In case you missed it, the January-April Encouragement Calendar is here. #1 in a series of three.

Inspiration and Encouragement for Life’s Journey

Are you stressed? Feeling depressed and defeated? Do you need Inspiration? Encouragement? Motivation? If so, you’ve come to the right place. I love to soak up beautiful words to feed my soul—and share them with you.

First, to combat feelings of negativity, fill your mind with things that will lift your spirits, not drag you further down, which I wrote about in Life’s Not a Bed of Roses. Also, you may enjoy listening to podcasts about the Power of Transforming Your Mind or this one about How to Defeat Stress and Anxiety.

And don’t forget to be kind to yourself, taking small steps toward your goals to avoid frustration. Read about my own journey in Baby Steps.

May-August

Now, onward to our summer words of cheer. I pray some of these will lighten and brighten your day, and your mood.

May

1. Let all thy joys be as the month of May. ~Francis Quarles

2. Three things in the human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. ~Henry James

3. Better ask twice than go wrong once.

4. Every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another. ~Thomas Jefferson

5. Just be Yourself.

6. The greatest happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved. ~Victor Hugo

7. God delights to meet the faith of one who looks up to Him and says, “Lord, You know that I cannot do this…but I believe that You can! ~Amy Carmichael

8. In the valleys you look for the mountains. In the mountains you've search for the rivers. There is no where to go. You are where you belong. You can live the life you dreamed. ~Judy CollinsClick To Tweet

9. Search for the grain of truth in other opinions.

10. The most notable winners usually encountered heart-breaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.
    ~B.C. Forbes

11. Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name
    ~Psalm 30:4

12. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. ~Helen Keller

13. See the glass as already broken (and everything else, too).

14. Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive. ~Elbert Hubbard

15. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ~Galations 6:9 (NIV)

16. The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what she gets for it, but rather what she becomes by it.

17. It often happens that I wake at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember I am the Pope.
    ~Pope John XXIII

18. Breathe before you speak.

19. Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.Click To Tweet

20. What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner. ~Colette

21. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
    ~1 Corinthians 13:13

22. It’s not the number of hours you put in, but what you put in the hours that count.

22. You grow up the day you have the first real laugh—at yourself. ~Ethel Barrymore

23. Do one thing at a time.

24. The dynamics that are required to make any relationship work: Just keep putting your love out there. ~Anonymous

25. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.
    ~Acts 2:28 (NIV)

26. Being considerate of others will take [you] further in life than any college degree.
    ~Marian Wright Edelman

27. Choose being kind over being right.

28. What you will do matters. All you need to do is do it. ~Judy Grahn

29. Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.

30. I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. ~Edward Everett HaleClick To Tweet

June

1. First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. ~Epictetus

2. You never really lose until you quit trying. ~Mike Ditka

3. The growth of the human mind is still high adventure, in many ways the highest adventure on earth. ~Norman CousinsClick To Tweet

4. I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord, make my enemies riduculous.” And God granted it. ~Voltaire

5. The human spirit cannot be paralyzed. If you are breathing, you can dream.
   ~Mike Brown

6. Know this, my beloved brethren,. Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.
   ~James 1:19-20

7. Luck is only where preparation meets with opportunity.

8. Practice humility.

9. There is no limit to how much good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.

10. No man is a failure who is enjoying life. ~William Feather

11. If I had to define life in a word, it would be: Life is creation.
    ~Claude Bernard From the Bulletin of New York Academy of Medicine

12. Think of what you have instead of what you want.

13. Loving relationships are a family’s best protection against the challenges of the world.
    ~B. Wiebe

14. Hot fudge fills deep needs. ~Susan IsaacsClick To Tweet

15. Give yourself plenty of creative time and plenty of opportunities to create.

16. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices. ~Colossians 3:9

17. When you believe you can—you can! ~Maxwell Maltz

18. Remember that you become what you practice most.

19. A noble person attracts noble people., and knows how to hold on to them. ~Goethe

20. To everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die…A time to weep, and a time to laugh.
    ~Ecclesiastes 3:1-2,4 KJV

21. My doctor is wonderful. Once, in 1955, when I couldn’t afford an operation, he touched up the X-rays ~Joey Bishop

22. A friend is gift you give yourself. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

23. Some people grin and bear it. Others smile and change it.

24. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. ~Galatians 5:22-23

25. There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me. ~Thomas JeffersonClick To Tweet

26. Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. ~John Dewey

27. Think of your problems as potential teachers.

28. The most visible joy can only reveal itself to us when we’ve transformed it, within. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

