enough 
or a book long enough to suit me. 
~C. S. Lewis....Clive Staples Lewis~ 

Even in literature and art, 
no man who bothers about originality 
will ever be original: 
whereas if you simply try to tell the truth 
(without caring twopence how often 
it has been told before) you will, 
nine times out of ten, 
become original without ever having noticed it. 
~C. S. Lewis....Clive Staples Lewis~ 

Larry Libby

Late on a sleepy, star-spangled night,
those angels peeled back the sky
just like you would tear open
a sparkling Christmas present.
Then, with light and joy pouring out of Heaven
like water through a broken dam,
they began to shout
and sing the message that
baby Jesus had been born.
The world had a Savior!
The angels called it "Good News,"
and it was.
~Larry Libby~

Rensis Likert

The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, 
the greater is the motivation among the members 
to achieve the goals of the group, 
and the greater the probability 
that the group will achieve its goals. 
~Rensis Likert~

Abraham Lincoln

I don't like that man.
I must get to know him better.
~Abraham Lincoln~

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character,
give him power.
~Abraham Lincoln~

No matter how much cats fight,
there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
~Abraham Lincoln~

I like to see a man
proud of the place in which he lives.
I like to see a man live so that
his place will be proud of him.
~Abraham Lincoln~

I never had a policy;
I have just tried to do
my very best each and
every day.
~Abraham Lincoln~

Those who deny freedom to others
deserve it not for themselves.
~Abraham Lincoln~

My great concern is not
whether you have failed,
but whether you are content
with your failure.
~Abraham Lincoln~

And in the end
it's not the years in your life that count.
It's the life in your years.
~Abraham Lincoln~

Am I not destroying my enemies
when I make friends of them?
~Abraham Lincoln~

Let us have faith that right makes might, 
and in that faith let us to the end dare 
to do our duty as we understand it.
~Abraham Lincoln~

I am not bound to win, 
but I am bound to be true. 
I am not bound to succeed, 
but I am bound to live 
by the light that I have. 
I must stand with anybody 
that stands right, 
and stand with him while he is right, 
and part with him when he goes wrong.
~Abraham Lincoln~

Always bear in mind 
that your own resolution to succeed 
is more important than any other thing.
~Abraham Lincoln~

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. 
The shadow is what we think of it; 
the tree is the real thing. 
~Abraham Lincoln~

He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help. 
~Abraham Lincoln~ 

I am for those means 
which will give the greatest good 
to the greatest number. 
~Abraham Lincoln~

I have always found that mercy 
bears richer fruits than strict justice. 
~Abraham Lincoln~ 

I have been driven many times 
to my knees by the overwhelming conviction 
that I had no where else to go. 
My own wisdom, 
and that of all about me, 
seemed insufficient for the day. 
~Abraham Lincoln~

Let us have faith that right makes might, 
and in that faith let us to the end 
dare to do our duty as we understand it. 
~Abraham Lincoln~

We should be too big to take offense 
and too noble to give it. 
~Abraham Lincoln~

Whatever you are, 
be a good one. 
~Abraham Lincoln~

With malice toward none, 
with charity for all, 
...let us strive on to finish 
the work we are in, 
...to do all which may achieve 
and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves and with all nations. 
~Abraham Lincoln~ 

Ann Morrow Lindbergh.

I have learned by some experience,
by many examples,
and by the writings of
countless others before me,
also occupied in the search,
that certain environments,
certain modes of life,
certain rules of conduct
are more conducive to inner
and outer harmony than others.
There are, in fact,
certain roads that one may follow.
Simplification of life is one of them.
~Ann Morrow Lindbergh~

After all, I don't see why
I am always asking for private,
individual, selfish miracles
when every year there are
miracles like white dogwood.
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh~

Only love can be divided endlessly
and still not diminish.
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh~

Good communication is as stimulating 
as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. 
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh~

It isn't for the moment you are struck 
that you need courage, 
but for the long uphill climb back 
to sanity and faith and security. 
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh~ 

Only in growth, reform, and change, 
paradoxically enough, is true security to be found. 
~Ann Morrow Lindbergh~ 

Ding Ling

Happiness is to take up the struggle 
in the midst of the raging storm 
and not to pluck the lute in the moonlight 
or recite poetry among the blossoms. 
~Ding Ling~ 

Art Linkletter

Things turn out best for the people
who make the best out of the way things turn out.
~Art Linkletter~

Saint Therese of Lisieux

If all flowers wanted to be roses, 
nature would lose her springtime beauty, 
and the fields would no longer be decked, 
out with little wildflowers. 
~Saint Therese of Lisieux~ 

Paul Liu

We need peacemakers, 
not peacekeepers. 
~Paul Liu~ 

John Locke

I have always thought the actions of men
the best interpreters of their thoughts.
~John Locke~

The actions of men 
are the best interpreters of their thoughts. 
~John Locke~ 

Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi

Individual commitment to a group effort, 
that is what makes a team work, 
a company work, a society work, a civilization work. 
~Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi~

After the cheers have died down 
and the stadium is empty, 
after the headlines have been written 
and after you are back in the 
quiet of your room and the championship ring 
has been placed on the dresser 
and all the pomp and fanfare has faded, 
the enduring things that are left are: 
the dedication to excellence, 
the dedication to victory, 
and the dedication to doing with our lives 
the very best we can to 
make the world a better place in which to live. 
~Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi~

