"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." - Charles Du Bos

"Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much." - Erastus Wiman

“The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.” - Mike Murdock

"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say let your affairs be as one, two, three and to a hundred or a thousandÂ… We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without." - Henry David Thoreau
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Character

Shri. P. Rajagopalachari, President, Shri Ram Chandra Mission -http://www.sahajmarg.org 

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. It was the first atomic bomb to be used on people.

Three days later a second was dropped, on Nagasaki.

It is impossible to know for sure, but estimates run as high as 250,000 dead and 100,000 wounded. Many of those who survived the burns from the flash continued to die from atomic radiation disease for years after the World War II.

Around the world people learned of the terrible suffering caused by this new bomb that could destroy a whole city in a single flash of fire.

Many were touched by the story of Sadako Sasaki, who was just under two years old when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. She and most of her family survived. But ten years later, because she had been exposed to radiation, she was stricken with leukaemia.

In Japan the crane is a symbol of long life, and it is said that if you fold a thousand paper cranes you will be granted your wish for health.

Sadako folded a thousand cranes, and then even more. But on October 25, 1955, she died. Her classmates raised money for a monument that was build in her honour, and in memory of all the children who died because of the atomic bomb. People from all over the world still send thousands of paper cranes to be placed at the foot of Sadako’s statue.

"The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others." - Dag Hammarskjld

"Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future." - Charles F. Kettering

"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.

"The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do." - Andrew Carnegie

"A room without books is like a body without a soul." - Cicero

"Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves." - Germaine Greer

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." - Bertrand Russell

"A man has to learn that he cannot command things, but that he can command himself; that he cannot coerce the will of others, but that he can mould and master his own will: and things serve him who serves truth; people seek guidance of him who is master of himself." - James Allen

"Just as the footprints of any creature that walks the earth can be placed in the elephants footprint, which is the largest of all --even so mindful attention is the one quality that ensures ease of mind at all times. Mindful attention causes beneficial thoughts that have not yet arisen to arise. It also causes harmful thoughts that have already arisen to vanish. In the one who is mindful, the good that is to be will be realized." - Anguttara Nikaya

"Those whose hearts are drawn toward compassion Will never be drawn into the dark and woeful world. Evil deeds dreaded by the soul will not afflict The compassionate who foster and protect all life." - Tirukkural 25: 243-244

"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have." - Frederick Keonig "The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something." - Randy Pausch

Life is Like That

The Priest and the Politician

A parish priest was being honored at a dinner on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his arrival in that parish. A leading local politician, who was a member of the congregation, was chosen to make the presentation and give a little speech at the dinner, but he was delayed in traffic, so the priest decided to say his own few words while they waited.

"You will understand," he said, "the seal of the confessional, can never be broken. However, I got my first impressions of the parish from the first confession I heard here. I can only hint vaguely about this, but when I came here twenty-five years ago I thought I had been assigned to a terrible place. The very first chap who entered my confessional told me how he had stolen a television set, and when stopped by the police, had almost murdered the officer. Further, he told me he had embezzled money from his place of business and had an affair with his boss's wife. I was appalled. But as the days went on I knew that my people were not all like that, and I had, indeed come to, a fine parish full of understanding and loving people."

Just as the priest finished his talk, the politician arrived full of apologies at being late. He immediately began to make the presentation and give his talk.

"I'll never forget the first day our parish priest arrived in this parish," said the politician. "In fact, I had the honor of being the first one to go to him in confession."