A Good Feng Shui House...
for All Seasons

Chinese Words of Wisdom

 

If there is light in the soul,
There will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person,
There will be harmony in the house.
If there is harmony in the house,
There will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
There will be peace in the world.
~Chinese Proverb

 

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

After three days without reading, 
talk becomes flavorless. 

The beginning of wisdom 
is to call things by their right names.

Behind every able man, 
there are always other able men.

Better a diamond with a flaw 
than a pebble without one. 


Better do a good deed near at home 
than go far away to burn incense. 

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. 

A book holds a house of gold.

A book is like a garden carried in the
pocket.

A man with a clear conscience does not tremble at a midnight knock on his gate.

Consider the past and you shall know the future. 

Enough shovels of earth -- a mountain. 
Enough pails of water -- a river. 

Enjoy yourself. It is later than you think.

Everything has beauty, 
but not everyone sees it.
~ Confucius

Experience is a comb,
 which nature gives to men when they are bald.

Find a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life." 
~ Confucius 

Flowers leave their fragrance
on the hand that bestows them. 

Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, 
nor a man perfected without trials. 

Give a man to fish and he will eat for a day. 
Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for the rest of his life.

Govern a family as you would cook a small fish -- very gently. 

 

Great souls have wills; 
feeble ones have only wishes.

Happiness is like a sunbeam, 
which the least shadow intercepts, 
while adversity is often as the rain of spring. 

Have a mouth as sharp as a dagger,
but a heart as soft as tofu. 

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but
he who does not ask remains a fool forever. 

He who hurries can not walk with dignity. 

He who sacrifices his conscience to
ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.

He who seeks revenge should remember to dig two graves.

He who could foresee affairs three days in advance would be rich for thousands of
years.

A horse cannot gain weight if not fed with
extra fodder during the night; 
a man cannot become wealthy without earnings apart from his regular salaries. 

If I keep a green bough in my heart, the
singing bird will come. 

If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. 

If you neglect your art for one day it will neglect you for two.

If you do not study hard when young you'll end up bewailing your failures as you grow up. 

If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain.
If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow
trees. 
If you want 100 years of prosperity,
grow people. 

If you wish to know the mind of a man,
listen to his words.

An inch of time is an inch of gold,
 but you can't buy that inch of time 
with an inch of gold. 

Kindness in words creates confidence 
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness 
Kindness in giving creates love.
~ Lao Tzu

Laws control the lesser man. 
Right conduct controls the greater one.

Learning is a treasure that will follow its
owner everywhere.

Life is a dream walking,
 death is a going home.

Listen to all, 
plucking a feather from every passing goose, 
but follow no one absolutely.

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.

Make happy those who are near, 
and those who are far will come. 

The man who does not learn is dark, 
like one walking in the night.

Man who waits for roast duck to fly into
mouth must wait very, very long time.

Married couples tell each other a thousand things without speech. 

Never do anything standing that you can do sitting, 
or anything sitting that you can do lying down.

Never write a letter while you are angry.

No wind, no waves.

Of all the strategems, 
to know when to quit is the best.

One generation plants the trees; 
another gets the shade.

One joy scatters a hundred griefs. 

One never needs their humor as much a
when they argue with a fool.

One should be just as careful in choosing
one's pleasures as in avoiding calamities.

Only when all contribute their firewood can they build up a strong fire.

The palest ink is better than the best
memory.

Pearls do not lie on the seashore;
if you desire one, you must dive for it.

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.

The saving man becomes the free man.

A single conversation with a wise man is
better than ten years of study.

A sly rabbit will have three openings to its
den.

A smile will gain you ten more years of life.

Sow much, reap much; 
sow little, reap little.

There are many paths to the top of the mountain, 
but the view is always the same.

To make money, one must spend money.

Sow much, reap much; 
sow little, reap little.

Sour, sweet, bitter, pungent, 
all must be tasted.

Talk doesn't cook rice. 

Teachers open the door,
 but you must enter by yourself.

Tell me, I will forget.
Show me, I may remember.
Involve me, and I will understand. 

Those who have free seats at a play hiss
first.

Three humble shoemakers brainstorming will make a great statesman.

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

To attract good fortune,
 spend a new coin on an old friend, 
share an old pleasure with a new friend,
and lift up the heart of a true friend 
by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.

To guess is cheap. 
To guess wrong is expensive. 

To know the road ahead, 
ask those coming back.

To understand your parents' love,
you must raise children yourself.

What good is it
to move an inch forward
in a two-thousand year journey?
And yet we are here to travel
an inch a day. 
That is the purpose of our life:
to know that two thousand light years
are but the beginning of the journey
and to remain calm,
moving forward
an inch a day... 

When eating bamboo sprouts, 
remember the man who planted them.

When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.

Wheresoever you go, 
go with all your heart.
~ Confucius

  Who is not satisfied with himself will grow; 
who is not sure of his own correctness
will learn many things.

A wise man makes his own decisions, 
an ignorant man follows the public opinion.

The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, 
as water molds itself to the pitcher.

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow
from flying over your head, 
but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.

Chinese Proverbs: about.com -  Links

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With annotations!

