Favorite Quotes

I have been collecting quotes for quite awhile. They have always spoken volumes to me and I love to incorporate them into my art. When my son Decklin first set up my email account in 1994, I asked him to help me with a signature line so that I could include a quote at the end of all of my emails. Not too long after that, I turned my passion for meaningful quotes into a small rubber stamp company selling un-mounted stamps only, called LennaLines. All of the stamps were favorite quotes of mine. I ran this business for 3 years, from 2000- 2003. It was very satisfying, but after some time I gave it up to concentrate on my art and my teaching instead.

I still use quotes in my artwork and correspondence most every day, so I thought a page of my favorite quotes would be a great addition to this website. These quotes are ones that speak to me. I have found them in many places and saved them in a text file over the years, but this is the first time these quotes have all been published together in one place. My top, all-time favorite quotes are listed in the column on your right. I have a lot of favorite quotes!

quotes on love:

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you
have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.       -- unknown

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind. And thus is winged Cupid painted blind.    -- William Shakespeare, from Midsummer Night's Dream

The love we give away is the only love we keep.
 -- Elbert Hubbard

Accept the gift you have given to so many. Let people love you back.                           -- Jeanette Osias

Love is the greatest refreshment in life.
-- Pablo Picasso

No matter how much love I give away I always have enough.
-- Sherri Kaminski

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.                   -- unknown

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.  -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

The giving of Love is an education in itself.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

Love is not an emotion, it is your very nature.
-- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

In order to create, there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?  -- Igor Stravinsky

Love yourself first and everything falls into line.
  -- Lucille Ball

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.
-- Martin Luther King Jr.

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get -- only with what you are expecting to give, which is everything.   -- Katharine Hepburn

Real love begins where nothing is expected in return.
 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.  -- Mignon McLaughlin

What we loved as a child remains in our hearts eternally.
Unknown -- from a 1930's greeting card

Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your gold and good health have vanished.   -- O.Mandino

It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return, but what is the most painful is to love someone and never finding the courage to let the person know how you feel.         -- Unknown

There isn't any formula or method. You learn to love by loving -- by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done.  -- Aldous Huxley

And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
  -- Kahlil Gibran

Passion doesn't have to dwindle; it can deepen.
  -- Unknown

To give and not to feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving.
  -- Max Beerbohm

art quotes:

Good art is not what it looks like, but what it does to us.
-- Roy Adzak

To be creative, you must be brave and allow your self to take risks. You also must be a little crazy to take these risks.    -- danny gregory

Do not fear mistakes - there are none.
 -- Miles Davis

Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else.
-- Natalie Goldberg

The man who is born with a talent which he was meant to use, finds his greatest happiness in using it.  -- Goethe

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.
-- Mikhail Baryshnikov

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.
-- Albert Einstein

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.   -- Charles Mingus

If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens.  -- Grandma Moses

I create because I feel the need to do so and it's fun.
Not to mention all the wonderful, creative people I've met - many of whom have become friends, now matter how far away they are.  -- Sondra K. Long

Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.  -- Ella Fitzgerald

The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the
place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a
passing shape, from a spider's web.  -- Pablo Picasso

We are what we create, and we create Art to bring a piece of ourselves to others.
-- Chris Peden

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
-- Martha Graham

Art is about opening the windows and doors not shutting them.
-- Randy Keenan

The chief enemy of creativity is 'good' sense.
  -- Pablo Picasso

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. -- Ernest Newman

Art is the guarantee of sanity.  -- Louise Bourgeois, Artist, at age 90

What would it be like if you lived each day, each breath, as a work of art
in progress? Imagine that you are a Masterpiece unfolding, every second of
every day, a work of art taking form with every breath.  -- Thomas Crum

If you can dream it, you can do it.  Always remember this whole thing was started by a mouse. -- Walt Disney

Art is neither a profession nor a hobby. Art is a way of being.
-- Frederick Franck

Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist when one grows up.
-- Pablo Picasso

Being with real people who warm us, who endorse us and exhault our creativity
is essential to the flow of the creative life...otherwise we freeze. When women are out in the cold, they tend to live on fantasies instead of action.
-- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The important thing is to create. Nothing else matters; creation is all.
-- Pablo Picasso

Never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed. -- Sydney Smith

Art is a co-operative effort that tries to pull some kind of sense out of life. In this way, religion, science, and spoken/written communication are all arts.
-- Decklin Foster

A hunch is creativity trying to TELL you something. -- Frank Zappa

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

The most valuable of the arts is the art of living.  -- Cicero

Everyone has talent.   -- Heather Crossley, adaptation of a Degas quote

If you know exactly what you are going to do, then what is the point of doing it?
 -- Pablo Picasso

It is only when doing my work that I feel truly alive.
  -- Federico Fellini

Art is too much fun to be restricted to those who are good at it.
 -- Elaine Normandy

friendship quotes:

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy like art . . . it has no survival value, rather it is one of those things that gives value to survival.  -- C.S. Lewis