The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, 
but in rising again after you fall. 
~Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi~ 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sit in reverie and 
watch the changing color of the waves 
that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

Into each life some rain must fall, 
some days must be dark and dreary.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

He speaketh not;
and yet there lies a conversation in his eyes.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

Nature is a revelation of God;
Art a revelation of man.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

A thought often makes us hotter than a fire.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

...as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars,
invisible by day.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

Look not mournfully into the past,
it comes not back again.
Wisely improve the present,
it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future
without fear and with a manly heart.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

We judge ourselves by what we feel
capable of doing, while others judge us
by what we have already done.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

The talent of success is nothing more 
than doing what you can do well, 
and doing well whatever you do 
without thought of fame. 
If it comes at all it will come 
because it is deserved, 
not because it is sought after.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

Being all fashioned of the self-same dust,
Let us be merciful as well as just. 
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

After all these years,
I am still involved in the process
of self-discovery. It's better to explore life
and make mistakes
than to play it safe.
Mistakes are part of the dues
one pays for a full life.
~Sophia Loren~

Bob Losure

People have been wonderful to me 
in the good times and the bad, 
and I've come to believe 
that you do indeed reap what you sow. 
For those who constantly gripe about life, 
I turn and walk away. 
For those who speak negatively about people 
behind their backs, I move on. 
~Bob Losure~ 

Lawrence G. Lovasik

A gentleman has his eyes on all those present; 
he is tender toward the bashful, 
gentle toward the distant, 
and merciful toward the absent. 
~Lawrence G. Lovasik~

Genuine love will always feel urged 
to communicate joy--to be a joy-giver. 
~Lawrence G. Lovasik~

Instead of condemning people, 
try to understand them. 
Any fool can criticize, 
condemn, and complain -- 
and most fools do. 
But it takes character and self-control 
to be understanding and forgiving. 
~Lawrence G. Lovasik~ 

Irritability is immaturity of character. 
If you are subject to being cross and unpleasant 
with others for no apparent reason, 
you need to come face-to-face with the fact 
that you are thinking too much of yourself. 
After all, your feelings are not 
the most important thing in this world. 
~Lawrence G. Lovasik~ 

Kind words are a creative force, 
a power that concurs in the building up 
of all that is good, and energy that 
showers blessings upon the world. 
~Lawrence G. Lovasik~ 

No kind action ever stops with itself. 
One kind action leads to another. 
Good example is followed. 
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~ 

One way of getting along with people 
is the ability to give in. 
Strength of character means the ability 
to give in to others from motives of love, 
kindness, and humility, and to do so gracefully, 
when no sin is involved. 
It also means the ability to stand on principle, 
and not to give in, when sin is involved. 
~Lawrence G. Lovasik~ 

Your silent thoughts are like the roots of a plant. 
They remain hidden in the dark recesses of the earth, 
but from them stems the whole plant -- its life and form, 
its strength and beauty. From them and through them 
the plant lives and dies. So, too, your thoughts, 
although hidden, are your real, vital force. 
~Lawrence G. Lovasik~

Amy Lowell

I am tired, Beloved, 
of chafing my heart against 
the want of you; 
of squeezing it into little inkdrops, 
And posting it. 
~Amy Lowell~ 

John Lubbock

What we see depends mainly on 
what we look for. 
~John Lubbock~

Rest is not idleness, 
and to lie sometimes on the grass 
under trees on a summer's day, 
listening to the murmur of the water, 
or watching the clouds float across the sky, 
is by no means a waste of time. 
~John Lubbock~ 

Max Lucado

Conflict is inevitable, 
but combat is optional. 
~Max Lucado~ 

Off to one side sits a group of shepherds. 
They sit silently on the floor, 
perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, 
no doubt in amazement. 
Their night watch had been interrupted 
by an explosion of light from heaven 
and a symphony of angels. 
God goes to those 
who have time to hear Him -- 
and so on this cloudless night 
He went to simple shepherds. 
~Max Lucado~

You change your life by changing your heart. 
~Max Lucado~ 

E. V. Lucas

The art of life is 
to show your hand. 
There is no diplomacy like candor. 
You may lose by it now and then, 
but it will be a loss 
well gained if you do. 
Nothing is so boring 
as having to keep up a deception. 
~E. V. Lucas~ 

Clare Boothe Luce

Courage is the ladder 
on which all the other virtues mount. 
~Clare Boothe Luce~ 

Emil Ludwig

Many a person has held close,
throughout their entire lives,
two friends that always remained
strange to one another,
because one of them attracted
by virtue of similarity,
the other by difference.
~Emil Ludwig~

Joan Lunden

To be able to look at change as an opportunity to grow -- 
that is the secret to being happy. 
~Joan Lunden~ 

John Luther

Good character is more to be praised 
than outstanding talent. 
Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. 
Good character, by contrast, 
is not given to us. 
We have to build it piece by piece -- 
by thought, choice, courage and determination. 
~John Luther~ 

Martin Luther

God writes the gospel 
not in the Bible alone, 
but on trees, and flowers, 
and clouds, and stars. 
~Martin Luther~

Aubrey Lynch

To touch, to move, to inspire. 
This is the true gift of dance.
~Aubrey Lynch~

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Russell Lynes

The art of acceptance is 
the art of making someone 
who has done you a small favor
wish that he might have done you a greater one.
~Russell Lynes~