"The Road Not Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long as I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth,

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim;
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh,
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~ Robert Frost

"If you don't like something, change it. 
If you can't change it, 
change the way you think about it!"
~ Unknown

"The mediocre teacher tells. 
The good teacher explains. 
The superior teacher demonstrates. 
The great teacher inspires."
~ William Arthur Ward

"Oh, we have a home.
We just need a house to put it in."
~ 10-year-old homeless girl

 

"If you would be loved, love and be lovable."
~ Benjamin Franklin

"The most wasted day is that 
in which we have not laughed."
~ Chamfort

"Our destiny changes with our thought;
we shall become what we wish to become, 
do what we wish to do, 
when our habitual thought 
corresponds with our desire."
~ Orison S. Marder

 

"We are not permitted to choose 
the frame of our destiny. 
But what we put into it is ours."
~ Dag Hammarskjold

 

"Of all the properties which belong 
to honorable men, 
not one is so highly prized as that of character."
~ Henry Clay

"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
~ Shakespeare

"What's in a name? 
That which we call a rose 
by any other name would smell as sweet."
~ Shakespeare

"The greatest gift is a portion of thyself."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

"But friendship is precious, 
not only in the shade, 
but in the sunshine of life; 
and thanks to a benevolent
arrangement of things, 
the greater part of life is sunshine."
-Thomas Jefferson

 

"Don't walk in front of me, 
I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
 Just walk beside me and be my friend."
~ Unknown

 

"Friends are born, not made."
~ Henry Adams

"The act of writing is for me often nothing more than the secret or concious desire to carve words on a tombstone: 
to the memory of a town forever vanished, 
to the memory of a childhood in exile, 
to the memory of all those I loved and who, 
before I could tell them I loved them, 
went away."
~Elie Wiesel

"The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed-
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."
~ Shakespeare

"In the end,
we will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends."
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

"Few things are harder to put up with than a good example."
~ Mark Twain

"Always do right - this will gratify some and astonish the rest."
~ Mark Twain

"I always prefer to believe the best of everybody - it saves so much trouble."
~ Rudyard Kipling

"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

"Silence is the ultimate weapon of power."
-Charles deGaulle

"You may be deceived if you trust too much,
but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough."
~ Frank Crane

"You are only young once,
but you can stay immature indefinitely."
~ Unknown

"Just trust yourself,
then you will know how to live."
~Goethe

"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow."
~ Helen Keller

"Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent."
~ Napolean Bonaparte

"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved."
~Victor Hugo

"The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen, nor touched...
but are felt in the heart."
~ Helen Keller

"We are all pencils in the hand of God."
~ Mother Theresa

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another
without helping himself."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson



"Experience is not what happens to a man. 
It is what a man does with what happens to him."
~ Aldous Huxley

"If you want to feel rich, 
just count all of the things you have that money can't buy."
~ Unknown

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you
did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover."
~ Mark Twain



"What we see depends mainly on what we look for."
~ John Lubbock

"When one door closes, another opens.
But we often look so regretfully 
upon the closed door that we
don't see the one that has opened for us."
~ Alexander Graham Bell

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
~ Eleanor Roosevelt

"Truth is not determined by majority vote."
~ Doug Gwyn



"I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."
~ Booker T. Washington

"One can never consent to creep
when one feels an impulse to soar."
~ Helen Keller

"I may not be totally perfect,
but parts of me are excellent."
~ Ashleigh Brilliant

"Some people are always grumbling
because roses have thorns.
I am thankful that thorns have roses."
~ Alphonse Karr

"We learn the rope of life by untying its knots."
~ Jean Toomer

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Every man dies. Not every man lives."
~ Tim Robbins

"Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are,
we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men.
It then appears that we are among the privileged."
~ Helen Keller

"He might never really do what he said,
but at least he had it in mind.
He had somewhere to go."
~ Louis L'Amour

"Associate
with the noblest people you can find;
read the best books;
live with the mighty.
But learn to be happy alone.
Rely upon your own energies,
and so do not wait for,
or depend on other people."
~ Professor Thomas Davidson

"All my life I've been my own person.
The choices I made,
I made of my own free will.
I was never held
in thrall by anyone or anything...
Bow to others in reverence and respect,
but never in slavery."
~ Margaret Wiess and Tracy Hickman

"You know you've read a good book
when you turn the last page and
feel as if you've lost a friend."
~ Unknown

"Your silence will not protect you!"
~ Kemper

"Life is like a box of chocolates,
you never know what you're gonna get."
-Forrest Gump

"What's meant to be will always find a way."
~ Trisha Yearwood

"If you are going to walk on thin ice,
you might as well dance!"
~ Unknown

"If a man loses pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music in which he hears,
however measured, or far away."
~ Henry David Thoreau

"I may not believe in what you say,
but I will die for your right to do so."
~Voltaire

"Fear can hold you prisoner,
hope can set you free."
~ Unknown

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."
~ Mother Teresa

"By failing to prepare,
you are preparing to fail."
~ Unknown

"Wrinkles will only go where the smiles have been."
~ Jimmy Buffett

"When you spend your life worrying about how other people feel, you lose track of how you feel."
~ Unknown

"Those who wish to sing always find a song."
~ Swedish Proverb

"After awhile you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean security,

And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open,
with the grace of an adult,
not the grief of a child,
 
And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for paths.
 
After awhile you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
 
So plant your garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
 
And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong, And you really do have worth."
~ Veronica A. Shoffstall

"You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back."
~ Barbara DeAngelis

"Enjoy yourself. These are the good old days you're going to miss in the years ahead."
~ Unknown

"There are always two choices, two paths to take. One is easy. And its only reward is that it's easy."
~ Unknown

"To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer."
~ Gandhi

"The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it."
~ Carl Jung