The applause of many cannot compare to the friendship of one.  -- unknown

Friendship is one mind in two bodies. -- Mencius

Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.
  -- Swedish proverb

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud
 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.  -- Albert Schweitzer

There can be no happiness equal to the joy of finding a heart that understands.          -- unknown

Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else.   -- Eleanor Roosevelt

The loss of a friend is like that of a limb; time may heal the anguish
of the wound, but the loss cannot be repaired.   -- Robert Southey

True friendship is like sound health, the value is seldom known until it be lost.
 -- Charles Caleb Colton

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing.
There is a time for silence. A time to let go .and a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.     -- Gloria Naylor, novelist

The best rule of friendship is to keep your heart a little softer than your head.
  -- Anonymous

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

None is so rich as to throw away a friend.  -- Turkish proverb

It is our uniqueness that gives freshness and vitality to a relationship.
 -- Dr. James Dobson

It is sometimes hard to believe that anything is worthwhile, unless there is some eye to kindle in common with our own, some brief word uttered now and then to imply that what is infinitely precious to us, is precious alike to another mind.             --George Eliot

The best time to make friends is before you need them.
 -- Ethel Barrymore

A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
 --Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is no better exercise for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.
-- John Andrew Holmes

There is no wilderness like a life without friends; friendship multiplies blessings and minimizes misfortunes; it is a unique remedy against adversity, and it soothes the soul.  -- Baltasar Gracian

quotes on life:

i always say life is just so much fun. you can sit around and wait for that big thing to happen or just grab each juicy second and eat it right up.
-- kelly snelling

Some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity...
-- Gilda Radner

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love, and to work, and to play, and to look up at the stars. -- Henry Van Dyke

The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand
as playing a poor hand well.   -- H. T. Leslie

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrong.
-- Charlotte Bronte

We must be willing to relinquish the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.  -- Joseph Campbell

You have two choices in your life; you can dissolve into the mainstream, or you can be distinct. To be distinct, you must be different. To be different, you must strive to be what no one else but you can be.  -- Alan Ashley Pitt

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand -- and melting like a snowflake.
-- Marie Beyon Ray

How exciting to expand one's horizons. Isn't that what life is all about?
 -- Don Nelson

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions, the little soon forgotten
charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the
countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Life is not always what one wants it to be, but to make the best of it, as
it is, is the only way of being happy. -- Jennie Jerome Churchill

Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best of benedictions... "If I had my life to live over, I'd do it all the same." -- Joan McIntosh

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

True wisdom lies in gathering the precious things out of each day as it goes by.          -- E. S. Bouton

I have lived on a razors edge. So what if you fall off. I'd rather be doing something I really wanted to do. I'd walk it again. -- Georgia O'Keeffe

This is the only reality there is. If you can get it down on paper, in words, notes, or color, so much the better." -- Henry Miller

Life is a rush into the unknown: You can duck down and hope nothing hits you, or stand up tall as you can, show it your teeth and say, 'Dish it up, baby, and don't be stingy with the jalapenos!'  -- Unknown

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.
  -- Emily Dickinson

All of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose
garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming
outside our windows today.   -- Dale Carnegie

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.                       -- Beverly Sills

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.   -- Theodore Roosevelt

Each of us has a spark of life inside us, and our highest endeavor ought to be
to set off that spark in one another.  -- Kenny Ausubel

Luck is being prepared for opportunity when it comes.  -- unknown

Just trust yourself. Then you will know how to live.  -- Goethe

What you are afraid to do is a clear indicator of the next thing you need to do.
  -- Anonymous

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
-- Emily Dickinson

Life is mostly froth and bubble, but two things stand like stone,
kindness in another's trouble and courage in your own. -- Diana, Princess of Wales

It's not what you gather, but what you scatter, that tells what kind of life you have lived. -- unknown

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of
a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the
grass and loses itself in the sunset.  -- Crowfoot's last words, 1890

Life is like a blanket too short. You pull it up and your toes rebel, you yank it down and shivers meander about your shoulder; but cheerful folks manage to draw their knees up and pass a very comfortable night.   -- Marion Howard

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the
creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love.
When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age. -- Sophia Loren

Life just is. You have to flow with it. Give yourself to the moment. Let it happen.
   -- Jerry Brown

more quotes i like:

Always do right. This will gratify some of the people, and astonish the rest.                 -- Mark Twain

When you can't solve the problem, manage it.
 -- Dr. Robert H. Schuller

The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative, and the second is disastrous.  -- Margaret Fontey

To achieve a great goal, one must begin with a small achievement.
 -- Fortune cookie saying

Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.
-- Julia Child

Most people see what is, and never see what can be. -- Albert Einstein

We are all given ingredients of happiness, but the mixing is left to ourselves.               -- Ethel M. Dell

Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.  -- Peter Marshall

Distance doesn't matter; it's only the first step that is difficult.
   -- Marquise du Delfand

It takes wit, interest and energy to be happy. The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish, and spirits must flow. There must be courage. There are no easy ruts to get into which lead to happiness. A man must become interesting to himself and must become actually expressive before he can be happy.  -- Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections. -- St. Francis de Sales

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have patience with all things, but, first of all, yourself.
-- St. Francis De Sales

On the surface we may fear changes, but in the end they only benefit us.
-- Dallas Foster, at age 17

Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.  -- Raymond Lindquist

He who gains a victory over other men is strong, but he who gains a victory over himself is all powerful. -- Lao Tzu

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.  -- T.S. Elliot

It doesn't matter if you're a late bloomer as long as you don't miss the flower show.
-- Jane Fonda

Just do something. Mistakes be damned.  -- Eliza B.