29. From a little spark may burst a mighty flame. ~Dante

30. Why stay we on the earth except to grow? ~Robert Browning

July

1. The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.

2. A faithful friend is the medicine of life. ~Ecclesiasticus 6:16

3. We can do no great things, only small things with great love. ~Mother Teresa

4. Don’t let your mind become so busy that your heart can’t respond.

5. Cut yourself some slack.

6. There is nothing so powerful as truth—and often nothing so strange. ~Daniel Webster

7. Pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.
   ~William Shakespeare

8. The joy of life is to put out one's power in some natural and useful or harmless way. ~Oliver Wendell HolmesClick To Tweet

9. So live that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.

10. Love comes from God and those who are loving and kind show that they are the children of God. ~1 John 4:7 TLB

11. Kindness is in our power; even when fondness is not. ~Samuel Jackson

12. The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom. ~Thomas Henry Huxley

13. The joy of life is to put out one’s power in some natural and useful or harmless way.
    ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

14. Do not neglect your gift. ~1 Timothy 4:14 (NIV)

15. Stop blaming others.

16. Right now a moment of time is fleeting by!…We must become that moment…forgetting everything that has been seen before our time. ~Paul Cezanne

17. Don’t worry about failure. Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try. ~Anonymous

18. How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone. ~Coco Gabrielle ChanelClick To Tweet

19. Simple pleasures bring great happiness. ~Mary Helen Brindell

20. For if there were no grief to hollow out our hearts, where would there be room for joy?

21. If you don’t daydream and kind of plan things out in your imagination, you never get there. So you have to start someplace. ~Robert Duvall

22. Nuture a plant.

23. Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity. ~Ephesians 5:15-16 (NIV)

24. Breaking bad habits can be difficult, but it’s easier if you remember that what you’re adding to your life (the goal) is more valuable than what you’re eliminating (the habit).

25. Do a favor and don’t ask for, or expect, one in return.

26. Having a dream isn't stupid, Norm. It's not having a dream that's stupid. ~Cliff Clavin, From the TV Show, CheersClick To Tweet

27. It’s hard to express love with a clenched fist.

28. Heavy thoughts bring on physical maladies ~Martin Luther 1483-1566

29. The proper use of imagination is to give beauty to the world..the gift of imagination is used to cast over the commonplace workaday world a veil of beauty and make it throb with our esthetic enjoyment. ~Lin Yutang

30. The shortest mistakes are always the best. ~Moliere

31. It’s kind of fun to do the impossible! ~Walt Disney

August

1. Remember, we all stumble, everyone of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand. ~Emily KimbroughClick To Tweet

2. Sorrow makes us wise. ~Alfred Lord Tennyson

3. True patience means waiting without worrying.

4. The Lord cares intimately for you, knowing you by name…He is the Good Shepherd; you can trust Him. ~Nancie Carmichael

5. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. ~M. Kathleen Casey

6. A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes. ~Hugh Downs

7. Realize the power of your own thoughts.

8. When alone, we have our own thoughts to watch; when in family, our tempers; when in society, our tongues.

9. We have a God who delights in impossibilities. ~Andrew Murray

10. I find that I have painted my life—things happening in my life—without knowing. ~Georgia O'KeefeClick To Tweet

11. No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks. ~Saint Ambrose

12. It is natural to love them that love us, but it is supernatural to love them that hate us.

13. Negative thinking is a bad habit. For many people it’s an addiction. An addiction means some behavior is on automatic—it has control over you; you do not have control over it.

14. Pray without ceasing. ~Thessalonians 5:17 (KJV)

15. If at first you don’t succeed, you’re running about average. ~M.H. Alderson

16. Money will buy a fine dog, but only love will make him wag his tail.

17. He has put his angels in charge of you to watch over you wherever you go.
    ~Psalm 91:11 (NCV)

18. By perseverance the snail reached the ark. ~Charles Haddon Spurgeon

19. Pause before thinking negatively. Give yourself two minutes before getting upset. Think about something else—something uplifting—for two minutes, then get flustered.

20. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
    ~Eleanor Roosevelt

21. Keep asking yourself, “What’s really important?”

22. Positive attitudes—optimism, high self-esteem, an outgoing nature, joyousness, and the ability to cope with stress—may be the most important bases for continued good health. ~Helen HayesClick To Tweet

23. The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

24. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude, and integrity can do a great deal to make all women beautiful. ~Jacqueline Bisset

25. Inaction saps the vigor of the mind. ~Leonardo Da Vinci

26. If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future. ~Winston Churchill

27. The more he gives to others, the more he possesses of his own. ~Lao-Tzu

28. Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. ~Anais Nin

29. Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. ~Proverbs 27:17

30. Look for the extraordinary in the ordinary.

31. Go in Peace. ~Abraham LincolnClick To Tweet

Coming Up next: September-December

I’d love to hear from you! Which of these quotes, verses, or sayings are your favorites?

Penelope Silvers is a freelance writer, author,
and radio host of Penelope’s Book Chat on Blog
Talk Radio. She lives simply and sanely on Florida’s
beautiful nature coast.