Renew & Revive

The beautiful spring came; and when 

Nature resumes her loveliness, the human

soul is apt to revive also. ~Harriet Ann Jacobs

Beekeeper

When the flower blooms, the bees 

come uninvited. ~Ramakrishna

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind. ~James Russell Lowell

Pragmatic & Passionate

Passion isn't something that lives way up in

the sky, in abstract dreams and hopes. It lives at ground level, in the specific details of what you're actually doing every day. ~Marcus Buckingham

Without vision, even the most focused

passion is a battery without a device. ~Ken Auletta

Persuasible Patience

He who rides the sea of the Nile must have

sails woven of patience. ~William Golding

Patience is the ability to idle your motor when 

you feel like stripping your gears. ~Barbara Johnson

Blustering Melodies

A few minutes ago every tree was excited,

bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious

enthusiasm like worship. But though to the

outer ear these trees are now silent, 

their songs never cease. ~John Muir

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me

until I have set them down in notes. ~Ludwig van Beethoven

Finding Summer

Aaah, summer - that long anticipated stretch

of lazy. lingering days, free of responsibility

and rife with possibility. It's a time to hunt

for insects, master handstands, practice swimming strokes, conquer trees, explore nooks and crannies, and make new friends. ~Darell Hammond

Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. 

To do nothing and have it count for something. 

To lie in the grass and count the stars. 

To sit on a branch and study the clouds. ~Regina Brett

Composition & Performance

The negative is comparable to the composer's

score and the print to its performance. Each

performance differs in subtle ways. ~Ansel Adams

We must remember that a photograph 

can hold just as much as we put into it, and

no one has ever approached the full 

possibilities of the medium. ~Ansel Adams

Creatively Confident

No man has the right to dictate what other

men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit. ~Ansel Adams

Intuition is the wisdom formed by feeling

and instinct - a gift of knowing without

reasoning... Belief is  ignited by hope and

supported by facts and evidence - it builds

alignment and creates confidence. Belief is

what sets energy in motion and creates

success that breeds more success. ~Angela Ahrendts

Philosophical Collaboration

Art requires philosophy, just as philosophy

requires art. Otherwise, what would 

become of beauty? ~Paul Gauguin

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better. ~Andre Gide

Dreaming

To accomplish great things we must first dream, then visualize, then plan... believe... act! ~Alfred A. Montapert

All successful people, men and women, are

big dreamers. They imagine what their 

future could be, ideal in every respect, and

then they work every day toward their

distant vision, that goal or purpose. ~Brian Tracy

Memoirs & Moments

The moments of happiness we enjoy take us

by surprise. It is not that we seize them, 

but that they seize us. ~Ashley Montagu

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. ~John Milton

Demiurgic Disposition

The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box. ~Henri Cartier-Bresson

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. ~Henry Ward Beecher

Flowering Flections

No great artist ever sees things as 

they really are. If he did, he would cease 

to be an artist. ~Oscar Wilde

Good art is art that allows you to enter 

it from a variety of angles and to emerge

with a variety of views. ~Mary Schmich

Tellurian Murmurs

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as

to have friends at a distance; they make the

latitudes and longitudes. ~Henry David Thoreau

And forget not that the earth delights to 

feel your bare feet and the winds long to 

play with your hair. ~Khalil Gibran

Solitary Stimulation

The monotony and solitude of a life

stimulates the creative mind. ~Albert Einstein

There is a fellowship more quiet even than

solitude, and which, rightly understood, 

is solitude made perfect. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

Consequential Infloresence

Nature is an infinite sphere of which 

the center is everywhere and the

circumference nowhere. ~Blaise Pascal

There is no glory in a star or blossom till

looked upon by a loving eye; There is no

fragrance in April breezes till breathed with

joy as they wander by. ~William C. Bryant

Dewdrop Mist

Walk on a rainbow trail; walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty. There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail. ~Robert Motherwell

A meaningful life - this is what we look for in art, in its smallest dewdrops as in its unleashing of the tempest. We are at peace when we have found it and uneasy when we have not. ~Bjornstjerne Bjornson

Illuminating Propensity

We cannot hold a torch to light another's

path without brightening our own. ~Ben Sweetland

We are each gifted in a unique and important 

way. It is our privilege and our adventure to

discover our own special light. ~Evelyn Dunbar

Placid Patience

Have patience. All things are difficult

before they become easy. ~Saadi

Patience and perseverance have a magical

effect before which difficulties disappear and

obstacles vanish. ~John Quincy Adams

Perennial Party

In the end, it's not the years in your life that

count. It's the life in your years. ~Abraham Lincoln

One way to get the most out of life is to look

upon it as an adventure. ~William Feather