I was standing in the bathroom this morning and had a deep thought. I often have deep thoughts and sometimes they are even profound. This morning’s wasn’t profound and I didn’t write it down so I have now forgotten it. This is the way of deep thoughts. They are often fleeting and fly through my mind so fast that I don’t pay attention. I remember that I had a deep thought but I don’t remember what it was.
In order to remember deep thoughts, I try to write them down when I encounter them. It bothers me when I read a Kindle book and it has a quote underlined. I want to notice it myself, not have it brought to my attention by other people underlining it. But, just to be contrary, here are some quotes that I thought were profound that I actually wrote down.
I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it. Jack Handey
Religion is what your parents give you. Faith is what’s in your heart. Cat Stevens
There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in. Bishop Desmond Tutu
The greatest grace of God is when love persists in marriage. Martin Luther
What I had called happiness was a perspective of my age, at which I was still making my place in the world, looking to the future; Fred described instead a view from old age—taking satisfaction in what was available right now, not hitching it to the future. My definition looked forward; Fred’s found fulfillment in the present. . . .
Spend your dwindling time and energy on the things you can still do that give you satisfaction, not on lamenting those you once did but now can’t. John Leland in “Happiness is a Choice You Make”
We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us. Joseph Campbell
Less Junk, More Journey. RVers everywhere
What you need along the way: a sense of God’s deep, unconditional love, and a strong sense of your own purpose. Without those two, you’ll need from people what is only God’s to give, and you’ll give up on your larger purpose in order to fulfill smaller purposes or other people’s purposes. Shauna Niequist in “Present Over Perfect”
My purpose isn’t anchored in what I do but in whose I am. Susanna Foth Aughtmon
The Americans … acquire no attachment to Place; But wandering about Seems engrafted in their Nature; and … they Should for ever imagine the Lands further off, are Still better than those upon which they are already settled. John Murray, Lord Dunmore, Colonial Governor of Virginia
My son lives in the heart of heaven,
And I live in the heart of earth,
But we live together in the heart of God. Ann Weems in Psalms of Lament Psalm 49
One of the deepest drives of human nature is the desire to be appreciated. William James
A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it. Mary Karr in “The Liar’s Club”
Jealousy is when you count someone else’s blessings instead of your own. Anonymous
The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t. Henry Ward Beecher
Those are just a few of the deep thoughts and memorable quotes that I noted. What is a quote or deep thought that speaks to you?