The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next. -- Mingnon McLaughlin

Faith in oneself is the best . . . and safest course.
  -- Michelangelo

Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it is good only for wallowing.  -- Katherine Mansfield

Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everything's in the mind. That's where it all starts. Knowing what you want is the first step toward getting it.  -- Mae West

To accept ourselves as we are means to value our imperfections as much as our perfections. -- Sandra Biereg

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
 -- Ingrid Bergman

The greatest honor of a lifetime is to be who you are.  --  paraphrased from Joseph Campbell

You never know what you can do till you try. -- William Cobbett

Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either. -- Golda Meir

Disappointments are like road bumps, they slow you down a bit but you enjoy
the smooth road afterwards. Don't stay on the bumps too long. Move on!                       -- unknown

You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.  -- Oprah Winfrey

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.  -- General Norman Schwarzkoff

You are richer today if you have laughed, given or forgiven. -- unknown

Let your thoughts be positive for they will become your words.
Let your words be positive for they will become your actions.
Let your actions be positive for they will become your values.
Let your values be positive for they will become your destiny. -- Mahatma Gandhi

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage -
pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically - to say no to other things.
And the way you do that is by having a bigger yes burning inside. -- Stephen Covey

We could learn a lot from Crayons: Some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but we have to learn how to live in the same box.  -- Author Unknown

A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.
 -- unknown

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above little things. -- John Burroughs

The best way out of a problem is through it. -- unknown

Nothing is interesting if you're not interested.
 -- Helen MacInness

I recommend that you take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.   -- Lord Chesterfield

Give a girl the right kind of shoes and she may conquer the world.
-- Bette Middler

Hitch your wagon to a star.   -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

nature related quotes:

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength
that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature-the assurance that dawn comes after night,
and spring after winter.  -- unknown

The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
-- Henry Miller

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty, it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty. -- Coco Chanel

I don’t know what good it does to hang numbers on the hours. You can’t count a river while it moves by you. The best thing to do is take off your clothes and go swimming in it. -- Henry David Thoreau

Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.  -- Woody Allen

To see the world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand,  and eternity in an hour.   -- William Blake

Time is the wisest counselor of all.
 -- Pericles

reading, writing & learning quotes:

He who loveth a book will never want a faithful friend.  -- Unknown

To teach is to learn twice.  -- Joseph Jou

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. -- Mark Twain

Nothing we learn in this world is ever wasted.
 -- Eleanor Roosevelt

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.   -- Mark Twain

Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.
-- George Gordon Byron

The important thing is not to stop questioning.
  -- Albert Einstein

The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given names and sent to walk the earth.
-- Unknown

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest  thing in life is to keep your mind young.
  -- Henry Ford

humorous quotes:

If you could choose one characteristic that would get you through life, choose a sense of humor.   -- Jennifer Jones

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs, jolted by every pebble in the road.  -- Henry Ward Beecher

I always say shopping is cheaper than a psychiatrist.
 -- Tammy Faye Baker

Sometimes, when I look at my children, I think I should have remained a virgin.
-- Lillian Carter

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.  -- Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Old age ain't no place for sissies!  -- Bette Davis

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.  -- A. A. Milne

Oooh la la, I'd rather be rich than famous. But then, a little fame among friends and dogs is OK, and with friends and dogs I'll always be rich.  -- Ann Peterson

It's not the men in my life that count, it's the life in my men.  -- Mae West

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
  -- Mark Twain

Seventy percent of success in life is showing up. -- Woody Allen

If everybody likes you, you are not a very interesting person. -- Bette Davis

Thin people are beautiful, but fat people are adorable.
-- Jackie Gleason

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs build the Ark.....professionals built the Titanic! -- unknown

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
  -- Will Roger

You can't prevent the birds of unhappiness from flying overhead, but you can prevent them from nesting in your hair. -- unknown

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.  -- Harry Truman

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.  -- Albert Einstein

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.  -- Joseph Wood Krutch

The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself, too.   -- Samuel Butler

Never eat anything at one sitting that you can't lift.  -- Miss Piggy

Do you want to speak to the man in charge, or to the woman who knows what is going on?   -- Unknown

Every adult deserves a happy childhood.  -- Tom Collins

Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.
-- Shirley Conran